But the vast majority of outsourcing customers seem to accept this high turnover as a kind of quirky business expense. “Oh, you know, it’s the laws of supply and demand,” they justify. True, but that’s only part of the story. Best practices in stemming attrition do exist — we found them — but without customer involvement, the problem will never resolve itself.

Unfortunately, there’s neither a one-shot remedy nor a one-size-fits-all solution to the problem. Stemming high attrition requires a combination of strategies built on a carefully formulated partnership between customers, service providers and ultimately workers too.

“Clients can do their share by forcing vendors whom they work with to focus on the attrition problem,” says Mehta. “If the vendor knows that the customer has a focus on attrition, they too focus on it.”

Ties That Fail to Bind

Throwing more bodies at the problem isn’t going to work. All reports on outsourcing to India state that the manna India offers is its large, educated labor pool — available at cut-rate prices. While it’s true that India graduates 2.5 million students every year, a majority of these graduates are unhireable. A recent report by McKinsey and Nasscom, for instance, points out that “Currently only about 25% of technical graduates and 10%–15% of general college graduates are suitable for employment in the offshore IT and BPO industries respectively.”

How many of these recent grads are ready to handle Wall Street jobs?

Those who are hireable, do not necessarily stay. Fifty six percent of the workforce in India (across all industries) is disengaged, hence more likely to leave for another job, as opposed to a global standard of 24%, according to a recent study by Towers Perrin’s HR Services. India’s percentage of disengaged employees is also the largest in the world, according to the study, which was conducted amongst 85,000 people across 16 countries. The study defines employee engagement as “the measure of people’s willingness and ability to give discretionary effort at work.” “Fewer engaged workers are far less likely to deliver on their growth agendas or achieve the kind of performance that shareholders demand,” says the study. BPO vendors are hitting at the attrition problem from all sides. With demand for outsourcing work far outstripping the supply of employees, service providers are looking at innovative ways to widen their pool of talent. Many providers are setting up operations in so-called tier-two cities, employing retired people or housewives; while others are examining moving up the value chain to hire more specialized workers less likely to migrate to new employers every season.

HR managers, too, are playing a role. They are offering career growth to employees: training, career counseling and even involving families in career discussions. They are establishing policies that cover certifications, worker registries, screening tests, reference checks and non-poaching agreements. Some HR managers are wielding sticks, forcing workers to sign legally questionable employee contracts and performance guarantees, while some are dangling carrots — pizza parties, beer bashes, movie tickets, dating allowances, birthday cakes and, most importantly, higher wages.

Industry organizations are doing their bit too. Nasscom, India’s association for software and services companies, has launched a campaign to gain support for its National Skills Registry (nationalskillsregistry.com) for BPO and IT professionals. Potential employees have to register themselves, and provide basic information such as educational qualifications, previous employment details, photographs and fingerprints. An independent third party verifies the information and makes it available to employers.

For the employee, this promises better employment opportunities because, in theory, employers are likely to hire only registered employees. For the employer, the registry proposes to minimize the risk of hiring high-risk staff. While the registry is primarily a tool to enhance security, it will also help to track employees who shift jobs frequently.

Customers, too, agree that the attrition issue has an impact on their offshore operations, though they regard it as primarily a provider-side issue. But, since it’s their process that stands to suffer because of the churn happening on the vendor’s side, they must work towards addressing this issue.