BPOs dangle bait to retain talent

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies have come out with a novel idea to retain talent — they are offering employees opportunity for higher education while on the job, a move seen by analysts as a bait to deal with high attrition in the booming industry.

"We have tied up with UK-based Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (for offering courses to employees).

This is one of the means and perhaps the need of the hour to retain talent," said WNS Enterprise Services Chief Operating Officer Sulakshana Patankar in Mumbai recently.

WNS' tie-up follows alliance of Infosys BPO with Karnataka University and Genpact's agreement with Association of Certified Chartered Accountants.

Though some of the analysts welcome the developments, others saw it as a bait to ensure that the employees are retained for a couple of years till they complete their higher education. The attrition rate is as high as 50 per cent in the BPO industry, which employs nearly half a million people.

Patankar said the tie-up with CIMA would also provide an avenue for all our aspiring finance professionals to get the opportunity to secure an international qualification while working.

Many BPOs, however, would not agree with Patankar on the ‘retaining talent' part; they believe this kind of tie-up was required to `sharpen the skill of the associates in order to meet the sector-specific and increasing demand'.

Apart from enhancing strength of the in-house trainings, many BPO firms are considering similar kind of alliances with educational institutions.

ICICI's BPO arm, Firstsource, which currently trains its associates through in-house centres, might consider such tie-ups at a later date.

"We are currently doing it in-house. However, we might consider it (tie-up with educational institutes) in future," a spokesperson said. —  PTI