Presently I am working with 2 call centers Italians who have purchased our product, so I’m learning the rules of shift system in a call center.

I read the article and think it is perfectly true. Each point of the article is a well-fixed and serves to absence management.

Whereas the dynamics are much more complex as there is also the direct interaction with customer.

But, why Call centres fail in retaining employees,employee belongingness.
The reason behind is simple & basic :

In India most of the Top Call centres, BPO’s initially when opened many years back, hired lot of manpower from Hotel Industry. There were a few International Call centres/ BPO in India, their Middle management was recruited as Top Management, however, unfortunately they carried the legacy of their previous employer & copied the same style & culture as being followed in the few International BPO’s or Call Centres in India.

The basic gap, is that the VP’s & Directors of Call centres in India forget that Call centre is also an offshoot of Hospitality/ Service Industry & The most important resource is PEOPLE.

There is a huge gap between VP’s & TL’s & Call agents.
In many International Callcentres, the Director or Group Head HR does not even meet the ground level staff at floor.

The recruitment style is quite doubtful & not transparent.
Many International call centres especially Big names in industry reject candidates who are well qualified, or have potential to outshine. The reason is that they will not stick to the job for long.
Many call centres have hired immature & fresh graduates as Recruiters, who lack depth, lack maturity, lack farsightedness & unfortunately they conduct the preliminary interviews. The result is that human touch starts lacking from pre vrecruitment stage itself.
Secondly, The TL’s & Operation Managers usually have risen from ranks of Call agents & since Industry does not demand academic brilliance, many are average or below average in overall IQ & academically.
the type of liberal salaries, perks, free pickup, dropping, free food, health insurance, incentives all lead to high take home salary packages & at very young age, when mediocre graduates & undergraduates earn so much, the result is they feel more powerful & Power unfortunately leads to myopic, irrational behaviour unless a person is well matured to imbibe the power with grace & dignity.

To end, the botomline is that, there is lack of communication from Top Head of departments with floor level staff, the gap creates strict boundary walls around the fortress & there is lack of Human Touch.

Remember we can buy a Man’s time. Man’s muscles, Man’s Mind BUT NOT HI/HER HEART.
Unless & untill, we start communicating with our core functional staff, build transparent policies , just treatment, reward perflormers, invest in employee development, focus upon quality of life, show them growth path , till then call agents will never have sense of belongingness & abseentisim rate & attrition rate will always be high.

Also, fail to understand that why many branded International Call centres especially in India, why their Director HR does not strategise & fix a percentage of manpower to hired from matured individuals and those who need jobs for survival. FOR EXAMPLE : For a web based process or for a local / domestic call centre with inbound process on Customer service, why Call centres do not try the option of hiring Physically Challenged people. Train them , groom them, make them SELF RELIANT & trust me, they will be more charged up, motivated & stable. The only extra expenditure is few ramps & structural changes to ease movement of Physically Challenged employees. Few call centres could even tie up with some social organisation or a Voluntary Association and recruit those who have faced certain brutalities of life & passing through a crisis or tough phase in life. By hiring such profile, corporates help in easing out their burdens, help them to be financially stable, strong & such employees will respect, value their organisation, their job & look for long term career & definetely their attitude towards job will be far more positive as job for them is survival also. This will automatically reduce the absenteeisim rate & attrition.

RAJESH SATYAL

Cathy Eastwood
Customer Services Manager