3. Convergys: It’s about Branding

Top three reasons for joining Score Relative Industry Ranks Industry Average Salary is good 69 2 45 Transport facility available 69 1 38.6 Good benefits 44.8 4 37.5 Top three reasons for leaving Score Relative Industry Ranks Industry Average Timing 55.2 3 35.1 Illness 55.2 4 27.2 For higher education 51.7 5 42 Top three reasons for stress Score Relative Industry Ranks Industry Average Work timing 55.2 5 38.4 Irate customers 55.2 1 29.7 Call volume/Number of calls 44.8 2 24.8 Top three illnesses Score Relative Industry Ranks Industry Average Sleeping disorders 65.5 3 39.5 Digestive system related disorder 41.4 3 34.1 Eye sight problem 20.7 6 18.8

Strongly Agree Rank This company lives up to the promises,it made in its advertisement 37.9 13s I would definitely recommend this company to a close friend of mine 86.2 5 I get a sense of great professional and personal accomplishment from the work I do here 65.5 9 The culture of the company is such that it creates a very positive work environment 75.8 5

Relative employee satisfaction with training, job content and company culture

Immediate managers are an issue that might be exacerbated by a heavily metrics driven approach. Despite the branding, employees see it as a short-term job opportunity

It’s among the world’s oldest contact centers and it came to India just over two year ago with large expansion plans already laid out. Since then it has hired at a fast and furious pace and is the third largest company in this survey after GE and Wipro Spectramind, both of which have been around for a lot longer.

For this year, its numbers look good. It ranked at #5 on overall satisfaction; improved its rank on composite satisfaction though its actual score fell significantly; did well on training, company culture and job content. Like GE it is among the lowest paymasters in the industry according to its employees, though they aren’t cribbing about it too much. Relative

weaknesses–appraisals (ranked 7th) and people (ranked 11th).

That was the upside. The downside–people seemed to have joined the company for all the wrong reasons. Apart from salary, it had among the highest proportion of employees saying they joined because peers would be of the same age group, because they found nothing better to do or because they did not get a better job. Combine that with a younger than average employee age profile and it makes for a slightly unstable combination in the long run.

This showed up in reasons for leaving. Far too many employees indicated they had far too many reasons for leaving–including for things like misguidance by the company and higher education. In addition, the company may be a hard taskmaster with pressure to perform on metrics and overtime coming across as significantly higher causes of stress when compared to the industry average.

Put together, the company did not top any parameter or statements measured but came among the 2nd or 3rd in 7 of the 61 questions. That may not be an outstanding performance, but is a good one and along with the branding the company has, this will take it forward for a while.

In the long run though, there are issues that will need resolution. Among them, employee expectation management, insecurity and an overly metrics drive approach that can make immediate managers a pain (only 55% said my manger cares about my personal and professional growth and 60% said my manger is available when I need help or advice). Branding will work. But only so far.