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Yet, stress levels continue to be high, especially with
regard to travel time and work timing. Ironically, there is very little that the
industry can change about the traffic jams on the road and working at night.
Employee satisfaction is a great leveler. There is little
correlation between factors such as how big you are or what kind of work you do,
and how happy your employees areat least not in the Indian BPO industry.
According to DQ-IDC BPO E-SAT Survey 2007, there is a good mix of large
companies, medium companies, and small companies. There is a balance of pure
customer services/call center companies and broad-based BPOs. That is not all.
There is a healthy mix of survey veterans and newcomers in the top 19 companies
list.
The ratio of bigger BPO companies vis--vis smaller ones, more
or less, remains the same. There are six big BPO companies (with over 5,000
employees) featured in this years list, which more or less corresponds to
last years figure.
It is the mid-sized (between 1,000 and 5,000 employees)
companies that take up the maximum ranks. Close to 50% places, as many as 10
mid-sized companies are featured on this years survey.
There are lesser small BPO companies this year. Last year, there
were 5 BPO companies (less than 1,000 employees), this year the number has
fallen to 3 (though, one of the last years small companies has moved up to
being a mid-sized outfit). Out of the 3, Equinox Global and Knoah Solutions are
making a debut on the list, while Motif India continues to retain its rank at
#17.
Movers and Shakers
Every year, there are shifts that happen on the list. Companies climb up a
few notches, and some fall a few. The biggest fall this year has been that of
24/7falling to #16 from last years #10. The reason behind which is not
hard to gauge, as the companys HR scores have fallen quite drastically due to
decrease in absolute employee strength, average salary hike, average tenure of
senior professionals, etc. Even its employee satisfaction has fallen, the areas
in which the 24/7 employees were found to be most dissatisfied are: overall
satisfaction and company culture.
The other big fall has been that of TCS BPO, falling by four
places to #13 this year. Ironically, while the companys HR rank has gone up
by five places due to huge improvement in employee size, average salary hike and
CTC as compared to the last year (HR rank has increased from 10 to 5), employee
dissatisfaction seems to be increasing. The drop on E-Sat Score has been more
dramatic than gains on the HR rank, falling eight places and standing at #15
this year versus #7 last year. The major area for employee dissatisfaction has
been salary and perks.
In terms of gainers, except for the big IBM Daksh debut at #3,
the biggest gainers are Brigade and EXL Service, both by two ranks. Both have
shown marked improvement in its HR rank, basically due to improvement in
employee size and average training days, in absolute terms. Brigades HR rank
has gone up from #19 to #15 and EXLs HR rank has risen from #7 to #6. Of the
companies that participated last year, 7 were missing this year, namely, Office
Tiger Database (now a subsidiary of RR Donnelly), ICICI First Source, Sutherland
Global Services, SlashSupport, AXA Business Solutions, Keane Worldzen, and
Integreon. Similarly, a lot of big companies were also missing, like
Infosys BPO, WNS, Intelenet, and others. Hopefully, next year these companies
would not shy away from sharing data about their employee satisfaction, which is
the best indicator of how good or bad they are doing.
Beyond the Big Picture
When large and small companies form a single big list, the list looks as if
there is little difference between the companies. But go to the next levelthat
is how they made it to the listand you know the difference.
Take the first level of differentiationthe HR score that
measures the companys growth, employee growth, tenure of employees, etc, and
the Employee Satisfaction score that is a weighted score of how employees have
rated their companies on seven parametersimage, work culture, job content,
training, salary, appraisal, and people by reacting to sixty statements that
measures satisfaction on sub-parameters under these parameters.
Look at the HR Rank, which gets a smaller weightage in a survey
like this. Large firms hold the first six places. The first medium-sized firm,
vCustomer, comes in at #7. On the contrary, in the Employee Satisfaction
ranking, the first five positions area taken by small/niche firms with IBM Daksh
coming in at #6.
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| Source: DQ-IDC BPO E-Sat Survey 2007 |
| Busting the common myth that BPO employees
join/change jobs based primarily on salary hikes, the survey finds that a
good work environment and high growth opportunity are better attractions.
This is in contrast to salary and compensation for IT employees |
Individually, within the parameters of employee satisfaction,
large firms do comparatively better in work culture and image; expectedly, niche
companies do better in salary and job content, and there is a mix when it comes
to appraisal. When you go to the sub parameters, the large firms do better on
corporate governance, and honesty and integrity, while small companies do better
in the day-to-day working culture related parameters.
The Industry Fares Better
Rankings apart, what comes as good news for the entire industry, is that at
the industry level, the overall employee satisfaction score has gone up to 8.0
(on a scale of ten) from last years 7.8. This is in contrast to 2006, when
the score had actually gone down.
This is heartening, in the midst of controversies and criticism.
In fact, the satisfaction levels have gone up in five broad parametersjob
content (8.1 versus 7.8 in last year), work culture (8.4 versus 8.1 last year),
training (8.4 versus 8.1 last year), appraisal (7.2 versus 6.9), and people (8.4
versus 8.2). It has gone down in twocompany image (7.7 versus 8.2) and salary
(6.7 as compared to 6.8). Salary also happens to be the factor about which
employees are least satisfied.
Attrition Blues
Ask any BPO companys CEO or HR manager about his or her biggest
challenge, and attrition is what theyll say. The industrys biggest demon
is rampant attrition, with scores of BPO companies looking for talent, BPO
professionals are in hot demand; and often these fresh out of college graduates
hop from one job to another, till they can hop no more. With each jump, the
package goes up by as much as 20%. Page(s) 1 2 3 4
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