BPOs trying to bridge employee skill gap by tapping talent early on

Devendra Kumar is like any other BPO employee. Working as a subject matter expert, or SME, and handling a team of 10, Kumar is ambitious and ready to put in his very best to reach the pinnacle of success.

Contrast this with just a few years ago when Kumar was absolutely clueless about BPOs. In fact, hailing from Bharatpur in Rajasthan, about 171 km northeast of Jaipur, he could barely expand the abbreviation.

Having studied in a Hindi medium school, Kumar’s English communication was poor and so was his confidence level, especially when it came to working in an area that demanded English skills.

However, a two-month training in the basics of the BPO business provided by a leading industry player not only improved his communication and confidence, but also his knowledge, helping build his analytical and problem-solving abilities.

“I have completed four years in this job. I started out as a
customer service representative, then got an opportunity to transition into billing processes, and then got promoted to a process specialist last year,” says Kumar, who is with Infosys BPO.

Like Kumar, several undergraduates are getting trained in the basics of the BPO industry to pump up their skill levels way before they actually start working in order to increase productivity.
Raghavendra K, vice-president and head - HR of Infosys BPO which runs Project Genesis for undergraduates, says the idea is to go to colleges and introduce BPO as part of the curriculum.

“There is a major challenge to find quality talent, and initiatives to train people early on always work wonders,” says Raghavendra.
The Project Genesis curriculum entails etiquette, logical skills, computer skills and communication.

Elango R, chief human resource officer, MphasiS, says College Connect, started by the Bangalore-based firm in 2008, helps students from colleges across streams like arts, science and commerce gauge the BPO business, and has elements like typing skills, communication, transaction processing etc.
“Such programmes also train us in getting a foreign accent required for the job,”says Shaheed Shaik, who had taken Project Genesis training and now works in the BFSI domain in Infosys BPO in Bangalore.
T Sreedhar, managing director, TMI Network, a Hyderabad-based talent management and talent acquisition group, says it is ideal to start training at the undergraduate level when individuals are quite competitive and open to learning new things.
The advantages are many.
“Industry needs talent while youngsters need jobs. And like other sectors, the best way for the BPO sector is also to start early and get the best people and derive the maximum from them,” says Sreedhar.
College Connect entails a three-month course, which if successfully completed, presents the candidate with a job with the company, says Elango.
“Post this course, when a candidate joins, he does not require extensive training.”
Infosys BPO, which hires 2,000 people every quarter, works on a model of training college professors in its Mysore campus for 14 days, so that they can go and in turn train students from their respective colleges for three months.
“Till date, we have reached out to 69,000 students this way. Professors are a major influence on students and can reach out to thousands,” says Raghavendra.
Elango says College Connect has helped the firm, which currently has about 37,000 employees, improve its recruitment efficiency.
“Earlier, if out of every 10 job offers, six candidates actually ended up joining us, today that number has increased to 8-9,” says Elango.
Raghavendra says that even if some people who have done such programmes are not selected, they are available to fill the requirements of the industry.
Moreover, attrition of employees within 60 days of joining has reduced drastically at MphasiS as a result of this programme, says Elango.