The Young and the Restless

Only 40% employees say their companies live up to the promises they made in their advertisements. 32% strongly disagree. 28% say if given a chance they would work for some other industry altogether. 40% strongly disagree. 17% say working in their current companies is a short-term opportunity for them. 66% disagree. As the numbers come in, they show an industry in flux. Satisfied, but as yet young, not entirely stable and in search of maturity

The Most-satisfied Employees Composite Satisfaction is High in Satisfaction with Job Content/Growth Satisfaction with Company Culture Satisfaction with Management & Colleagues Satisfaction with Salaries & Compensation Satisfaction with Appraisals
	Call Center/BPO employees shower higher satisfaction scores than IT employees
	However, satisfaction rapidly falls with experience
	Women by and large are more satisfied than men on most counts

What would you say if you were told that call center/BPO employees are on the whole, more satisfied with their jobs than IT employees are? It may not be entirely counter-intuitive, but one would think, that it would come as a bit of a surprise.

In our first take on the data, we got the same feeling of surprise. Here were two industries as unlike in their job profiles as one could get–one a lot more creative and definitely higher end. The other as repetitive as it could get. Common sense said the IT guys should be happier. Turned out, common sense was wrong. 

But here’s the crunch–things get worse in the ITeS industry with experience, while the older you get in the IT and IT services industry, the better things seemed to get. Basically–the numbers boiled down to this: in the call center industry, the younger employees and those who were on their first jobs were substantially happier than anyone else. However, satisfaction fell drastically after three years of experience across almost every question and parameter measured, and was the lowest among those with more than five years of experience. It also fell significantly and without fail with people who were not on their first jobs.

In contrast, the IT industry saw the middle management being squeezed from all ends, but the younger employees were happy, while those with 5-10 years or more than 10 years of experience were the happiest. And there was no significant difference between first jobbers and non-first jobbers.

This has a couple of key implications: (a) Since in the near future the call center industry will be dominated by first jobbers and those with less than a year or two of experience, the overall industry figures will look good. Especially since in a weighted sample size like this, they will dominate all respondent numbers. (b) However, the inability to keep more senior employees happy bodes for continuing high attrition rates in the industry if counter-active measures aren’t taken.

The methodology on arriving at satisfaction on various parameters was simple. We presented 61 statements to 544 call center/BPO employees across the country. The questions related to a wide variety of things ranging from their training, appraisal systems and satisfaction on salary to their relationship with peers and managers, company culture and future plans.

Respondents were asked to rate their companies on a scale of 1 to 10 on each of these statements–where 10 meant they strongly agreed and 1 meant they strongly disagreed.

We then divided these 33,184 responses into seven major parameters –composite satisfaction, company culture, job content and growth, training, salary and compensation, appraisal system and people. In addition, we captured call center employees’ overall feeling of wellness on a parameter called “overall satisfaction”.

While each parameter is described below, some broad trends emerge (other than the ones already mentioned above):

(a) Though mean scores on satisfaction were higher in the ITeS industry, they also dropped very steeply in each parameter from the company ranking 1st to the company ranking 15th. In most parameters, as a matter of fact, satisfaction rating fell by almost 30% in the ITeS rankings compared to about 11% to 13% in the IT survey. Implies an as yet young and unstable industry.

(b) The IT industry does better than the call center industry on certain factors that had also emerged as its key strengths. These include fair treatment of employees, higher standards of corporate governance, better treatment of women and most interestingly–a sense of job security.

(c) The thing that stands out as most clearly common to both industries is that women are far more satisfied employees by and large than men are. Though they are key discrimination issues that still need to be handled.

With these broad trends, we take you to an analysis of each of the parameters…

Overall Satisfaction

It’s a young peoples’ industry. They come looking for good money, a great work environment and lots of friends. They find it all. They are happy. Overall, ITeS employees’ overall satisfaction score of 8.3 on a scale of 10 was higher than that of the IT and IT services industry. A closer look at the numbers though gives an interesting insight. The first jobbers in the call center industry and those with less than three years of experience are far happier than their counterparts in the IT/ITS industry.

However, that begins to level off with experience. Non-first jobbers and those with just less than five years experience in both industries have about the same scores on satisfaction. Beyond five years though, overall satisfaction scores in the IT and services sector are significantly higher than in the call center industry.

The reason is not difficult to fathom. It’s a question of expectations and expectation management. People joining the IT industry expect more and are less easily satisfied. Younger call center employees join with minimal expectations and are far more easily pleased. That changes though as they gain experience and start looking out for more from their jobs. Higher overall satisfaction in the younger employees, however, is no guarantee that they will stay longer. On the contrary, since they expect little, they also jump jobs easily for what might otherwise be minor issues.

Question asked: Based on your total experience, how would you rate your overall satisfaction with the company on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is highly dissatisfied and 10 is highly satisfied.
Base: 544

Composite Satisfaction 

If overall satisfaction is a measure of an employee’s overall feeling of wellness, composite satisfaction is a closer look at what satisfied employees would do. Would they recommend the company to friends? Would they leave if they got a 20% hike in salary? Do they look forward to a long- term career in this company?

The results were interesting. As in the IT industry, composite satisfaction scores were significantly lower than overall satisfaction at the industry level. However, at least a few IT companies actually saw composite scores and rankings improve over “overall satisfaction”. Not so here. Every single call center/BPO company saw composite satisfaction scores decline significantly. This includes companies like MsourcE and eFunds who moved up the rankings not because they performed a lot better on composite satisfaction, but because others fell more drastically than they did. In fact, of all the eight employee parameters, composite satisfaction had the lowest score–something the industry might need to watch out for.

Reason–though the industry as a whole got reasonably high scores on “would recommend to a friend”, “look forward to a day at work”, etc, there was a certain sense of wanting to take flight. Across the industry, 17% employees said their current job was a short-term opportunity for them–this spanned numbers that ranged from 97% at HCL Tech BPO Services who strongly agreed with that statement to 7% at WNS Global Services. Overall, 28% of all respondents said, if given a chance they would prefer to work for another industry altogether. This included 83% at HTMT who strongly agreed with that statement to 9% at
MsourcE.

Interestingly, women scored better on composite satisfaction than on overall satisfaction compared to their male colleagues. Reason–more women felt a sense of professional and personal accomplishment in the work they did and were more proud of working for their companies than the men were. A hiring strategy there?

Statements Measured (Include): I would definitely recommend this company to a close friend of mine; Every morning I look forward to a day at work; I get a great sense of personal and professional satisfaction from the work I do here; This company lives up to the promises it made in its advertisements; Working here is a short-term opportunity for me; If given a chance I would rather work for another industry.
Base: 544

Job Content/Growth 

This was an interesting one. Here’s an example of the excellent internal selling that ITeS companies have been doing. Despite the largely repetitive work that happens on the call floor and despite the fact that it emerged as one key reason for stress, nearly 79% of all employees said they felt excited about the kind of work they handled. Overall, job content scores in the call center industry were in fact better than in the IT industry–again, a question of expectations and expectations management.

There were only two questions on which call center employees had bigger issues than their IT counterparts. One of them, surprisingly, was job security with only 58% saying their jobs were secure compared to 76% in the IT industry. The other, also surprisingly for such a watertight job role, the feeling that their jobs were not very clearly defined and they did not really know what was expected of them at work. Both were also the biggest relative weaknesses on job content.

Biggest relative strengths that emerged however were–85% of all respondents felt the work they did was crucial for the company’s growth. Not very surprising since about 90% of the workforce interacts directly with hundreds of customers every single day and every call counts. Other internal issues on job content were a certain lack of passion and a relative lack of growth opportunities. The last also emerged as a key reason why most employees said they would leave their current jobs.

Statements Measured (Include): I am very excited by the work I handle here; The work I do is crucial to the company’s growth; I have exciting growth opportu-nities in this company; I am very stressed at work.
Base: 544

Company Culture

An industry that hires at the scorching pace that the Indian call center industry has over the last year is expected to have some issues on developing and maintaining a company culture. Surprisingly though, the call center industry doesn’t seem to have as many problems on this front as one would have expected. On mean scores, it performs as well as the IT industry though as ranking of parameters goes, culture comes in 4th in the call center/BPO segment compared to 2nd in the IT and IT services industry.

The biggest comparative strengths–despite the tendency to pack their bags at the slightest chance,
employees said they felt a sense of belonging in the companies they worked at. Yet another sign of
a youthful industry. Other strengths included respect 

for the companies’ work values and ethics, and infrastructure.

The biggest comparative weaknesses–a lack of empowerment, with low scores on “my opinion matters”, “I am encouraged to take risks”, “freedom to make decisions”, and companies’ openness to ideas and suggestions. It must be said here, however, that despite these appearing as comparative internal weaknesses, the call center industry actually performed a little better on some of these questions than the IT industry did.

Also, as with most other parameters, employee satisfaction on company culture declined with experience. GE topped the list by ranking first on 14 of the 21 company culture related questions, while HP Global topped three of them.

Statements Measured (In-clude): This company’s culture makes for a positive work environment; The company is very open to ideas and suggestions given by employees; The company’s policies and procedures are transparent; I feel my opinion matters here.
Base: 544

People 

The people parameter measures employee satisfaction with the company’s leadership, their immediate managers and their peers. And it was the leadership and the peers that made these companies good places to work at, while managers could do with a bit of a makeover.

Across the industry, 81% of all those surveyed believed their company’s leadership was doing what was required for the company’s growth. This included every single employee at GE expressing that level of confidence in the top management.

Helpful colleagues also got a big thumbs up–77% of all those surveyed felt peer relationships improved the work environment and 81% said their colleagues helped them whenever needed. Comparatively, fewer people said their managers were available when needed for help and advice or that they were encouraged to speak freely at meetings. Added to this was the feeling that immediate managers did not really care for their professional and personal growth. This could be a key issue–a large amount of employee attrition happens because of immediate managers. Especially on the call floor where the team leader is pretty much the last word on most things for call center executives.

Among the companies, GE Capital topped the list, ranking 1st in four of the eight people related questions. MsourcE came in second by virtue of hovering somewhere among the top four ranks on most questions bar relatively serious issues with the company’s leadership and feedback from managers. And HTMT came in at number two on all questions bar two–help from colleagues and feedback from managers.

Statements Measured (Included): I believe the company’s leadership is doing what is required for the company’s growth; My manager is always available when I need help or advice; My relationship with my peers makes for a better work environment.
Base: 544

Salary and Compensation

To start off, this is not a ranking based on actual salaries but one based on employee satisfaction on their entire compensation package. Employee satisfaction on compensation often tends to extend beyond the actual take home salaries to related issues like salary hikes, appraisals and intangibles like the kind of stress they face at the job and the level of job satisfaction. Man does not live by bread alone and give a man something he enjoys and values, and he’s likely to be happier at a much lesser salary. Conversely, all the money in the world will not buy satisfaction. Example–GE and Convergys are among the lowest paymasters in the industry according to their own employees but have one of the highest satisfactions on that count.

  Reason–Convergys employees are among the least stressed out and most GE employees are happy with their appraisals and believe they get paid enough for the work they do. On the other hand, though e-Funds and Wipro Spectramind have among the highest costs to company, they also have least employee satisfaction on this count.

That said, however, satisfaction on salary remains a key issue for joining a company as well as leaving it. Forty-five per cent of all respondents said they had joined because the money was good, and 40% said they would leave for better money elsewhere. However, though expectation on net salary itself is lower than in the IT and IT services industry, job-hopping is not likely to happen at 20% hikes. Most call center employees expect 25% or above before they’re ready to jump. A sign of the times–competitors are willing to offer those kind of hikes and poaching on each other is a key industry problem.

Statements Measured (Include): I am paid enough for the work I do here; I am getting paid at par with industry standards; I am satisfied with the kind of salary hikes I get; I am satisfied with the perks and benefits available to me.
Base: 544

Appraisal System

This was a bit of a conundrum. It’s an industry where performance is almost entirely metrics driven. It’s also an industry where metrics and the pressure to deliver on them have emerged as significant causes of stress. Yet–by the very fact that the metrics are automatically generated and cannot be argued with–there was comparatively less angst on the appraisal system in the call center industry than in the IT industry. A feeling mostly of–who can argue with the numbers? Yet, despite the overall scores there are issues that need to be tackled. Employees gave the industry the highest scores on “the appraisal system is transparent”. No surprises there. But the lowest scores also went to the question, “the appraisal system is fair”. Implication: while employees aren’t arguing with the numbers, they don’t really like them. Among other trends, this was one of the few parameters where women were comparatively less satisfied than their male co-workers. For an industry with a substantial female workforce, this is not great news. Fewer women said that the appraisal was transparent, fair or that the appraisal parameters were well thought out as compared to their male colleagues.

Among the companies, HTMT topped with the highest strongly agree scores on every single question in the parameter. Wipro Spectramind made it to the third spot with high scores on every question. The only crib–Spectramind employees felt that the appraisal parameters could be better fleshed out. At the bottom of the table was WNS Global where 33% of the employees felt that the appraisal system was unfair.

Statements Measured (Include): The appraisal system in this company is transparent; The appraisal system in this company is fair; The appraisal parameters are well thought out and relevant; Special initiatives and efforts are recognized at the time of appraisal.
Base: 544

SARITA RANI & TV Mahalingam in Bangalore