A STUDY ON PROBLEMS FACED BY WORKING WOMEN OF BPO SECTOR IN MYSURU

International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology (IJMET) Volume 9, Issue 1, January 2018, pp. 399 406, Article ID: IJMET_09_01_043 Available online at http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/issues.asp?jtype=ijmet&vtype=9&itype=1 ISSN Print: 0976-6340 and ISSN Online: 0976-6359 IAEME Publication Scopus Indexed A STUDY ON PROBLEMS FACED BY WORKING WOMEN OF BPO SECTOR IN MYSURU M.P.Bavya and Raghunandan M.V Department of Management & Commerce, Amrita School of Arts & Sciences, Mysuru Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Mysuru, Karnataka, India ABSTRACT: Women s participation in every sector is undoubtedly high and women employees constitute one third part of the BPO sector but there are various difficulties faced by them. Women who work in BPOs generally have an issue in balancing between three jobs i.e. office, household and child care. It is also felt that they aren t given equal opportunities and the evaluation of performance isn t fair. This study aims at understanding the difficulties faced by women while working in BPOs. The aim of the study is also to identify the various attributes that adds to a women s safety and security. The objectives of the study are to analyze the problems faced by women in BPO sector and to understand the influence of education on women working in BPO sector. The study was conducted in Mysore city and data was collected by giving the respondents, structured questionnaires. The sample size of the study was 50 and the tool used is reliability test, factor analysis and one way anova test. The result obtained from the study says that hesitation is the problem that stands with women. Keywords: women employee, BPO, problems, hesitation, family. Cite this Article: M.P.Bavya and Raghunandan M.V, A Study on Problems Faced By Working Women of Bpo Sector in Mysuru, International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Technology 9(1), 2018. pp. 399 406. http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/issues.asp?jtype=ijmet&vtype=9&itype=1 1. INTRODUCTION: In earlier days the contribution of a woman was restricted only to her home and family but now, crossing the thorny boundaries of the society, women have ventured into corporate. The growth of education and awareness has led women to work in industries and corporate. Women are not only the backbone of nuclear and joint families but also the national economy. Women have started venturing into areas which were seen as dominated by men. Women in all fields have proved their excellence and skills. Women have proved their commitment and versatility for ages and have also carried different roles successfully. When highlighting BPO industry, women constitute a major part of the BPO sector and their contribution to this area is huge. The specific reasons behind joining this industry are easy http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/index.asp 399 editor@iaeme.com

A Study on Problems Faced By Working Women of Bpo Sector in Mysuru entry and exit, acceptable remuneration and not much qualification. Despite all these facts, women still find it difficult to cross the boundaries of their home and make future in the corporate world. Further they also face issues like gender discrimination, harassment, stress and less support from the family. Women employees are sometimes benchmarked against the male counterparts, despite the fact that they undergo the same hardships to accomplish their objectives. A married woman has higher responsibility to take care of children and the family and hence encounter difficult situations sometimes. It is also because of the office norms that a woman employee has to leave job as some companies do not facilitate them with maternal and child care leaves. The growth of the BPO sector has been highly inspiring but it has also caused tremendous changes in the life of its employees. As organization s expectation from an employee is high, employees have to focus on their demands which creates work life imbalance resulting in stress. What makes the situation more alarming is the unique nature of work as employees are only subjected to their work and recreations are generally ignored. Along with all these facts another add on is that women are seldom considered for managerial posts as somewhere the old and outdated prejudice prevails in the society about the efficiency of a woman s work. The great scientist Albert Einstein says that Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep our balance we must keep moving. The participation of women has also raised the challenges to balance between responsibilities of paid work and family life as there is barely a time when there isn t any struggle. As the years have passed the societal framework for women has also been newly designed. Though the change is but slow, women are more liberated and the role of women has undergone changes. However there are instances when the safety and security of women at work place can be questioned. This particular study aims at studying and understanding the different difficulties faced by professional women in BPO and the facilities that a woman must be provided when at work place. The objective of the study is to know the benefits provided to the female employees in a company and to understand in its true context, the different hindrances or difficulties faced in work life in BPO. OBJECTIVES: 1) To study and analyze the problems faced by the working women of BPO sector in Mysore 2) To analyze the influence of education on perceiving the problems by working women of BPO sector 2. LITERATURE REVIEW: No. Author & Title Methodology Conclusion Date & Journal 1. 2. Women and BPOs in India Dr. Kousar Jahan Ara Begum Problems faced by working employees in BPO sector Dr.Patil Amol & Ashok Kumar Data were collected using face to face interview and through two focus group discussions. The data collected was by questionnaires. Women find it difficult to balance between paid work and family and also face high stress due to work overload and other issues. For this study descriptive type Women are suppressed and are research design and sampling discriminated both at work places method was adopted. Primary and at home. They are not able to data was collected through give quality time to their family structured questionnaires. and hence face hurdles to Secondary data was collected maintain a balance between work from books, journals, magazine life and family. and unpublished reports etc. humanities and social science invention, Volume 2, Issue 5, My 2013 North Asian international research journal of social science and Humanities, Vol-3 Issue-8 August 2017 http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/index.asp 400 editor@iaeme.com

M.P.Bavya and Raghunandan M.V 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Women in the work place - BPO industry CM Sudha &Arogya Mary A study on gender issues in the workplace of women employees in BPO sector, India Dr. SA Sameera & Mr.Shakir Shaik Women employees in BPO s and call centers: problems and solutions Arvinder Kaur & Shivani Gupta Challenges faced by working women at workplace, family and society: its major issues, impact and remedial measures Ms Shivi Mittal, Ms Sapna Sharma &Prof(Dr) Prabhat Srivastava Problem faced by women executives working in public sector banks in Puducherry P. Ashok Kumar & Dr. K Sundar Gender issues of women employees at work place in Indian BPO sector Dr. TN Murthy, Govinda Pedireddi & Sayyed Imtiyaz A study of work life balance with special reference to Indian call center employees Parul Agarwal Mental and physical health related problems of call center workers Dr. Vaibhav kumar Ramanuj The study is based on primary and secondary data. Questionnaire was prepared and She states that women generally followed. Books were referred quit BPO jobs especially because for secondary data collection. they are not provided various Research design used is allowances descriptive research and sample design is stratified random sampling Data collection was through questionnaire and sample size was 100. Primary data was collected through questionnaire and secondary data was collected through articles, research papers and journals on women empowerment. Data were collected using personal contact approach and questionnaires. Primary data was collected through pre tested, structured interview schedule by direct interview method. This study was conducted by exploratory research method A sample size of 100 call center workers was interviewed. They state that women employees are not considered for higher posts in management and a woman s career development is largely influenced by other s opinion. Women are a huge part of the BPO industry but they face several challenges like safety and security issues at workplaces and these issues need to be addressed very sensitively Women face much gender challenges. Women are not considered for higher posts largely and they do not get maternal leaves and there is lack of effective mechanism to several law implementations regarding the interests of women. Women executives face mental stress and face exploitation due to their submissive nature. Majority of the women employees are not considered for higher post and hence it can be derived that discrimination prevails in the work places. Work life programs have the potential to significantly improve employee morals, reduce absenteeism and retain organizational knowledge. Hence employees must be equipped with such programs that help restore mental happiness. It was observed that the call center employees feel occupational burnout and the level of stress was high in both the shifts Journal of philosophy, culture and religion Vol-3,2015 Asian journal of Management Sciences Gian jyoti journal Volume 1 Issue 3 (Apr-Jun 2012) research in social science and Humanities Volume 5, issue 11 marketing, financial services & management research Volume 1, July 2012 National monthly referred journal of research in commerce and management. Volume 2, Issue 2 engineering and management research Volume 4, Issue 1, February 2014 Research article http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/index.asp 401 editor@iaeme.com

A Study on Problems Faced By Working Women of Bpo Sector in Mysuru 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. Stress among working women Vemuri Swathi & M Sudhir Reddy Women employee work life and challenges to industrial relations: Evidences from North Kerala S Rajesh & Manoj PK The perspective of challenges for women HR managers in Indian BPO industry A case study on psychological and physical stress undergone by married working women Bhuvaneshwari M Women empowerment in the BPO sector in Bangalore Damini Singhal &Nidhi Maheshwari An impact of stress on women employees with reference to selected BPOs in Visakhapatnam T Narayana Rao & Dr.V Srinivasa Prasad A study on employee retention in BPO sector with special reference to Coimbatore city S Mohan & Dr. PR Muthu Swamy Problems and prospects of women employees in BPO sector: a study of selected BPOs in Delhi and NCR Sarangdevot, S S Yadav, Rajender Kumar Sharma, Rakesh Kumar Work life balance issues of women at call centers Sujata, T Lata Singh, and Sapna. Different literatures were reviewed and data was collected through questionnaires The respondents were personally contacted and interviewed in the factory premises during the off duty hours. This study is based on both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected by way of administering a structured questionnaire. Questionnaires were used to collect primary data. Random sampling method was used and data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Survey method was employed to collect data from the respondents through questionnaires. Primary data was collected through questionnaires. Questionnaires were collected using primary data and secondary data by referring journals Primary data was collected through questionnaires and personal interviews. The study reveals that working women are generally involved in many tasks like balancing between the family and work life which is a reason for stress and reduced performance. This study aims at factors like low salary, job insecurity, harassment at workplace, shift work, lack of legal protection and poor working conditions. This study concludes that programs can be organized to create awareness in the women workforce regarding all the aspects. Women in managerial posts also have the problems that any women employee has. This study concludes that stress can be well managed through institutional support. Gender bias still prevails in the society as women are sometimes not considered for higher management posts in the work places. Job related stress is a major challenge for working women. Organizations have to understand the needs of the women employees and must provide counseling sessions. The management must try to retain those employees who are really important for the system i.e. effective contributors to the organization In this study it was observed that women working in BPOs were subject to stress and the issues of safety was a question This study focuses on the problems faced by women to balance between their job in the office and household duties. computational engineering and management Volume 19, Issue 4, July 2016 computational engineering and management Volume 19, Issue 4, July 2016 International journal in multidisciplinary and academic research, Volume 3, Issue 3. Journal of business management Volume 14 Issue 6, Nov-Dec 2013. ethics in engineering and management education, Volume 1, Issue 8, August 2014 scientific research and management. informative and futuristic research Volume 2, Issue 6, Feb 2015 IUP Journal of Entrepreneurship Development, Hyderabad, Volume 9, Issue 2, June 2012 (2011) IUP Journal of Entrepreneurship Development, Hyderabad, Volume 10, Issue 4, October http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/index.asp 402 editor@iaeme.com

M.P.Bavya and Raghunandan M.V 20. Problems faced by working women in India Dr. Kamini, B Dashora A detailed study of the related articles, books and journals were done and data was collected through interviews and questionnaires. It was found in this study that Advanced Research in women face various problems Management and related to safety, stress and family Social Sciences, support while working. ISSN:2278-6236 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: The present study is confined to women employees working in BPO sector in Mysuru. This study lights upon women employees working in BPOs in Mysuru and the different challenges like gender discrimination, harassment, stress faced by them while at work. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS The first objective of this paper i.e., to study and analyse the problems faced by working women in Mysore, Karnataka. The important dimensions were considered from the literature survey for the problems faced by working women. Those are: Hesitation, Gender Discrimination, Salary, Insecurity, Family Support and Stress. Each dimension was measured nearly four to five variables using Likert scale 1 to 5. The data was collected using questionnaire for the sample of fifty working women of BPO sector in Mysore. The sample size was restricted to fifty due to feasibility, ease and involvement of cost. The reliability test or Cronbach s Alpha was conducted for the above said dimensions. This test is generally used for internal consistency of data collected using the questionnaire. The reliability test was conducted using SPSS (Software Package for Social Sciences) version 14 and results are shown in the Table 1.1. Table 1.1 Reliability test for problems faced by women Dimension Cronbach s Alpha Hesitation 0.67 Gender Discrimination 0.62 Salary 0.65 Insecurity 0.71 Family Support 0.69 Stress 0.66 Cronbach s Alpha values obtained in the Table 1.1 are more than 0.60 and this was considered acceptable level for small size of data. In the questionnaire, questions were framed to measure these dimensions. These dimensions were analysed based on the average ratings given by the working women. Initially, average ratings were considered for each variable with respect to each dimension. Then the average of each dimension was calculated with respect to all variables of that dimension. The results are shown in the Table 1.2. After getting the average of the dimensions, it has given ranks based on the average. Higher the average indicates the higher rank and this has been considered as most influencing dimension for the problem faced by working women. According to this Hesitation dimension was the highest rank and this was considered as most influencing dimension for problems faced by working women. Other reasons followed this in the order; Salary, Insecurity, Stress, Gender Discrimination and Family Support. This indicates Hesitation is the general characteristic of the women in the society. They always hesitate to give any information to male higher officer or sharing of information to others. The lowest influencing problem was family support; generally working women have family support in all respect by the family. http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/index.asp 403 editor@iaeme.com

A Study on Problems Faced By Working Women of Bpo Sector in Mysuru Table 1.2 Average ratings for dimensions Dimensions Variables Average of variables Average Rank Hesitation Q1 4.62 Hesitation Q2 4.06 Hesitation Hesitation Q3 3.60 3.94 I Hesitation Q4 3.98 Hesitation Q5 3.46 Gender Discrimination Q1 2.60 Gender Discrimination Gender Discrimination Q2 3.28 Gender Discrimination Q3 3.38 3.24 V Gender Discrimination Q4 3.70 Salary Q1 4.28 Salary Salary Q2 4.10 Salary Q3 2.48 3.76 II Salary Q4 4.20 Insecurity Q1 2.04 Insecurity Insecurity Q2 4.12 Insecurity Q3 4.26 3.69 III Insecurity Q4 4.34 Family Support Q1 2.66 Family Support Family Support Q2 3.84 Family Support Q3 2.16 2.68 VI Family Support Q4 2.06 Stress Q1 3.74 Stress Q2 2.74 Stress Stress Q3 3.90 3.49 IV Stress Q4 4.28 Stress Q5 2.80 The second objective is to analyse the influence of education on problems faced by the working women of BPO sector in Mysore. The education of the working women was not significantly different (P > 0.05) for all the dimensions. This result was shown in the Tables 1.3 to 1.8. The ANOVA post hoc results are not required because between the groups in the ANOVA result is not having significant difference. This indicates that the different education group of working women were having almost same perception on the problems, which they were facing. Table 1.3 ANOVA test result: Hesitation score Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 0.131 2 0.065 0.351 0.706 Within Groups 8.752 47 0.186 Total 8.883 49 http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/index.asp 404 editor@iaeme.com

M.P.Bavya and Raghunandan M.V Table 1.6 ANOVA test result: Insecurity score Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 0.637 2 0.318 1.674 0.198 Within Groups 8.933 47 0.190 Total 9.570 49 Table 1.7 ANOVA test result: Family support score Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 0.415 2 0.207 0.631 0.537 Within Groups 15.465 47 0.329 Total 15.880 49 Table 1.8 ANOVA test result: Stress score Sum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 0.731 2 0.365 1.555 0.222 Within Groups 11.046 47 0.235 Total 11.777 49 4. CONCLUSIONS: The first objective that is to find and analyse the problems faced by the working women of BPO sector in Mysore was analysed based on the ranks given to the dimensions. These ranks are given based the averages of the dimensions and average of the dimensions were calculated based on ratings given by the working women. Finally, the dimensions were emerged out from this result are in the order of ranking: Hesitation, Salary, Insecurity, Stress, Gender Discrimination and Family Support. In these dimensions Hesitation is most critical problem faced by the working women. Generally, hesitation is the characteristic of women in the society. In the second objective that is influence of education of the working women on problems they were facing was analysed by the AVOVA test. In this test, different education groups of working women were not having significant difference on the problems they were facing. It indicates that despite the different educational background, working women have almost the same perception on problems they were facing. REFERENCES: [1] Dr. Kousar Jahan Ara Begum, Women and BPOs in India, humanities and social science invention Volume 2, Issue 5, May 2013 [2] Dr.Patil Amol & Ashok Kumar, Problems faced by working employees in BPO sector, North Asian international research journal of social science and Humanities Vol-3 Issue-8 August 2017 [3] CM Sudha &Arogya Mary, Women in the work place - BPO industry, Journal of philosophy, culture and religion Vol-3, 2015 [4] Dr. SA Sameera & Mr.Shakir Shaik, A study on gender issues in the workplace of women employees in BPO sector, India Asian journal of Management Sciences [5] Arvinder Kaur & Shivani Gupta, Women employees in BPO s and call centers: problems and solutions, Gian jyoti journal Volume 1 Issue 3 (Apr-Jun 2012) http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/index.asp 405 editor@iaeme.com

A Study on Problems Faced By Working Women of Bpo Sector in Mysuru [6] Ms Shivi Mittal, Ms Sapna Sharma &Prof (Dr) Prabhat Srivastava, Challenges faced by working women at workplace, family and society: its major issues, impact and remedial measures, research in social science and Humanities Volume 5, issue 11 [7] P. Ashok Kumar & Dr. K Sundar,Problem faced by women executives working in public sector banks in Puducherry, marketing, financial services & management research Volume 1, July 2012 [8] Dr. TN Murthy, Govinda Pedireddi & Sayyed Imtiyaz, Gender issues of women employees at work place in Indian BPO sector, National monthly referred journal of research in commerce and management. Volume 2, Issue 2 [9] Parul Agarwal, A study of work life balance with special reference to Indian call center employees, engineering and management research Volume 4, Issue 1, February 2014 [10] Dr. Vaibhav kumar Ramanuj, Mental and physical health related problems of call center workers, Research article [11] Vemuri Swathi & M Sudhir Reddy, Stress among working women, International journal of computational engineering and management Volume 19, Issue 4, July 2016 [12] S Rajesh & Manoj PK, Women employee work life and challenges to industrial relations: Evidences from North Kerala, computational engineering and management Volume 19, Issue 4, July 2016 [13] The perspective of challenges for women HR managers in Indian BPO industry, International journal in multidisciplinary and academic research Volume 3, Issue 3. [14] Bhuvaneshwari M, A case study on psychological and physical stress undergone by married working women, Journal of business management Volume 14 Issue 6 Nov-Dec 2013 [15] Damini Singhal &Nidhi Maheshwari, Women empowerment in the BPO sector in Bangalore, ethics in engineering and management education Volume 1, Issue 8, August 2014 [16] T Narayana Rao & Dr.V Srinivasa Prasad, An impact of stress on women employees with reference to selected BPOs in Visakhapatnam, scientific research and management [17] S Mohan & Dr. PR Muthu, A study on employee retention in BPO sector with special reference to Coimbatore city, informative and futuristic research Volume 2, Issue 6, Feb 2015 [18] Sarangdevot, S S Yadav, Rajender Kumar Sharma, Rakesh Kumar, Problems and prospects of women employees in BPO sector: a study of selected BPOs in Delhi and NCR, IUP Journal of Entrepreneurship Development, Hyderabad, Volume 9, Issue 2, June 2012 [19] Sujata, T Lata Singh, and Sapna, Work life balance issues of women at call centers, IUP Journal of Entrepreneurship Development, Hyderabad, Volume 10, Issue 4, October 2011 [20] Dr. Kamini, B Dashora, Problems faced by working women in India, International journal of Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences, ISSN: 2278-6236 [21] T. Ezhilarasi, A Study on Problems Faced By Married Non-Working Women While Taking Decisions in their Household Affairs, International Journal of Management (IJM), Volume 7, Issue 2, February (2016), pp. 567--571 http://www.iaeme.com/ijmet/index.asp 406 editor@iaeme.com