III.REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

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1 A Study on the various Employee related factors leading to attrition in BPO Industry and establishing the degree of association between these factors and attrition rate Mr. Deepak Kumar, Faculty, Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, DSCE, Bangalore, Karnataka , India Dr. H. Ramakrishna Professor & Head, Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, DSCE, Bangalore-78, India Ms.V.Kripa M. Tech Student, Department of Industrial Engineering & Management, DSCE, Bangalore, Karnataka-78, India I. ABSTRACT: Call centers and outsourcing have become the main components of globalization and is a result of unparalleled scientific and technological development throughout the world. Because of the vast employment opportunities provided by the Call Centers and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), they are called the sunshine industries. Today India is the hub of BPO because of the availability of cheap and qualified workforce, state of the art technology, booming IT and telecommunication sectors and its unique geographical location. But the alarming rate of employee turnover in the Call Centers and other BPO sectors has become a stumbling block for the growth of this sector. In India, the average attrition rate in the BPO sector is approximately percent. Keeping low attrition levels is a major challenge as the demand outstrips the supply of employees by a big margin. The sample size of 209 employees working in Call Centers / BPO s, of Coimbatore, have been used to establish the degree of association. The objectives of the study are to focus on the employee related factors for increasing attrition rate in BPO s / Call Centers in India and find out the degree of association between these factors and attrition rate. Based on this study various strategies are suggested to control the increasing attrition rate in BPOs / Call Centre. The major findings of the study are that a majority of employees who have moved from one company to another company in the field of Call Center / BPO industry belong to the age group of years. Lack of safety for female employees and more career opportunities elsewhere are the topmost reasons for the employees to quit their jobs. Keywords: Globalization, Attrition and Recruitment. II.INTRODUCTION: Call Centers and Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO s) are the new mantras of global business scenario. They are called sunshine industries as they provide job opportunities and generate revenues in India. Outsourcing is the byproduct of this change. In general, when a company decides to focus on its core business and outsource its noncore operations such as customer care, finance, payment services, human resources, insurance claims etc it is called business outsourcing. Of late, BPO has emerged as a popular competitive strategy for multinationals in many developing countries and is creating good opportunities for the educated, talented, unemployed youth in countries like India and China. Outsourcing broadly refers to the transfer of an activity or operation and day-to-day management of business process to an external service provider. In India, the average attrition rate in the BPO sector is approximately 30 to 35 percent. Keeping low the attrition levels is a major challenge as the demand outstrips the supply of good agents by a big margin. Further, the salary growth plan for each employee is not well defined. All this encourages poaching by other companies who can offer a higher salary. III.REVIEW OF LITERATURE: Karthik. D and Rao U. S [1] identified how companies can add value to the existing processes being outsourced and be more efficient. Nitin Aggarwal (2005) examined the key organizational challenge facing the BPO companies in India. There was consensus on attrition being the foremost challenge facing the BPO companies resulting in more cost of attrition, recruitment, lost productivity, training and lost knowledge. Bhaskara Rao V. K [2] identified how day-byday BPO industries are raising all around in India. BPO has emerged as a popular competitive strategy for multinationals in many developing countries and are creating good opportunities for the educated. Kulkarni P K and Gujarati [3] examined career opportunities in the BPO industry. They express that BPO industry offers good money, professional status, job satisfaction and intellectual challenge. Mohammed Ghazi Shahmawaz [4] mentioned some occupational stressors; low salary, low time, low normative commitment, work schedule, relationship etc. in call centres and BPO industries. Adilakhmi P [5] analyzed segment attrition data, spending time during recruitment, build a value proposition and make line managers equally responsible. Abirami Devi and Ranjitham D [6] identified high attrition rate as the biggest challenge faced by IT sector. Nayanathara [7] stated that the multibillion dollar > RJSITM: Volume: 01, Number:05, March-2012 Page 9

2 BPO industry racking its brains to solve the crisis, a complicated one that could prove to be disastrous in the long run. Brand building has become the panacea for the attrition problem. Sanjeev [8] mentioned that, the daily experience is of repetitive, intensive and stressful work, based upon Taylor principles, which frequently results in employee burnout. IV.OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER: The following are the objectives of the study: 1. To review theoretically the problems of attrition in BPO firms and Call centres. 2. To analyze and develop relationship between personal factors and level of satisfaction of the respondents. 3. To offer suggestions for minimizing the attrition rate in BPO firms and Call centres. V.RESEARCH METHODOLOGY: In line with the objectives, this research is empirical and descriptive in nature as it is aimed to find out the reasons and the causes for the increasing attrition rate in Call Centers / BPOs. The sample size for the study is 209 respondents from BPO and Call centre employees. The study is based upon the research and sampling data available. District of Tamil Nadu at various IT / BPO Industries. A number of prestigious IT units have already established their foot prints in the city. The study being empirical in nature would require immense database and Gender and Level of Satisfaction towards Attrition Rate: The result of the chi square test in table 2 indicates that the calculated value (0.477) is less than the table value (5.991) at 5 per cent level of significance for 2 degrees of freedom. Age and Level of Satisfaction towards Attrition Rate: The result of the chi square test in table 3 indicates that the calculated value (67.472) is greater than the table value Educational Status and Level of Satisfaction towards Attrition Rate: The result of the chi square test in table 4 indicates that the calculated value (51.027) is greater than the table value therefore the analysis is based on primary data and secondary collected. Questionnaire was used for collecting data from Call Center / BPO employers and employees. Interview schedules were used as a primary data tool. The secondary data sources include published books, articles, newspapers, and reports of the various consultancy firms, published and unpublished research work of various institutions. In conducting this study, a sample unit was selected from Coimbatore Call Centers / BPO Industries and the information was obtained from 209 employees. Statistical tools such Rank Order, Chi square Test were used to establish the association. VI.ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF THE DATA: The results of the analysis of the data available are presented in table 1.The majority of the respondents i.e % have joined for good salary 37.32% have joined for Bright Career. Prospects, 15.31% have joined because they liked the working environment, 2.39% have joined as part time shift and the rest of respondents i.e. 1.44% have joined for the reasons of make shift job. Thus, it is inferred that majority of the respondents i.e % have joined Call center / BPO Industry for good salary. The result of the chi square test in table 2 indicates that the calculated value (0.477) is less than the table value (5.991) at 5 per cent level of significance for 2 degrees of freedom. Hence the null hypothesis is accepted. The association between the gender of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is not significant. It can be concluded that the association between the gender of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is not significant. Hence the null hypothesis is accepted. The association between the gender of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is not significant. It can be concluded that the association between the gender of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is not significant. freedom. Hence the null hypothesis is rejected. The association between the age group of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is significant. It can, therefore be concluded that the association between the two is significant. freedom. Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected. The association between the educational status of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is significant. It can, therefore, be concluded that the association between the two is significant. Monthly Income and Level of Satisfaction towards Attrition Rate: The result of the chi-square test in table 5 indicates that the calculated value (51.315) is greater than the table value freedom. Hence the null hypothesis is rejected. The association between the Monthly Income of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is significant. It can, therefore, be concluded that the association between the two is significant. VII.FINDINGS: 1. Majority of the respondents i.e % have joined Call centre /BPO for good salary package. > RJSITM: Volume: 01, Number:05, March-2012 Page 10

3 2. The association between the gender of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is not significant. 3. The association between the age group of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is significant. 4. The association between the educational status of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is significant. 5. The association between the Monthly Income of the respondents and their level of satisfaction towards attrition rate is significant. VIII. SUGGESTIONS: 1. The age at which employees join the Call Centres / BPO industries has a positive effect on the average tenure of employees in an organization. Employees taken in at a comparatively lower age have a higher propensity to leave the job. It, therefore, requires an effective recruitment and selection strategy. 2. The educational status of the respondents has a positive effect on the tenurity of employees in the organisation. Employees taken with higher educational qualification tends to leave the job with good prospects coming their way. So it is wise for the HR department only to recruit graduates or under graduates. 3. The monthly income has a also a positive effect on the tenurity of employees in the organisation. And also due to increasing inflation in Indian economy, it is advisable to provide a good renumeration to the employees to meet their personal needs. X.REFERENCES: [1] Karthik. D and Rao U. S, (2004), Strategies for entering high value added BPO services, IBAT Journal of Management, Vol. 1, No. 1, January 2004, pp [2] Baskara Rao. V. K Growth of BPO and Call Centers in India, HRD Times, April 2006, Vol. 8, No.4, pp [3] Kulakarni P. K and Gujarati, Career opportunities in BPO, MBA Review Vol. V, No. VIII, August [7] Nayanathara (2007), Indian BPO industry, Chille Breeze, July IX. CONCLUSION: Call centre is the latest buzzword on the Indian business scenario. Its economic rationale is well established but people off late have started questioning its human implications. The growth of ITES and BPO companies is enormous; they provide substantial employment opportunities. The attrition rate causes substantial loss to the company as discussed earlier. This means, the company needs to solve this problem by adopting a suitable strategy to reduce attrition rate in future. Human Resource practices play a vital role in the organization. The main function of the HR is to find the right person, for the right job at the right time. But, it is very difficult to find the person who can stay with the organization for a long time especially in ITES and BPO companies. There is a need to identify the people with a mind-set who would stick with the organization for a long period. They must adopt the best HR practices which help to identify the right persons and also help to retain them in the organization. Diversification in terms of age, experience, qualification, family background, culture etc, brings more innovativeness to the organization. The company could provide employment to the categories like physically challenged people, youngsters from rural areas, housewives, etc. BPO is likely to continue under all kinds of circumstances. The companies around the world have become habitual in moving their BPO work to India. The future of BPO industry appears to be bright and shining and has been in great demand in India because of low costs and educated workforce. [4] Mohammed Ghazi Shahnawaz Occupational stress in call centers Myth or Reality, Abhigyam, Vol. XXIV, No.3, October December 2006, pp [5] Adilakshmi P, Employee Attrition Critical Issues HRD Times, Vol.11, No.7, Sept 2006, pp [6] Abirami Devi K and Ranjitham D, Attrition Rate way to control, MBA Review Vol. VI, Issues II, February2007. [8] Sanjeev (2008), Stress, Human Issues in Call Centers and BPO industry, January > RJSITM: Volume: 01, Number:05, March-2012 Page 11

4 TABLE 1: REASONS STATED FOR JOINING A CALL CENTRE/BPO INDUSTRY Sl. no Reasons Number of Respondents Percentage 1. Good salary Working environment Bright career prospects Part time job Make shift job TOTAL TABLE 2: GENDER AND LEVEL OF SATISFACTION TOWARDS ATTRITION RATE Sl. no Gender Level of satisfaction Total 1. Male 27(58.7) 55(55.6) 39(60.9) Female 19(41.3) 44(44.4) 25(39.1) 88 Factor Calculated value Table value Degree of freedom Remarks Gender Not significant TABLE 3: AGE AND LEVEL OF SATISFACTION TOWARDS ATTRITION RATE Sl. No Gender Level of satisfaction Total 1. Below 30 years 12(26.1) 47(47.5) 59(92.2) years 29(63.0) 28(28.3) 3(4.7) Above 40 years 5(10.9) 24(24.2) 2(3.1) 31 Age Significant at 5%level TABLE 4: EDUCATIONAL STATUS AND LEVEL OF SATISFACTION TOWARDS ATTRITION RATE Sl.no Gender Level of satisfaction Total 1. Graduates 14(30.4) 63(63.6) 28(43.8) Post graduates 13(28.3) 23(23.2) 36(56.3) Diploma 19(41.3) 13(13.1) 0 32 Educational Significant at 5%level qualification > RJSITM: Volume: 01, Number:05, March-2012 Page 12

5 TABLE 5: MONTHLY INCOME AND LEVEL OF SATISFACTION TOWARDS ATTRITION RATE Sl. no Gender Level of satisfaction Total 1. Below Rs (10.9) 11(11.1) 35(54.7) Rs (78.3) 67(67.7) 18(28.1) Above (10.9) 21(21.2) 11(17.2) 37 Monthly income Significant at 5% > RJSITM: Volume: 01, Number:05, March-2012 Page 13