We hear that “it is the people that make
the business” all the time, but putting this adage into practice
is something that most businesses have yet to perfect.
“Managing people well is more important than
the underlying business,” says Phil Hidalgo, former Senior
Vice President of HSBC Philippines and current HR VP in Asia for
Teletech. “Without a good team, you can’t sustain a
business.”
There is no industry that better understands this
than BPO, a field that relies on people in order to function. BPO
employees have to keep levels of performance up in the face of less
than ideal circumstances and tasks, and it is up to the HR department
to ensure they do so.
BPO HR departments have arguably the biggest budgets
and the biggest teams of any industry—and with good reason.
With an attrition rate estimated at 50% and an average employment
life span of 12-14 months per person, the BPO industry presents
one of the most challenging terrains for HR professionals.
The phenomenon of BPO is the direct result of and
at the same time one of the driving forces behind the rapid industrialization
that is reshaping the many landscapes of the work environment: physical,
economic, moral, and social. Attitudes, needs, and wants have changed,
and BPO HR managers are constantly scrambling to keep up with these
changes.
“In our industry, HR people spend their days putting out fires,”
chuckles Hidalgo, who manages around 3,200 employees for Teletech.
By taking a look at the way that HR managers in
the BPO industry address the host of problems they are faced with
every day, we might learn a thing or two about understanding and
managing the most important resource of all.
Repetitive Brain Strain
One of the problems of the BPO industry is the
inherently monotonous nature of the work. Particularly for those
in the call center sector, daily work can be repetitive, intensive,
and stressful. Spending all day on the phone dealing with frequently
irate customers is hard work, any which way one looks at or sugarcoats
it. This can lead to stress and eventually burnout, a significant
issue because medical studies have shown that constantly high
levels of stress lead to a host of health problems.
“In order to combat boredom,” says
Hidalgo, “we create opportunities for customer service agents
to move to different processes.”
This means that from customer care, an agent
may then be rotated to outbound calls, or from voice to non-voice
services. The point is to add variety to a worker’s daily
tasks, altering his work pattern and challenging him to think
in different ways from day to day.
Cog in the Machine
The BPO industry is almost completely automated
and therefore intensely regimented. Employees’ performance
is measured from start to finish in terms of numbers: time in,
time out, call duration, “wrap time”, call volume,
sales or completion targets. The pace of work is set by technology,
and the quality of that work is assessed by technology as well.
All of this can lead to a dehumanizing effect
on workers, a feeling that they are just part of a system that
does not see them as individuals but as simply cogs in a large
machine that grinds on day in and day out regardless of whether
its individual parts are happy or not.
States Hidalgo, “What we have to do is
accommodate people’s individuality, and make them realize
that we see them as people. If employees feel that they don’t
have a voice, that’s a serious problem.”
This is where one of the core functions of Human
Resource Management comes in. Town halls, focus group discussions,
one-on-one coaching—all of these outlets serve the purpose
of letting employees know that someone is listening to them.
The Grass Is Always Greener
“Loyalty does not exist in the vocabulary
of the youth,” proclaims Penny Bongato, HR director of Convergys,
Inc.
In a culture where quarterly bonuses and profit-sharing
are not added incentives but basic requirements, it has become
extremely difficult to fight the battle of keeping talented people
without adding to the compensation spiral. Constant pirating of
employees within the industry has led to an ever-increasing, unsustainable
rate of basic pay. In the BPO industry, there is always someone
willing to pay better.
When the average employee lifespan is 12 to 14
months, the challenge is to out-think and out-smart competition
rather than out-pay them. In order to do this, the HR team has
to use out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to motivating and
retaining employees.
More and more, focus is being placed on non-monetary
incentives that address needs that may not be fulfilled by the
job. Call centers focus on creating a “fun” place
to work, emphasizing social responsibility and moral values, and
acknowledging other aspects of their employees’ lives. They
have leisure and recreation facilities within their offices, as
well as areas where employees can catch up on much-needed sleep.
Some call centers have pantry areas that serve free food at a
certain hour, and others have established volunteer and donation
programs for their employees. Social events like “Invite
the Parents Day” include employees’ families—from
whom they often become alienated due to the irregular office hours—in
their work life.
Relates one customer service agent: “During
holidays, since we all have to work, there’s usually a game
or event at the office. For example, on Valentine’s Day
we had a matchmaking game.”
“All of this sends the message that we
care about you more than as a mere worker,” says Hidalgo.
Impossible Bosses
A natural side effect of a business that is constantly
in need of people is rapid promotion. In call centers there is
a constant demand for team leaders and managers, and an agent
can conceivably become a team leader after three months.
The problem with this is commonly team leaders
lack the necessary “soft skills” to manage people,
such as: active listening, handling conflicts and difficult employees,
correcting poor performance, motivating employees, and acknowledging
accomplishments. Studies show that sixty percent of call center
employees who leave their companies do so because they can’t
stand their bosses.
“The problem is that leadership is an
experiential rather than a learning process,” explains Hidalgo.
“Being a good leader takes a certain amount of maturity
and experience, and that can’t be taught.”
One way this problem is being addressed is that
the criteria for promotion are beginning to change. Leadership
potential, rather than output alone, is now being taken into account
in the promotion process. People on the HR team are being instructed
to watch out for natural leaders among the customer service agents.
“I tell my HR people all the time, take
a good look at the agents and you’ll know who their leader
is. Who do they go to for advice? Who do they gravitate toward
during group activities? There is always a natural leader, and
that’s who we should keep our eye on because that person
will probably make a good TL,” Hidalgo asserts.
Another way of addressing this problem is to
bring team leaders and managers in from other industries which
require the same skills or have somewhat similar schedules: hotel
and restaurant, health care, and public relations.
“Because we are a relatively immature industry,
what we need now is talent rather than experience,” states
Bongato. “Eventually, when the industry matures, experience
in the call center business can be a prerequisite for promotion.”
Health is wealth
One of the more serious issues among call center
employees is the various health problems that arise from the irregular
work schedules and ensuing alterations in sleep patterns. Sleep
disorders, stomach-related problems, eye and ear problems, and
depression are just a few of the common complaints among agents.
As newbies acclimatize to the nighttime schedule these complaints
lessen in gravity, but many of them never go away completely.
HR professionals in call centers have to be on
constant vigil for the physical and emotional symptoms of burnout.
They have to teach employees to manage their workload and time—when
to send a 2-line email in place of a 2-page one, and when to go
home and leave it for tomorrow. They also need to show people
how to delegate. Team-building should be a core competency of
an HR person.
Long-term stress can lead to the loss of good people,
and stress management is one of the primary jobs of a Human Resource
manager, not only in the BPO industry but everywhere.
Human Resource Management is defined as the process
of recruiting, hiring, training, and motivating people—but
perhaps it is really the profession of understanding the value of
people. In order to understand the value of people, we need to understand
the changes that shape their environment, the influences that define
what people seek in a workplace and the factors that motivate them
to do their best all the time, no matter what.
The real job of Human Resource Managers seems to
be to listen to and observe their people, to give value to the things
they deem important and to see them within the context of emotions
and lives rather than as one-dimensional employees.
“Most underlying businesses aren’t
rocket science,” muses Hidalgo, “and that’s the
dichotomy. The complexity is in making them work. You have to put
people first because they aren’t tools for the business—they
are the business.”
