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Bangalore May 13 With hiring conversion rates down to one-fourth of what it was when the industry was born, BPOs should look at academia to help fill this gap, according to Mr S. Nagarajan, co-founder and Chief People Officer, 24/7 Customer.

In 2001-02, the hit ratio for recruitment in BPOs stood at 100:16, which has fallen to 100:4 now.

"Our ability to scale and provide quality service has to be maintained to keep India as a top sourcing destination," he added.

In order to ensure better hiring conversion rates in the industry, 24/7 has initiated a varsity programme where teachers of 300 colleges are being trained to orient students towards BPO careers.

The programme has been running for about a year in Hyderabad now and 24/7 plans to take this to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu soon. "This will surely increase the employee pool in a couple of years and hopefully decrease the attrition rates in industry."

The BPO industry, which is facing an attrition rate of 30-80 per cent per annum, largely depends on referrals for acquiring talent.

At 24/7, for instance, about 30 per cent of the recruitment happens through existing employees.

"We find that in these cases, performance and retention levels are much higher because culture fitment is very high," said Mr Nagarajan.

According to him, employees now tend to look at staying longer at jobs that would give them domain knowledge rather than jump jobs for a salary hike.

Last week, the company honoured 111 employees who have been with the company from inception.

24/7 Customer currently has 5,500 employees across six delivery centres in India, the Philippines and Guatemala.

More Stories on : Human Resources | Outsourcing

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