Call centers should also retain than hire

After the rosy outlook announced by credit rating firms, more and more investments, revenues are expected to pour in this year. But more of these will go to IT-enabled services (ITES) particularly BPOs (Business Process Outsourcing), which is projected to increase by 50 percent this year from almost $2 billion in revenues last year.

Although it is clear BPOs offered more jobs than any other sector over the last five years, but the attrition rate is also very high particularly in call centers.

It is not clear to me why many just simply give up their jobs knowing call centers offer better pay and give better benefits compared to many of the old and relatively bigger companies in the country.

Also, on many instances, I've seen many of these call center people having a good time in posh resorts either for some work-related activity or simply R and R all expenses paid by the company. And it puzzles me why many of them want to settle in smaller companies and content with low-tech, "un-corporate-looking" and low-paying jobs.

Hmmm perhaps there is truth to the story that call centers scare the hell out of every one there because sometimes they get calls from dead people - bwahahahahaha.

Seriously now. It's been perfunctory for me to do job interviews every so often since we also have increasing manpower requirements for both technical and non-technical related posts. I should say that almost half of the applicants we usually receive all have experiences from call centers and are quite good from testing to interview.

Interestingly, from the interviews I made, the top five reasons why call center agents call it quits is number one - for health reasons. Next, they say they find their job too irrelevant for their degree. Thirdly, unpredictable working schedule. Fourth, is pressure from within and from unruly callers and lastly, is the ever-ubiquitous office politics.

By the way, it is no longer a secret that the biggest challenge now for most outsourced voice services is the dwindling labor pool. Call centers are aggressively looking to recruit some 3,000 agents and 300 supervisors every month, while less than five percent of applicants are hired. The issue actually is not about shortage of supply but the reality that there aren't enough quality people to meet existing requirements.

More than that, what's more disquieting is we are also losing quality people faster. And of course, how do we expect to meet the growing billion-dollar BPO opportunities to come if people come and go so easily like dandruff?

If you talk about human resource, personnel retention is always better than addition. And I think call centers must give more focus or pour their resources on resolving turnover problems than invest heavily on glossy ads, which only yield too little potential to get new recruits. And I think it is also best to find out why call center workers stay only an average of two and a half years and to also further dig the real reasons for giving up.

If the interviews I made were accurate as a basis to resolve the top five issues, perhaps call centers should be able to device working schedules that allow their people to have ample number of days in a week for a real night's sleep. From what I learn they only get to enjoy two nights of normal rest periods and some say they don't even get one. Having to change your biorhythm or biological cycle often can definitely make you sick in the long run.

Young jobseekers also like to be challenged. A lot of people fall out of call center work because the job is generally no-brainer yet the once get hired are mostly those who are already accomplished academically.

The third, fourth and fifth issues are mostly internal in nature, which can be resolved by improving internal processes, customer relations handling and developing a culture of transparency from within.

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