GenY logs out of BPO honeymoon

GenY logs out of BPO honeymoon

RAJEEV JAYASWAL TIMES NEWS NETWORK WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2005 09:09:38 AM

Emerging job opportunities in other fields with better salaries are dissuading pros from joining BPOs

There is little doubt that Anup Kamath will return to Goa. The Mudgaon-based mechanical engineer has been lured to join one of the country's largest third-party offshore BPO operations.

Attraction for him is a four-fold jump in this net salary from the current level of Rs 4,500. His only regret is being late in joining his peer group at the BPO centre.

The case of Sarika Arora of Andheri is just opposite. The young school teacher had joined the same BPO company a year ago.

She gave up teaching for an attractive salary. Recently, while returning home from the call centre she fainted in the vehicle provided by the company. Now she is being treated in a hospital for ailments ranging from hypertension, asthma to spondylitis.

Head hunters find a co-relation between the two events. "Availability of manpower in metros is becoming a major problem because those who have worked for about a year, find the job boring and taxing, inspite of lucrative remuneration.

"Emerging job opportunities in other fields with better salaries is dissuading young generation from joining call centres or BPO companies. Textiles and retail sector has become both remunerative and attractive in post-MFA regime," Ms Shefali Tripathi, director of Career Genii.

"Finding it difficult to lure lads in metros, head hunters are recruiting students from smaller cities. Smaller, cities like Mundgaon and Panjim are the fertile ground for recruitment for BPOs based in Mumbai, a Goa-based job consultant said.

The shortage of manpower for BPO operations in metros is becoming a major problem. According to National buttociation of Software and Services Companies (Nbuttcom), BPO sector is experiencing job attrition at 50%.

About half of the staff employed by an offshore BPO company leave within one year. This is happening despite a 10-20% salary hike in the sector in last one year.

Alarm bell is ringing for BPO operators. They need to find a solution. They can neither afford the knowledge loss (due to high training cost), nor can they continue to increase salary (as basic premise of offshoring is low-cost operations).

"In this scenario, de-urbanisation is the only solution. BPO operations are shifting from metros to smaller cities like Jaipur, Coimbatore, Nasik and Mangalore," says Mr K Sudarshan, managing director of EMA Partners International.

According to him, BPO operations will shift to those towns which will have better educational infrastructure to ensure supply of workforce. "This is the reason why, Coimbatore and Jaipur have been able to attract companies like Wipro, Infosys and GE," he adds.

According to Mr Sudarshan, de-urbanisation is the only effective means to manage attrition problem and it will have far reaching impact.