Bridging the Human Resources Gap
Based on a presentation by Carol Dominguez
Presented at e-Services Philippines 2006
February 17, 2006

The BPO Industry in the Philippines

It’s encouraging to know that the e-Services sector acknowledges the urgency of this issue. This goes beyond any one call center or recruitment firm. What we’ll be talking about today will benefit the entire country.

Everyone has heard it all: the Philippines is Number Two when it comes to the BPO market share, but that’s nothing to worry about. There’s plenty of work to go around. It’s been said over and over again that for the past year and a half. We are on the cusp of greatness.

That’s not my concern. My talk is about the gap.

Now, what exactly is the gap?

Now, it’s generally known that the Philippines has a high literacy rate, that we are culturally in tune with the United States and have no problem relating to Americans and most westerners. We produce 400,000 plus college graduates; the NCR alone produces almost 90,000 graduates per year.

What’s more, the outer provinces are now being considered as possible locations in which to set up call centers. At this time, 19 call centers have already been set up in the provinces and more are expected to come.

The Supply Problem

The next question now becomes, “How many of these graduates are qualified?”

Right now, only a few of them are. I can’t stress this point enough: the HR gap is the most pressing issue facing the e-Services sector today. We have plenty of demand, but our supply is running short.

To illustrate, John Clements conducted a study last year, in the CALABARZON region.

We wanted to know the skill levels of our graduates, and tested approximately 2,500 graduating students from that region. They were tested as regular call center applicants are tested: cognitive skills, oral English proficiency, communicative skills, typing speed, spelling and IT skills.

So what were our findings?

First of all, only 3 percent of them passed. Granted, they did well in spelling and cognitive skills, but their oral proficiency and typing were sorely lacking. In my opinion, typing is very easy to improve, and train, for that matter. Language skills, on the other hand, take a lot more effort. I’d also like to note that the 3% who passed were mostly students from the De La Salle University in Dasmariñas. Without their scores, the acceptance rate would only be .81% for the rest of the CALABARZON.

Let me repeat that: less than 1% are qualified for a call center interview.

What we discovered is something that happens at John Clements on a daily basis. Our average hit rate is 6 percent.

Here’s an example: let’s say that within a year, 49,652 candidates—possibly half of the 90,000 graduates from the NCR—get a call from us, asking them to come in and be screened. Of these 49,652 candidates, 40% of them show up. That’s 19,860 candidates.

These candidates are first screened for oral proficiency. Only 50% of them will pass: that amounts to 9,930 candidates. Then, out of those who passed, only 11% will be successfully placed in call centers. This adds up to 1092 candidates hired out of almost 50,000 candidates.

We did a little better in 2005, where our average hit rate was 6 percent. That translates to around 1,000 successful placements out of 20,000 applicants. It’s still not a pretty picture.

Assessment Methodologies

The John Clements Oral Assessment Scale

Now, how exactly do we test our candidates for oral proficiency? Let me discuss the seven-point scale we use at John Clements.

This is our oral proficiency scale at John Clements. It rates nine aspects of oral proficiency on a scale of one to seven, with seven being a near-native speaker.

Our oral proficiency screeners listen to their accent, meaning pronunciation and intonation, to ascertain whether their accents get in the way of comprehension.

Fluency is just that: a candidate’s ability to speak in a flowing manner, without the use of fillers, like “umm,” or “ah,” and the ability to speak without hesitation.

We also measure a candidate’s ability to initiate and sustain conversations, which is very important in the customer service industry; this includes volunteering information, elaborating, and keeping the discourse flowing. Sometimes, even the most accurate and fluent speakers of English disappoint the call center interviewer by answering their questions with a one-sentence answer and then sitting quietly. Call center work involves Question-Answer-Comment-Question-Comment-Answer: in other words, a back-and-forth, give-and-take interaction.

Pronoun and letter confusion is actually two things. Pronoun confusion involves confusing gendered pronouns like using “she” for masculine subjects and vice-versa. Letter confusion arises when people confuse certain letter sounds, like /p/ and /f/, /s/ and /z/, and /v/ and /b/.

Comprehension tests if a candidate has an ear for the language, and can easily understand English when used in conversation.

Naturally, we measure a candidate’s grammar, and test for subject-verb agreement, tense consistency, and sentence structure, among other things.

Prepositions are the most challenging aspect of learning a language, and we also test the proper usage of these terms.

Vocabulary is always a plus, but more often than not, our screeners just take note of the usage of more complex terms, the same with the last aspect, the use of idiomatic language.

The beauty of this system is that we can test for oral proficiency in English within 15 minutes. Our trained oral proficiency screeners can immediately spot if a candidate is a good speaker.

What John Clements looks for is a minimum score of 5+ on this scale, which indicates a candidate is trainable.

BPA/P Human Resources Committee Initiative

The issue of supplying the demand for competent BPO workers is nothing new, at least where the Business Process Association of the Philippines is concerned. In response to the demands of the industry, the BPA/P formed an HR committee initiative to create an industry-approved standard for assessing BPO employees, and an industry-standardized baseline agent training program. The member companies of this committee are John Clements Consultants, Teledevelopment Services, Viventis, FuturePerfect, and Asia Partnership.

We’ve compared experiences using our own assessment tools and we are in the process of creating an industry-wide standard for the BPO industry. We also hope to provide the industry with more competent workers through our training programs and eventually develop that one human resources standard by which all screening methods will be measured.

Partnering for Workforce Development

It only makes sense that we train qualified trainers as an immediate solution to the hiring crunch, so they can train more competent candidates who can fill the demand in the BPO industry.

With this in mind, John Clements has also recently partnered with the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, or TESDA to help train people and provide the industry with a steady supply of qualified workers to the BPO industry. As a government institution, TESDA’s role is that of an enabler, and in fulfilling this role, TESDA has acknowledged the viability of training people for the BPO industry. In December 2005, a batch of TESDA trainers concluded their training seminar in the CALABARZON area under our English consultant, Rocky Peltzman, and soon they will be joining the ranks of yet more trainers who will ensure that there will not be a shortage of qualified BPO workers.

Training Call Center and BPO Near-Hires and English Teachers

John Clements also has a few offerings for both near-hires to the BPO industry and college, high school, and elementary teachers of English. For near-hires, we’ve been offering 100-hour courses to college graduates who’ve scored 5 in our 7-point assessment scale, as we believe these candidates are easily trainable in oral proficiency and communication skills, and will eventually make excellent call center workers. Our Polishing English course is available for these candidates, and once their English proficiency score has been raised to a level high enough for them to pursue a call-center career, we’ll endorse them to our clients for the final interview.

The Polishing English course aims to help candidates speak more fluently and accurately, with confidence and to understand native speakers of English. Candidates are also taught to write a professional resumé, and are taught to role-play job interviews with self-assurance.

Right now, John Clements has just finished training six batches of near-hires in Laguna and Batangas, and around 118 candidates have already been endorsed to clients for their final interviews.

We also offer training programs in small-group communication methodology for English teachers from state colleges and universities from all levels to encourage them to pursue careers in training people for the BPO industry. These teachers can also echo-train their peers in this methodology, thereby increasing the number of English teachers.

The aim of this methodology is to increase student-talking time and decrease teacher-talking time. By encouraging students to talk in class, they can better practice their conversational skills.

Through Small-group Communicative activities, teachers learn to impart the basics of pronunciation, fluency and accuracy, American idiomatic expressions, listening comprehension and email communication.

Changing the Curriculum and the Issues Involved

It’s clear by now that there’s no way the demand for competent call center workers can be met without making significant changes to the curriculum our schools use, and changing that curriculum has its own issues.

First of all, who shall we train? This one’s obvious: we have to train teachers, so they can replicate themselves by training more teachers. So far, the teachers we’ve trained have been excited about using the new methodologies in their respective classes.

Secondly, will the teachers be able to implement the methodology in large classrooms? Small-group Communicative Methodology works best in small classes of around 15 students. This will be harder to implement with larger classes. We recommend tapping student teachers assisting veteran teachers in class so they can practice their use of the methodology. Points can also be given to students who speak English consistently in class. As a last resort, there a small fine could be levied for any non-English word spoken; the money collected can be used for a snack at the last day of class.

Thirdly, shall we train other teachers as well? We need to tread softly here, as a lot of deans have admitted that more than half their faculty have a hard time speaking English fluently. It’s best to broach the topic cautiously so as not to step on any toes.

Fourthly, how shall oral assessment of teachers outside the English department be done? It’s always best to arrange classes with the participants from the same level. As always, extreme courtesy is advised in these proceedings.

Fifth, if these teachers are trained, what will be required of them in their classrooms afterwards? Will they be required to teach ONLY in English? Will they be required to accept only English answers from their students? And will they be required to correct their students’ English in the classroom, in real time?

Sixth, how will students in non-English subjects accept being corrected in front of their peers? All language teachers know that the preferred order of correction is self-correction, then peer correction and only as a last resort, teacher correction. But if the student doesn’t realize he or she has made an error, and the friend sitting next to them doesn’t whisper the correction, will the lecturer be required to correct the student on the spot?

Lastly, will the school impose a “Speak English Only” policy on campus—because what good will it be to raise the level of spoken English if students are allowed to speak local languages on campus? Should there be Speak Only English Zones, like the library, cafeteria, computer lab, or what? If we can assume that most students speak local languages at home, on public transportation, in shops and at religious services, do we have the right to demand they speak only English within the walls of the campus?

English Is Cool

This is a project headed by the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines that also aims to address the emergency concerning English proficiency.

Its short-term goals involve training 250,000 candidates to reach call center level within five years and to bring the next million candidates to a trainable level, basically expanding the pool of trainable people.

The mid-term goals are more geared toward addressing the issue from the end of trainers and professionals. The program aims to encourage and improve the use of English among professionals in the service industries and in management positions. Around 50,000 students will be enrolled in fast-track classes to get the ball rolling.

Once the needed momentum is reached, the foundation will have been laid for the project’s long-term plans. At this level, changes will be wrought on the level of basic education, ensuring that more and more students will graduate speaking English with fluency and competency.

Conclusion

In closing, I’d like to repeat something I’ve said time and time again. We are have a national emergency on our hands. True, we have benefited from the BPO industry’s flourishing in our country, and we’ve managed to tap into our national affinity for the English language. But I’m afraid that might be where it all ends, because right now, we’re all tapped out. A lot of the competent speakers of English have already found jobs in call centers, but the need for more competent speakers is still there. We need to fill that gap, and for now, the best way to address that gap is through training. We need to train near-hires and make them good enough to get hired. We need to train trainers so they can pass their expertise on to more people who can, in turn, train others.

We’re on the cusp of greatness here; we just need the strength of will to do what needs to be done. The key to our success is still the same: training, training, training.