Source: E-mail dt. 5 November 2014
Culture
Vs Business Process Outsourcing: A Comparative Study
Mr. C. Arul Venkadesh
B.Sc.,
M.B.A. (HR), M.B.A. (ED), PGDPM (IRLW).,
Assistant
Professor,
Rathinam Institute
of Management,
Coimbatore,
India.
Dr.R.Karuppasamy Ramanathan
M.Com. MBA., M.Phil.,
Ph.D., PLME(IIM-A)
Director,
Nehru Institute of Technology,
Coimbatore, India.
Concept
The
Concept of culture is highly significant to the service providers in this fast
moving competitive planet. This job is something like selling the hollow mans
intangible hat to the unknown audience which is nothing but the mode of service
that has been delivered every day to the customers/clients in this business
process from one end to other. BPO expects excellence in service as well as
quality of work and humbleness in delivering the customer satisfaction among the end users. Business process outsourcing has undergone a
huge breakthrough in today’s developing countries that gear-up the economical
growth of the country as well as the empowerment of the employees both in their
professional and personnel life. Many developed countries invest crores and crores of money in
this process to yield endless wealth maximization in their business. In order
to reach a pinnacle in business the organization need a sound and clear
employees who are ready to pull out their socks and work for the company as
well as their successful career, for which the workforce should retain the
happiness in their work and working environment. Understanding such factor that
touches them to feel that they are important and responsible for the
organization growth and development will lead to create a positive vibrant
among the team that will overcome the negative clouds and floods which washes
out the employees out of the organization. The objective of this study is to
analyze the BPO employee’s attitude towards work, working environment and their
organization’s work culture barriers so as to develop the workforce to retain
them back within the organization with a smile and self motivation inside and
positive growth of productivity and success outside. To validate the research
model, the study was conducted from 438 respondents in Tamil Nadu, India, who
were working in various Business Process Outsourcing companies at various levels.
Based on the previous research studies 9 constructs were selected for this
study and hypotheses were framed. The research through Structural Equation
Modeling (SEM) using AMOS software infers that all the nine variables are
highly significant and has positive relation with the employees’ expectations.
Cultural
diversity plays a challenging task in today’s competitive business world. Most
of the international
outsourcing companies find a multitude of inter-bridging barriers in retaining
a talent, healthy and dynamic workforce. The pressure of change in demography,
resulting in getting workforce and précising replacement pools, the rise in
work related psychological health issues and chronic diseases, and the unity of
employees with various cultural backgrounds or different needs, are only some
the best examples of the challenges. HR managers have to sort it out with some
firm grips with these days so as to remain competitive despite these barriers.
The Companies need to implement sustainable solutions to keep their employees
active and committed.
The outsourcing concept is a main dominant practice employed by Friedman (2005) to highlight the fact that globalization is primarily driven by the Internet, intranet infrastructure which enables a level playing field for organizations to take strategy such as lower wage rates in the countries in which they operate in order to sustain competitive advantage in market. Identifying, maintaining, and developing the right talent is very challenging factor to business sweetness particularly in this current economy. But academic excellence and a structured C.V are not necessarily the major elements of a top candidate. It can be much more difficult l to fit him/her into the corporate planets culture, its inside values, rituals, rites, and perspectives and maintaining with a compatible personality, creativity, flexibility, and social adaptability.
Why Cultural
barriers and turnover study in ITES/BPO sector?
In BPO industry many voluntary turnover become a issue for many BPOs, regardless of the job, in today’s
competitive world. Such turnover is not only has an impact on BPOs but also
would affect the morale of the workforce. Prior research has to identify
employee’s decision to voluntarily walk away from an office. For example, a
recent figure describes that it takes a company $78,000 to replace an employee
(Ramsey-Smith, 2004). There have been many studies over the past 4 decades by
both academicians and practitioners towards causes and consequences of
voluntary turnover of an employee in BPO.
In this ITES/BPO sector, however voluntary turnover have started reaching alarming proportions. It becomes very significant to study the nature of large-scale attrition, as India houses many BPOs. Employee turnover can also leave a severe hit to the morale of the workforce that makes up additional pressure or stress of workload until the seat has been replaced. Such issues add up stress levels. Therefore, if turnover of workforce is not managed properly it will affect ITES/BPO sector adversely in terms of personnel costs and their liquidity position.
References
3.
Cammann,
C., Fichman, M., Jenkins,D.
& Klesh,J.(1979).The Michigan Organizational
Assessment Questionnaire, Unpublished Manuscript, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
4.
Campion, M. A.,
(1991). Meaning & measurement of turnover: Comparison of alternative measures
and recommendations for research.