In a utopian world, employees would love their jobs, like their co-workers, work hard, get paid well, and have ample chances for career advancement. And, of course, never leave. But then there's the real world where employees do leave because they want more money, better growth prospects, dislike the working conditions or their spouse gets a dream job in another city.
And in the world of offshore BPO, where attrition rates hover at 30 to 40 percent, people leave more frequently. The reasons for leaving can be plenty. BPOs employ young people who leave to pursue higher education. They give in to the rat-race competition from the BPO space and from other booming sectors. Jobs, at least in India, are easily available as demand is more and the available talent is less — and people leave for a few extra hundred dollars.
However, directly or indirectly, it is the customers of BPOs that foot the bill for continuous hiring and training, and suffer the loss of institutional knowledge.
So, what are BPO employers doing to retain their workforce? We visited a few BPOs to find out.