Indian BPO Security Issues

It was in 2005 that a Bangalore based BPO employee, Prathibha, was murdered. This incident created havoc around the country in an otherwise booming Indian BPO industry. The security of employees then became the primary focus of BPO companies and all companies operating at night came up with several security measures to counter the issues of security, especially to female employees. It is a normal practice for BPOs that operate at night to provide pick and drop facilities to their employees and prior to this Bangalore incident, not many companies had the practice of providing security personnel for each drop. In the aftermath of the Bangalore incident the companies came forward with measures such as “no first pick up should be a female employee” and “no last drop should be a female employee”. If it is necessary for a female employee to be last dropped then it was made mandatory to provide a security person for each such drop. In addition the companies vouched to do a stringent background check of each one of their transport suppliers and their drivers as well, preventing those drivers with a criminal background to be used for their services.
How many BPOs still continue to follow such stringent measures? The answer appears not to be not many, as the very recent incident in Pune, India suggests. A 22 year old female employee, Jyoti Chaudary, of IT Major Wipro call center was allegedly raped and murdered by the driver of a taxi which was hired by the company and an accomplice, according to the initial reports coming out in the media. Though complete details are not yet available, it does raise eyebrows as to why the female employee was first picked up. It also raises our concerns as to whether the employees are taking enough additional care as to ensure their own safety and security.
This incident again brought to light the rising security issues in the BPO industry and will have an impact on the industry as a whole. After the Bangalore incident, it has become a tough exercise for recruiters to convince female candidates to take BPO jobs on night shifts and most parents are now reluctant to allow their children to work on night shifts. Unlike other countries, in India, parents play a vital role in the career decisions of their children, at least during the initial stages of their careers. BPOs expect very good communication skills as the mandatory skill set and most female candidates possess good communication track records. If this incident adds to the existing fears of night shift jobs in the BPO industry, particularly among female employees, the Indian BPO industry will definitely face productivity issues in the near future. It has become a waiting and watching game to see how BPOs will face the rising issues of security and employee safety.

Resources From HRWorld

HRWorld.com recently published 100 Resources for Interviewers and Candidates. The publication can be viewed on the HRWorld.com site.

Upcoming HRO Workshop

A workshop on Understanding and Integrating Talent Management Technologies is planned by Human Capital Institute of India in Bangalore. The event is scheduled to take place this year on August 23rd. The workshop is going to be facilitated by Alan Schweyer, President and Executive Director for Human Capital Institute. Alan is best known for his long years of experience in HR and his famous book writings such as Talent Management Systems: Best Practices in Technology Solutions for Recruitment, Retention and Workforce Planning.
For complete details of this event please visit: HR Outsourcing

Hiring in India HRO

When I met the Senior VP of Human Resources in one of the top notch MNC a couple of months ago on a promotion drive for HRO Manager, one of his comments took me by surprise. When I told him about how key decision makers on HRO look at informative websites for making their business decisions whether it be for vendor selection or product selection, he stated that he believes many business leaders have neither the time nor the interest to look at website for information that could influence their business decisions.
This may be true to some extent when it comes to taking complex business decisions such as whether or not to outsource their HR and so forth, but how far does this hold true for HR Managers holding key responsibilities who can not allocate time to updating themselves on the latest happing in HR around the world?
When I met another senior HR manager in a call center based in Chennai, India, I asked him if he looks at any HR informative channels such as websites or blogs in specific and his answer was a resounding NO. The reason given was that the bulk of his time is spent hiring talent. This made me think for a while. If this a trend visible in India alone or does is stretch around the world? When I look at my Google Analytics Statistics for HRO Manager, 75% of hits come from the United States, 20% come from Europe and only 5% come from India. This might be a realistic figure given that my site contains more articles pertaining to the United States. However, a mere 5% figure coming from India really concerns me. From my experience and what I have personally observed during my interactions with various senior HR managers in India, it is clear that Indian HR is mostly concerned with hiring and not in a position to go that extra mile in terms of a whole transformation into a strategic HR center competing with global HR standards.
Viewing HR as a strategic business center is still fiction in India and is not currently being viewed as a reality. The everyday job in a typical Indian HR department begins with viewing job requisitions from line managers, job postings, interacting with consultants, conducting entry and exit interviews, documenting for new joiners and exits and so forth. We have yet to see HR leaders playing a vital role in key executive meetings and most of the key HR decisions are still being taken by CEO or COO and the HR heads have simply to implement these decisions. There is a huge cry from among the community to bring a new role to the HR controller or chief Human Resources Officer in Global HR. however; India HR is still far from accepting this. It may be past time for Indian HR to transform into strategic HR centers.

Aon Consulting Survey Results

Aon Consulting Survey Results
May 14th, 2007
Aon Consulting, the human consulting organization of Aon Corporation, released the results of its Benefits and Talent Survey for 2007. The results of the survey are listed below in brief:
* 4 out of 5 organizations consider recruiting and selecting talent a top or critical issue for 2007
* 63% believe their organizations’ need to recruit and select the best talent will substantially increase in the coming 3 ~ 5 years
* Leadership positions will also be at risk with the impending workers shortage with more than 40% of the companies currently experiencing or will experience a leadership shortage in the next 1 ~ 4 years
* More than 98% of the selected respondents expect that recruiting high-performing employees for most critical jobs will continue to be difficult
* 77% of organizations provide a general overview of benefits with no dollar figure while communicating the total compensation package
* 42% of organizations said that the candidate went elsewhere for compensation that was perceived to be higher

Indian Job Portal Competition

It has been more than a month since TimesJobs.com, taking the cue from its own group owned newspaper, Economic Times, claimed No.1 among all Indian job sites. TimesJobs.com took an interesting tag line to send a message to the market - Everyone is Quitting Naukri - while proclaiming itself as No.1 in terms of the highest number of active resumes and other grounds.
The tag line created a controversy and there was even some buzz that Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO of Naukri, planned to file a suit against TimesJobs.com for its wrong claims and the use of the tag line. Some analysis felt that the strategy adopted by TimesJobs.com was a sales strategy. The idea behind the strategy might just be to create an impression in the minds of Indian job seekers and employers and that this claim would be well taken by market players since the news came from one of the most prestigious newspapers in the country. Critics however, claimed that TimesJobs.com was in fact using a “duplication of resumes” tactic to claim the highest number of active resumes. Reports stated that TimesJobs.com asked job seekers through email notification to upload their resumes more than once, despite the fact that they were already registered members.
Naukri.com refuted this analogy of TimesJobs.com using the traffic statistics as the basis for proving its claim. It claims No.1 in terms of highest traffic shares 63% sourced from Alexa. It also claims No.1 from 6 other independent sources besides Alexa. Just recently, Naukri.com was using its email distribution program to promote this fact to all its members.

EquaTerra Pulse Survey Results - Q1

The much anticipated results of EquaTerra BPO service provider’s pulse survey for 1Q2007 and predictions for 2H2007 have finally been released. The survey presents many interesting and valuable insights to the BPO industry players. The survey covered key process areas in outsourcing, call center, F&A, human resources, information technology and procurement. Global players polled in the survey include Accenture, ACS, Ariba, CapGemini, Convergys, Covansys, CSC, ExcellerateHRO, Getronics, Hewitt, HP, IBM, Infosys, mercer, Outsource Partners International, TCS and Unisys. The survey does not capture any quantitative market size information. However, it does capture changes in demand, scope, capacity and related key market indicators. The survey is mainly focused on US and Western Europe. Below are the highlights of the survey pertaining to HRO:
* HRO occupied one of the 3 leading market segments, ITO and FAO being the other two segments.
* Leading HRO processes identified from the survey include payroll, Benefits, HRIT
* Demand continues to grow for HRO despite change in demand growth slipped in 1Q07
* HRO service provider capacity remains tight and deal pursuit selective
* Increased HRO contract complexity is hurting the demand growth and market uptake.
* Demand trend for HRO slipped by 15% to 41% taking the HRO to second place in the overall outsourcing demand.
* HRO functional demand ranking is in line with 4Q06 at 30%
* Demand for recruiting and Talent management has been growing
* Recruitment and Talent management are still more often unbundled from larger HRO deals. Same is the case with Learning and Training services
* Transactional process outsourcing continue to be higher while growth in demand for training and learning in HRO suggest that buyers are continuing to expand outsourcing into more knowledge-centered areas.
* Service provider capacity constraints are impacting the HRO market, for at least the last six quarters, following the rapid growth in 2004-2005.
* Competitive sourcing defined as outsourcing multiple processes within a functional area is becoming more common
* The emergence of Indian service providers is both a driver and manifestation of buyers’ interest in multi provider sourcing
* In HRO areas like RPO, the trend is for buyers to outsource the processes that in the past were typically out of scope to specialist firms while directing more traditional HRO processes to legacy providers
* The HRO market, particularly for large global deals remains challenged
Source: EquaTerra
For more information on EquaTerra’s research efforts, please contact Stan Lepeak @ +1 203 458 0677 ; stan.lepeak @ Equaterra.com

Nelson Hall Research

Nelson Hall, a global BPO analyst firm, announced its latest research titled HR Issues and Initiatives: 2007. In this research, the firm pointed out that HR organizations are turning to be more strategic in nature, shifting their focus from cost-reduction to talent management improvement exercises, reports PRNewswire.
The summary of key HR initiatives for 2007 detailed by the firm in brief:
* Talent management initiatives, including improvements to recruitment processes, changing remuneration schemes to reduce staff turnover, new training initiatives, improved identification of, and reward for, good performance, improvements to absence management procedures, and employee turnover reduction initiatives
* Streamlining HR processes and rebalancing the location of HR service delivery. The latter involves both the development of common processes and the centralization of HR and also increasingly the introduction of local HR staff to assist in removing the barriers between HR and employees
* Cost reduction initiatives including reducing numbers of HR personnel and rationalizing benefits costs
* Sourcing initiatives to rebalance HR services between internal and external service delivery.

Accenture Hiring Plans

Accenture, the world’s second largest consulting firm increased its plans to hire 60,000 people worldwide, 35,000 of which will be hired in India. The hiring plans are in line with its more than expected Q2 profits fueled by HR, F&A and payables outsourcing coupled with its consulting business contracts. Net income climbed to $296.7 million, or 47 cents a share, in the quarter ending Feb. 28, from $69.7 million, or 11 cents, a year earlier. The company currently employs 152,000.

HR Business Excellence Award

During the London Chamber of Commerce 24th Annual Business Achievement awards, Ernst & Young was awarded with Business excellence in HR. The award is given considering the consulting firm’s progressive hiring, retaining and recognition practices in Canada. The awards will be finalized based on recruiting, recognition and retention practices at companies facing talent shortages in London, Ontario.

MetLife Survey

MetLife recently conducted a survey on US employers and employees for its Study of Employees Benefits Trends. This year’s findings make a compelling case that benefits strategy holds the key to one of many employers’ most pressing challenges - the need to recruit and retain the best talent in an increasingly competitive labor market.
Highlights of the Survey are listed below:
* 1,514 benefits decision-makers from organizations with a minimum of 2 employees were interviewed for the survey
* 61 percent of employers surveyed had fewer than 500 employees
* 20 percent employers had 5,000 or more employees
* More than 55 percent of the benefits decision-makers agreed that retaining employees is the main goal in creating a benefits plan
* Controlling costs is secondary
* Among employees who considered themselves “highly satisfied” with their job, 80 percent reported being “highly satisfied” with their benefits
* Seventy-two percent of the 1,202 workers cited workplace benefits as the reason they joined their current employer, and 83 percent cited it as one of the reasons they remain.

Survey from Salary.com

Survey from Salary.com
March 19th, 2007
Employees prefer to work for a small or medium company for various reasons outlined below:
* Small companies are less regimented than the large ones
* Small companies impose fewer policies that govern employee conduct
* Small companies can be located much closer to residential areas rather than companies
* Employees of small companies experience high levels of accountability and a noticeable impact on business results
* Small employees provide employees with more responsibility and power to execute
* Small companies offer opportunity for meaningful relationships with co-workers and customers
Employees prefer working for a large company only for the reason that they may provide the employees with high fringe benefits and there is a scope for advancement within the organization.
The above are revealed in salary.com’s 2006 survey on Working for a small or medium size business. For a complete survey report, please visit salary.com

Cognet HRO Launches Corporate Performance Management Solutions

Cognet HRO, a global HR outsourcing provider, launched corporate performance management (CPM) solutions to Indian companies and abroad. “The CPM solution offering is a big milestone for Cognet HRO. The new solution will help us expand into other verticals” said its Founder and CEO Mr. Ram. Currently, only few corporate biggies house this solution in India. Cognet HRO’s solution is expected to corner a major market share in performance management solutions, especially in India, which is still in its embryo stage in implementing a systematized CPM solution. On the latest acquisitions like the Oracle - Hyperion deal, SAP - Pilot software deal, Mr. Ram said that the performance management industry is experiencing a consolidation zone currently and he expects the trend to continue a little while further.
About Cognet HRO
Cognet HRO is an Indian based HR services company providing HR outsourcing, Recruitment Process Outsourcing, and Staffing & Recruitment services to companies in India and abroad. The company is also supported by its dedicated HR research & Analysis wing possessing rich experience and exposure to global HR industry.
Press Release through HRO MANAGER, the research & Analysis publication desk of Cognet HRO

Achievant Human Capital Management Services

A new company based in Indianapolis, Achievant, has been established to help banks and credit unions maximize the performance of their people. The company is focused on improving the financial institutions’ ability to recruit, assimilate, compensate and manage the performance of employees while insuring the actions of employees align with organizational goals. This report comes from Business Wire.
Achievant’s initial human capital management services and technology platform supports recruitment, the processes necessary to bring a new hire into the organization and get them productive as quickly as possible, referred to as employee onboarding, compensation and performance management processes.

CareerBuilder.com Acquisitions

In a Press Release yesterday, CareerBuilder.com announced that it has acquired two leading online recruitment sites in Northern Europe. The two sites are Sweden’s Jobbguiden.se and the Netherlands’s JobbingMall.nl. This move is the company’s latest step in its international expansion. These acquisitions are supposed to add more than 1 million new job seekers to CareerBuilder’s international network. According to the terms of the agreement, the two portals will retain their existing brand names, but will be powered by CareerBuilder’s technology.
According to the company’s viewpoint, the European online recruitment market is expected to generate $1Billion in spending in 2007.
CareerBuilder.com began its international expansion in the Spring of 2006, building its presence through a combination of organic development, partnerships and acquisitions as market conditions warranted. CareerBuilder.com launched organic sites in Canada and the United Kingdom. In addition, the company forged strong partnerships in China with 51Job and in South Korea with Incruit. In India, CareerBuilder.com launched a site while maintaining a close partnership with Naukri.

HR Metrics Series I - Time to Fill

Having discussed Employee Attrition as a Key HR metric in our earlier post, let us now shift the focus to another key HR metric - Time to Fill.
Time to Fill is a metric applicable to measuring the performance levels of an HR department as a whole, RPO company as a whole, recruiter or an HR generalist.
Time to Fill is defined as the average time taken to fill an available open position in a company. It starts when a line manager puts a requirement order with HR and ends with the time when the position is actually filled.
Having this metric offers several advantages.
1. It helps HR by giving information on the exact time frame for filling a position which in turn helps the line managers in resources planning
2. It helps defining SLA between a company and an RPO
3. It helps in benchmarking performance of HR executives (recruitment)
4. It helps in increasing the productivity
Defining a standard Time to Fill for each position and for each department and thereby comparing the actual Time to Fill for the said positions will give a trend line. This metric plays a vital role when an organization is on a massive recruitment drive.
Related Posts:
HR Metrics Series I - Employee Attrition

HR Metrics Series I - Employee Attrition

In this post we would like to discuss one of the key HR metrics - Employee Attrition. We will discuss this metric on 2 dimensions:
1. Measurement
2. Studying the Operational Impact on Account of Turnover
Before we head into the discussion, let’s first understand what Employee Turnover means. Employee Turnover can be defined as the number of separations divided by the total headcount. This is a volatile factor. The higher the Turnover, the lower the productivity. The lower the Turnover, the higher the productivity. However, separations due to operational constraints are not considered for Turnover as a metric in determining HR performance. Say for example a company realizes that its branch in a particular location is not giving them the desired returns. The company may want to close that branch. The separations resulting from this decision do not constitute the Turnover. The number of separations and replacements as a whole constitutes the HR transactions. The costs that are associated with Turnover are termed as Turnover costs.
Measurement
Turnover = Number of separations / Total headcount
Utilization = Total headcount / Absolute Employee count
Cost = Number of HR Transactions * Cost per Transaction
* Headcount here in this post reflects the actual workforce required to do the job in question.
Does this have an impact on Operational Efficiency or just a pure HR metric? Turnover does have an absolute impact on operational efficiency. The more an employee stays with the company, the more the productivity is boosted by the factor of experience addition. The more the turnover, the more is the Time to hire, the more is the Time-to -be-competent, the lesser is the operational efficiency.
Hence Measuring & Monitoring Turnover from an HR perspective serves the dual objectives of containing the Turnover costs as well as driving the operational efficiency. Moreover, Organizations hire people in excess of permissible headcount in order to have a ready buffer available to meet sudden needs posed by separations. The longer an employee continues with an organization, the lesser its headcount requirement as well.
What is the Time period to be selected for measuring the Turnover? Research suggests the more the time period, the lesser is the variation visible in Turnover. Hence, it is recommended to go for short-term time frames, say 4 weeks.

HRMarketer launches online community for HR suppliers

HRMarketer launches online community for HR suppliers
February 6th, 2007
HRMarketer, the No.1 HR Marketing and visibility service, has recently launched a new secure site, a social networking community, the very first of its kind in the HR industry. The site is aimed at companies to sell HR products and services.
The new site provides HR and employee benefit vendors with secure setting for networking opportunities, job listings and more.

Partnership Between Headway and Scintellix

Headway Corporate Resources, a full-service human resources support company that provides executive recruiting, staffing and human resource support services to a range of business sectors, today announced that the Company has entered into a joint partnership with Scintellix, LLC, a biomedical technology consulting firm, in a newly created service offering, LifeScience Resources.

Talent Shortage Study

While I was going through posts in our HR blog the post on Talent Shortage attracted my interest. I thought to add a post on this study. It was earlier explained in my article on Forecast for 2007 that recruitment is set to take a big piece of the HR pie. This post from the said blog just substantiates one of reasons behind this analysis. Talent shortage is a global phenomenon. This phenomenon is more commonly observed in nations pumped with flushing opportunities. Why does this happen? Let us just apply the simple economics of demand and supply relationship out here. When the opportunities are higher (demand) while there is a crunch in number of resources (supply), then it brings a talent-opportunity mismatch. You can’t find the right talent for the right opportunity in all cases. What does this implicate? A very high demand for Recruiters. A very high demand for RPO companies. When a company cannot find the right talent it will be left with an option to approach a Recruiting company to take care of its hiring. Though we know the recruiting consultant numbers are rising day by day, this will not be a constraint considering the resource crunch. This trend will hold true even in a slow job market. When the opportunities are less and the talent is higher, it forces the talent to approach the recruiters for opportunities. Either way, recruiters benefit from these two situations.
Posted in BPO, Business, HR, HR Outsourcing, HRO, Human Resource Information, Operations,

Accenture:Accelerating New contracts

Accenture has added another client to its Human resources outsourcing portfolio. The client is North American based Kimberly Clark corporation. Accenture entered into a 7 year contract to provide non-strategic human resources outsourcing services with the latter. As part of the understanding, Accenture will be providing Kimberly with Recruitment Services, Payroll Administration, Workforce Reporting, Employee Data Management, and Training and Development. In addition to these services, Accenture will be developing a customized and enhanced web portal to provide Kimberly’s workforce with online benefit and education materials. This is something which I was stressing in my earlier articles. HRO providers should be going an extra mile in their service orientation to clients.