DQ-IDC INDIA SURVEY: BPO E-SAT 2004

1 AM. An unevenly lit agglomeration of makeshift eating joints outside a big
BPO company in one of the fastest growing towns of the country, Gurgaon (this
publication is also headquartered in the same town). These joints serve
everything from paranthas to Chinese fare and even good old Maggi noodles 'served
plan' (sic).

Almost at the center of this alfresco food court sits the
ubiquitous panwalla dishing out tobacco sticks to one and all. And sit there for
just half an hour and you will not fail to notice that almost everyone seems to
be paying him a visit.

The muted camaraderie and the scent of consumerism (with
a lot of smoke around) are evident in the early winter night air.

This is
representative of that generation of Indians who are creating a wave. A wave
that has also been featured in the mother of all rhetorical exercises: the US
elections.

n Overall employee satisfaction is up 9% and BPO employees are more satisfied than their IT counterparts. Higher satisfaction in bigger BPO shops n The top reasons for joining the company remain the same as last year, viz, good work environment, high growth opportunity, and good salary, though not in the same order. The importance of these three parameters have increased significantly vis-à-vis last year n Travel time as a reason for stress has climbed up to second position at 34% this year as compared to sixth place at 25% last year. Work timings is the biggest reason for stress this year too Size Does Matter Company Employees Daksh 5,000 EXL Services 4,087 eFunds 3,936 ICICI OneSource 3,902 24/7 Customer 2,800 HCL Tech-BPO 2,565 Transworks 1,800 HTMT 1,610 iSeva 700 Sykes 617 NIIT Smart 612 Ajuba 490 Motif 341 The averae E-Sat score of the top 5 companies (in terms of no. of employees) stood at 84.6 out performing the industry average of 80.7

They are also representative of a group of employees that their employers are
going out of the way to keep satisfied. And the techniques being used by the
unsung HR manager would put a conjurer's bag to shame. From free lunches
(whatever happened to the good old economics law-"there's no such thing
as a free lunch"), to junkets under the guise of training, to dance classes
too. And in its second edition this year, the Dataquest IDC India BPO Employee
Satisfaction Survey 2004 puts this average employee at the center and the HR
practices of the industry under a microscope. All in an attempt to measure the
level of satisfaction of BPO employees.

The Bigger the Better

It is best to begin with the good news. Employee satisfaction (E-Sat) has
seen an upward shift. The average E-Sat score has moved up to 80.7 (on a scale
of 100) this year from 73.8 in 2003-that's a 9% jump. And this has happened
in the face of attrition and bad press. This overall increase in satisfaction is
best exemplified by Hinduja TMT, which has seen an increase, albeit marginal, in
the satisfaction of its own employees, and yet has slipped from the second spot
last year to the fifth position this year. In effect, the other companies that
were surveyed this year have outperformed Hinduja TMT. Daksh was at number five
last year with an E-Sat score of 75.6, while its score this year has moved up to
91.6-a 21% improvement in performance from last year. In terms of size too,
the bigger ones have fared rather well as compared to their smaller peers in the
industry. Daksh, the biggest of them all in this survey, emerges clearly at the
top. And in just the last one year, the company has improved its performance
considerably. The numbers tell the tale.

Ranked by employee size, EXL Services emerges at number two, but fails to
make it to the top five, though by just a whisker. Economies of scale play a
role (after all not all laws of economics can fail). ICICI OneSource, the other
biggie in the pack, has seen the E-Sat score of its employees rise by a good 18%
from 75.1 last year to 88.6 this year. eFunds, with over 3,936 employees, has
also outperformed the industry by upping the E-Sat scores of its employees by
20%. The average E-Sat level of the top five companies (in terms of number of
employees) stands at 84.6, clearly outperforming the industry average.

Scale not only enhances the opportunities for growth available to the
employee, it in turn also provides the HR manager a chance to rotate job roles
for employees, or even change processes to keep boredom from the repetitive
nature of the job at bay. And therefore, it is no surprise at all, that the top
two reasons for joining any one of the top five BPO companies are growth
opportunities and a good work environment. Ironically, the chief reason for
leaving happens to be salary. It is as if the employee comes looking for work
nirvana, only to fall prey to the weight of the paypacket. As many as 22% of the
workforce surveyed agreed strongly to the statement "I would leave this job
if another reputed company offered me a job with 20% hike in salary".

Money, Money, Money

The one key reason why BPO employees were taking flight last year was for
higher education, in search of a degree. But the number of respondents citing
education as a reason for leaving have also seen a drastic drop: from 42% of the
respondents citing it as their main reason to quit last year, the figure this
year is down to 29%. The young generation of go-getters is still looking at
greener pastures, only, now it is within the purview of the BPO industry. Salary
emerges as the chief reason for leaving and one out of every two employees cite
it as their reason for making that jump. And salary is among the top three
reasons for joining too. Naturally!

The importance placed by employees on salary has seen an upward shift as
compared to last year. "And why not, nothing comes for free and its not
love but money that makes the world go around," says a twenty-something
employee at one of the bigger centers in the country. While this generation is
not only candid about their being in it for the money, they are driving a
consumerism wave too. And most of them are at home in an industry that is young
in age. Over 92% of the employees in the industry are under 30 years of age. And
therefore it is hardly surprising that typical discussions revolve around either
clothes-branded ones here-or the latest gadget, which is invariably a
feature-rich cellular phone. But it also marks the beginning of rationalization
within the industry. The onset of maturity has begun. Growth opportunities are
what this set of workers is now scouting for. Look at any BPO company ad and you
will realize that growth is precisely the agenda that is occupying maximum print
space. And the employers are getting through to their audience, which comprises
graduates plain and simple. This is strikingly evident from the fact that, last
year, Infosys was the dream company for the largest number of respondents. Not
any more. This year, the top three spots were all occupied by BPO companies. And
far fewer respondents were leaving for matrimony or just because their friends
were moving out. Definite signs of onset of maturity.

Mohit Chhabra in New
Delhi

Methodology: How We Did It

Research Design

The survey was designed and carried out in two phases. In the first phase an
HR questionnaire was sent to various BPO companies to get the company specific
data that was to be used in analysis and for devising the sample breakup for
each company.

A large-scale survey was then conducted in the second phase among 462
employees in 13 short listed companies across the country. The five major cities
covered were: Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. In each city,
the sample quota was assigned based on the company's employee strength in that
city. This quota system was followed strictly to get a proper representation of
different types of employees in the sample.

The employee survey included only call floor executives and operational
managers at all levels but excluded back-end support staff from departments like
HR and administration. These interviews were based on a structured questionnaire
that comprised a number of statements classified under different broad
parameters like company culture, job content/growth, training, salary and
compensation, appraisal system and people. The employees were asked to rate each
of the statements on a 10-point scale. Other than the above parameters, they
were also asked about their salary structure, preferred company in the industry,
overall satisfaction, reasons for joining or wanting to leave a company, work
related stress and ailments if any.

A process of cross-checking was established to ensure the authenticity of the
data and the veracity of the interviews. In order to retain objectivity, every
attempt was made to take on an unbiased sample. Every effort was also made to
ensure that the management of the company did not influence the employee
responses.

The E-Sat Score 2004

The employee satisfaction score was calculated based on 11 parameters, and
was weighted and indexed on score of 100. The parameters taken for calculating
the E-Sat scores are:

• Employee size
• Percentage of last salary hike
• Cost to company
• Overall satisfaction score
• Composite satisfaction
• Company culture
• Job content/growth
• Training
• Salary and compensation
• Appraisal system
• People
• Preferred Company: Percentage of respondents of a company who named their
  own company as the preferred one.
• Dream Company: Percentage of respondents in the total sample who preferred
  a particular company

A correlation analysis was run between overall satisfaction and statements
across all these broad parameters. It gave us the dependency of the dependent
variable (overall satisfaction) on each of these statements, which in turn
provided the weights of each of the statements. The weighted average of the
individual scores of statements gave us the score at the level of each of these
broad parameters, and this score was used for the final ranking.