IT cos: Attrition alarm

For years, the BPO sector, the poster boy of India's IT sector, has been fighting to keep its flock together. But with attrition rates touching 30-60 per cent, it has become a major roadblock for a sector that is pegged to grow at 35 per cent. Now many top ITeS companies have devised an early warning system (EWS) to track employee behaviour and predict their likelihood of leaving. Identifying the employee is just the beginning, the HR has to then work out solutions for every possible employee on the verge of quitting.

Infosys

Infosys BPO calls it `Attrition Forecasting'. “It's an IT-based system which identifies 50 triggers that may lead to an employee leaving,” says Nandita Gurjar, group head, HR, Infosys Technologies. The software tracks their behaviour and shows events such as fluctuating productivity, increased absenteeism, rejections for internal job postings, drop in call quality, increased off-phone time et al. Keeping these in mind, the team leaders then enter qualitative information on a weekly basis after meeting each agent. The data indicates the agent's likeliness to leave with a red, amber or green indicator. Red means the employee is likely to quit within 30 days, amber indicates he is at a risk of quitting, and green shows he's satisfied. Gurjar says EWS system has helped Infosys BPO bring down attrition considerably. "However, such tools will not be effective unless an emotional touch is added to it. The management needs to bond with their employees emotionally. So we have a business HR team on every floor, which acts as a help and counselling desk where agents can discuss various issues." Besides, they have introduced the ‘Performance-based Scheduling programme', under this high-performers are given the chance to choose a work schedule of their choice. This motivates agents to work hard and also helps reduce the numbers that leave because of odd-working schedules.

Convergys

Convergys which employs over 70,000 people in over 75 centres around the world too has devised a EWS for controlling attrition. Masterminds at Convergys sat down and figured out about 50 distinct triggers, which could be as small as hygiene issues that lead to agent attrition. “We use proprietary software that tracks agent behaviour and indicates things like fluctuating productivity, absenteeism, and a myriad others indicators,” explains Tim Huiting, VP (HR) Asia, Convergys Corporation. The system has helped Convergys' contact centres reduce attrition by 15-25 per cent. The company has a ‘Team Leader Transformation' programme with an emphasis on training the team leaders to improve their people-management skills. "Agents with more effective managers have higher job satisfaction, and are less likely to leave,” says Huiting.

Genpact

At Genpact, employees have to go through a mandatory sessions with teamleader every month. “Teamleader assess the information and is able to identify a potential employee who may quit.” says Riju Vashisht, senior VP, HR, Genpact. "We have tailor-made solutions. Depending on what's bothering them, we offer them job rotation, job-enhancement, relocation, team building exercises, etc,” says Vashisht.

Wipro

Wipro BPO too has a system called People Pulse. The people tracker colour codes every Wipro employee - red, amber and green. Red means highly likely to leave. Amber is the middle zone, and green the ones who are most unlikely to leave. They are tracked all the time. The colour zone helps the company focus on them better. Those in the high-risk zone, red, are under constant watch. Any flipping on deadline, more leave applications and shirking of new projects are warning signals that the HR antenna promptly captures.