A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE REASONS FOR THE HIGH RATE OF

EMPLOYEE TURNOVER IN BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING (BPO) AND

CALL CENTER INDUSTRIES IN INDIA, USING SITEL (INDIA) AS A CASE
STUDY

INTRODUCTION:
Meeting the demands of today’s changing business environment requires building and
retaining a loyal and motivated staff (Roseman E, 1981). When customers of a company
report high level of satisfaction that company definitely has high level of employee
satisfaction cites McCarthy (1997). high satisfaction brings benefits like high productivity,
low turnover and high operating efficiency (McCarthy 1997:4). But retaining quality staff
has become a challenge as the economy is widening the options available and poor leadership
contributing to the challenge comments Johnson, M. (2004). Among all Attrition heads as a
key problems facing at all call centres and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
organisations. Attrition at IT-BPO is cutting down strength and playing a role in increase of
health problems as well. If we take this at instance the quality i.e the outcome of project
would not be best. The only one thing the organizations can do is having capacity to hold
their bond relationship with employees, which helps to survive in the market and would fade
away in the long run.

On analysis with the circumstances, there is a suggesting strike to almost cut down the
problems and get stabilized in market like getting plenty of people trained above company
requirements and making them know with organisation rights and updates then putting them
on hold. This may lead to maintain stabilization in market and hit the attrition. Among all this
a small part which helps industry in stabilizing and growth is by employees who are
committed.

RESEARCH RATIONALE:
This research gives us an idea of employee turnover, problems facing in stabilizing the BPO
market and its process. This study would be benefitted for all the HR managers of such
organisations and help a part to get stabilize in market by implementing the study analysis.
Manager would also be benefitted in knowing employees motives and reasons for shifting
their jobs from companies to companies.

RESEARCH BACKGROUND:

The following report offers a review of the literature on labour turnover in organisations.
This leads to a discussion of the various ways in which the consequences affect the
organisation and what steps organisations can take to minimise turnover. Expectations of
employees from their employers have been highlighted along with steps required to be taken
to increase employee job satisfaction as there is a tendency for employees with lack of job
satisfaction to leave earlier. Factors which affect job satisfaction, including consideration of
the importance of the work itself and context factors such as pay, security, participation in
decision making and social situation in which work takes place (Gruneberg, 1979). Stress is
given on methods of conducting exit interviews as some organisations do not press too hard
when questioning an employee and it is also possible that they do not wish to record the
details as that would cast the organisation or the employee in bad light.

RESEARCH FOCUS:
The key focus of this report is to analyse the reasons for the high rate of turnover in the call
centre and the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry. The reasons are explored by
conducting a survey in SITEL Services, an organisation based in India, which is the case
study organisation for this thesis. This report has been divided into five parts and the
structure of the report is as follows.

STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION:

I. Introduction to the BPO and Call Centre Industry: this section of the report goes on to
introduce the BPO/Call Centre Industry to the readers in brief, thus further dividing the
section to explain the global growth and acceptance of Call Centres, their advantages and
disadvantages to the economy of the country, new trends and reasons, for outsourcing call
centres, especially to India.

II. The literature review: this part has been divided into two parts and explained using
Themes in order to understand the relevant and current issues to the study. Part II reviews the
causes, effects of employee turnover with regard to business context. Efforts have been made
to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of attrition to any organisation and how it
perceived by the management. Strategies used by few MNCs to minimise employee turnover
has also been highlighted in this part.

III. Methodology: the aim and objectives of the report along with the techniques and design
that would be used for analysis will be incorporated in this section. The research
methodology outlines the data collection method designed to achieve a better understanding
for the causes for the high rate of turnover in the BPO/Call Centre Industry.

IV. Presentation and Analysis of study: The case study organisation, SITEL Services, will be
introduced in this section with its background in brief for a clear and logical structures of the
analysis will be presented as charts along with explanations for every outcome.

V. Conclusion and recommendation: Reasons analysed from the survey have been
summarised and further actions that need to be taken in order to minimise turnover has been
presented as recommendations.

BRIEF REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

All the organisations get ready in taking steps like attrition for completion of pertained work
in a given time to get mobilized in market. They look for many sign like holding staff more
than their purpose, offering temporary jobs and target based increments. HR makes all the
differences pertaining with time. The BPO have all brought a key role for attrition rate. On
present figures the stress rates in Indian call centres reached to 80% and on taking average it
is above 40%. At the moment stress with work and problems facing with these jobs are
overriding their wages and stress even thought the same call centres in Northern Europe pays
one-eighth of more wages to India. Hewlett-Packard has found that inability of the staff for
resolving customer queries in behalf of languages and experience HP' Ireland based company
has shifted its organisation to India.GE Capital has shifted a part to Australia. All the above
consequences say this all happen because of lots of stress, time change and health issues.
Many organisations should address that it not just a part of handling as many tasks but also
depends on person’s ability. As I said HR as a part of organisation can take challenge of this
issue not only by increasing their salaries but also concentrating to hit the stress. On many
surveys employees state that it is nothing but a dead job. Staff even thought are not matched
with policies and ready working of night shifts are all getting selected just because on the zeal
of getting work done.

The main reason for getting in even thought knowing the issues are to feel proud working for
a company with international environment, incentives based on lifestyles and to hit the
employment recession. A know associate of southern a BPO organisation says risks in taking
employees for incurred training effects not only productivity but also the 'knowledge
maturity' of the organisation.

The review of literature highlights the complexity of the employment relationships, evidences
the increased importance of personal development opportunities to the new “protean” career,
in the absence of job security as a prominent motivator to employees and analyses the impact,
soft human resource management practices can have on improving the employment
relationship and retention in particular. Recommendations will be made considering the facts
collected from interviews and questionnaires and after proper analyses.

A low unemployment rate in the UK has led to a tight labour market therefore making it a
gruelling challenge to recruit and retain staff with the necessary skills and attitudes
(Torrington et al, 2003). Human resources are valuable assets of any organisation and this is
widely acknowledged in the business community. When these assets flow outward, they tend
to play a crucial role in the firm’s activities. In addition to the direct loss of human capital
embodied in the leavers, there are other negative impacts of turnover on the company
(http://www.tannedfeet.com/MarchApril2001.pdf).

Employee turnover causes burnouts in current employees also making them inefficient and
unproductive, when the workloads of the current employees increase to offset the vacant
position. This affects the effectiveness of administrative staff, formalization; integration,
satisfaction, innovation and centralisation in an organisation. Economist (2000) reported that
the cost incurred by an organisation when an employee is lost is between half to one and half
times the employee’s annual salary. More over Economist (2000) found that the leavers not
only alter the perceptions but also create a negative impact on existing staff morale.
AIM AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
The aim of this survey is to investigate those reasons that have led to the high rate of turnover
in SITEL Services (India-Chennai) and bring into light the expectations of the current
employees and reasons for leaving by the former employees.

Research Questions:

 What are the various reasons for more employee turnover in BPO call centres at
SITEL services?
 What the various factors that would motivate employee stay at workplace?
 What are the various retention factors that would keep BPO call centres employees to
stay at the workplace?
 What are effective solutions available at call centres to reduce the rate of attrition?

Research Objectives:
 To explore the reasons why employees have left SITEL services.
 To identify the expectations of current employees.
 To identify the levels of employee job satisfaction in SITEL Services.
 To analyse the feedback and recommend a SMART solution.
 To investigate primary research through semi structured interview methods at SITEL
services and give recommendations and conclusions based on the research findings

Practical Implications
Researching staff retention and understanding the reasons behind it could help improve
organisational performance as it could potentially result in a reduction in the number of good
workers leaving the organisation. Labour turnover is a concern therefore, by identifying the
costs and impact labour turnover has on the organisation, finding and implementing solutions
to problem may take higher precedence. Identifying the reasons for people leaving will allow
recommendations to be made as to how to reduce labour turnover. SITEL Services may then
consider introducing these recommendations, which aim to reduce turnover and costs.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Research Philosophy

There are various assumptions to the research according to the study conducted by Cohen et
al., (2005), these assumptions were ontological, epistemological, human nature and
methodological. Ontological research assumptions are based on the research in the social
science investigation. Methodology assumptions are based on inquiring the general laws to
the cognitive environment. Human nature assumptions would be based on the relationship of
human beings with the environment. Epistemological assumptions are based on the
knowledge that was gathered in real time through experience or due to information that were
shared. From this the researcher would want to assume the epistemology stances in the
research were the researcher would dealt with the knowledge that were experienced in real
world.

Research Approach
According to the research of Saunders et al., (2005) research is mainly divided in terms of
inductive and deductive approach. According to the research onion stated in the Saunders et
al. (2003), research approach is the fundamental part. Deductive study is based on testing the
theory of certain hypothesis. Whereas inductive study is theory building that is based from
the facts to theory. Gray (2004) supports inductive study would be based from the facts to
theory. Deductive theory is top down approach. Which moves from theories to specific
instances on the subject area? From this the researcher would liked to state that this research
would be based on deductive approach. Where the theories based on employee turnover are
existed in the real world. The researcher would want to critically investigate the phenomenon
at BPO call centre on specific instances at SITEL services in India. According to Saunders et
al., (2003) none of the methods are better than the other. But inductive study on the other
hand is time consuming but it would bring new insights to a research that was conducted in
the real world.

So the researcher would pursue deductive approach due to time factors and since the theories
did exist to test the entities at BPO call centres.
Research Strategy
The research strategy that would best suite this research is Case study approach. Case study
research is based on the study on single entity or single phenomenon to explore various
dimensions of the problems and provide solutions. This research would be conducted only in
the single entity or in terms of single firm to investigate the employee turnover at SITEL
services at Banglore office in India. For this case study researcher the researcher will follow
Yin, R. (2003) case study research methods to study the different dimensions of a case
research and three necessary principles that are to be adopted while conducting study in
single specific instances. The principles according to Yin, R. (2003) would be multiple
sources of evidences, different sources of data and detailed chain of evidences.

Research Access – Point of Entry

The researcher would conduct this study at SITEL services located at the Bangalore office
located at info park. The major source of research access was with the researcher’s relative
had being working at this organisation in the high level end. So the access to case
investigation was the ease.

Ethical Conditions:
The researcher had even though gained the access there were certain conditions that were
needed to be strictly followed until the research would be completed. The ethical issues were
the high level manager’s name of SITEL services would be kept anonymous. Also this
information should not be used for other purposes.

Qualitative or Quantitative Research:

This research would have both qualitative and quantitative data types. The quantitative
information would be presented based on the current reports in the markets on employee
turnover. Qualitative information would be the major source in this research. Thus the
research contains both qualitative and quantitative information. This research is purely
qualitative in nature that clearly provides inferences on the author as subjectivist role to
analyse data that were acquired through semi structured and through focus groups.

Data Collections
This research would have both secondary and primary data for case study investigation at
SITEL services in India. The data that are used for the research purpose is termed as
secondary data. This data could be from any source. This research would use secondary data
and information through published articles. The secondary data source could be conference
proceedings, online journals, e journals, books, e books etc. The researcher can widely use
Science direct and Ebsco to explore the various issues on employee turnover and attritions.

The primary data will be gathered through focus group interviews and through semi
structured interviews. Interviews are the best source to explore various insights on the
subject.

Sampling
Purposive sampling technique would be adopted by the researcher to identify the respondents
based on the profile and experience on the phenomenon. This non probability sampling
technique would used to select the perspective respondents to answers questions on employee
turnover at call centres at SITEL services. The number of samples for interviews would be
between 10-15 in depth interviews.

Record Instruments:
The researcher would use telephonic recording to acquire the samples that stated earlier. The
respondents of primary samples were High level and middle level managers of SITEL
services, Bangalore

Validity and Reliability

This research would be valid only if the researcher would be able to find the answers to
research questions proposed to solve the research purpose. This research is only valid when
the researcher could able to find the reasons for more attrition rate at SITEL services in India.
This research will be reliable where the chain of evidences would be properly stated with
proper citations.
GANTT CHART

TASK 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
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