| When sick leave is rampant and attrition soars high…
By Shushmul in Bangalore
The case of Amosha Lyngdoh (27), working as a call centre executive till recently, fatigued by her tedious and demanding job with one of the most prominent BPO service centre in India, ended up in a mess. As she revealed during this interview, “I blacked out constantly. My migraine problem got worse and I didn’t feel like eating a thing. I had to quit”. This revelation from Amosha provides an insight into the life of many of the call executives with Indian call centres.
An exciting salary package, alluring perks and a jazzy ambience is not enough for many of the call centres to address the inflating agent attrition ratio. The bulging attrition rates in the telemarketing sector, currently around 25 per cent, are expected to rise in the next 18 to 24 months to 35-40 per cent. "You can smell the lack of self-esteem when you walk through the door," said Kirk Weisler, a public speaker and authority on team building and creating positive corporate cultures. (Source: NASSCOM)
As Manesh Mathew, director of HR consultancy PeopleEquity, elaborates, “A number of unique factors peculiar to the call centre work environment impact the call centre professionals and their perception of their work. These range across a gamut of human issues which include odd working hours, working days/holidays determined by geographic considerations, assuming pseudo identities, learning foreign accents, operating in alien business environment, altered social and family life, besides harbouring the risk associated with working in a fledgling industry.”
The glorious dreams for many convent educated teenager are suddenly shattered as they find themselves stuck with a meaningless job, devoid of any real value or future.
The endless stream of calls from customers, many of them in a foul mood, make the matter worse for the employees. The elongated working hours that soar from 10 to 12 hour-a-day, requiring the agent to answer an average of 105 incoming phone calls per shift (except of two breaks), eventually pose chronic health hazards for many.
Glued to their computers with their headsets on, the job is also considered to put an end to employee’s intellect and career prospects. Shelja (25), an executive with GE Capital India, illustrated, “I'm looking for stability and career growth, but this offers neither”. She has a degree in hotel management, but switched over to this profession after the 9/11 tragedy, which brought about a major slump in the hotel industry. But the money, around $200-a-month, makes up for the other shortcomings, working on the graveyard shift at a call centre set up by a foreign financial-services company.
Coincidentally, with general Indian market showing clear signs of sustained growth, people like Shelja will surely be beneficial to dig on for better job alternatives. This is a serious problem, considering that India's call centre industry employs 160,000 professionals, and accounts for a quarter of all software and services exports from the country, according to industry association Nasscom.
Job disillusionment is perhaps the most general way to describe the problem facing India's call centre workers. Commenting on the existing trend of job hopping, Gautam Sinha, chief executive of TVA InfoTech Ltd. of Bangalore, commented, “The industry's wage bills have risen at least 20% in just one year because of the high attrition level and the relative cost advantage of this business will be compromised if companies have to pay substantially higher to retain young graduates”. Gautam hires call-centre staffs for local units of U.S. companies such as Oracle Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co.
To add to the woe, Manesh Mathew says, “The inherent nature of the job is such that it is monotonous and lacks challenge”. The BPO boom in India has meant that employees, trained in western languages and cultural skills to provide call centre services, can easily move to a competitor. Job-hopping has become the order of the day with starry-eyed contact centre agents.
Suchismita Menon, another call centre executive, explains: “We have 8½ hour shifts. The most stressful are the 9.30 p.m.-6 a.m. and the 4.30 p.m.-2.30 a.m. ones. Once you are logged in, you can’t fool around or take breaks. You have to work continuously with a few, short scheduled time-outs to go to the bathroom or grab a quick bite,” And there are “performance inspectors” who ensure that there is no laxity. And hers is the not an isolated case.
A gradual role reversal is taking place in the hospitals. Middle-aged chronic patients are being replaced by the young call centre executives, flocking the chambers of doctors and psychiatrists, with a variety of ailments. It is not over yet! A research has shown that call executives are becoming uncommunicative, and withdrawing into a cocoon. Achala Bhagat, a psychiatrist with Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, agrees, “Call centres need to change certain aspects of their job profile in order to retain executives”. Most inherent problem that many of the call centre employees face is the long working hours, including the rigorous night shifts, that creates real challenges on the personal, physiological and social fronts.
Given this picture, many western companies are bringing back offshore call centres to domestic markets. For example the U.K.-based ShopDirect’s recent decision to move 250 call centre jobs from India (where it opened a centre in Bangalore in 2002) to six different call centres in Great Britain.
However, though expansion within the call and customer service centre industries has been somewhat muted in the last 12 months, western companies have been expanding, and opening new call centre locations throughout India.
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