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Anjali Prayag

Bangalore , Sept. 10

THE next time the HR managers of call centres reject that `mild and conservative' candidate, they may be abetting the rising attrition rate.

Because this is the type of individual who could be on their payrolls even after a couple of years, easing their battle against frequent exits.

HR managers in the call centre industry reeling under the pressure of high employee turnover (industry watchers put it at 65-70 per cent) are constantly looking at new ways of stemming the trend.

One way could be administering psychometric tests to candidates and recruiting a particular type of individual, feels Mr G. Prahlad Rao, Managing Partner, Team Value Profiling Services.

"In a non-technical call centre, skill and technical knowledge of all agents are on par. What differentiates performance at work is individual type," he explains.

Till recently, most call centres recruited through huge walk-ins and voice tests.

"Hardly any of them worried about the employee fit," he says. Most of them recruited extroverts with high social skills, misled into thinking they suited best for a CRM job. "Unfortunately, this is not true. What you need is a mild conservative, steady kind of individual," he explains.

TVPS has done pilot projects in companies such as AOL, 24/7 Customer.com and Mainstay Teleservices Pvt Ltd, based on Thomas Profiling, a psychometric test for recruitment and training.

"When we did the profiling we found that most companies preferred the `I' type of individuals (where the characteristic `influence over others') is dominant. These are the people with strong people skills. But soon they found that these are misfits as they are high energy people and get bored easily.

On the other hand, companies should look for strong `S' profiles in their agents: i.e., steady and hardworking. "They are dependable and can handle the monotony of the job better," feels Mr Rao.

Sadly enough, these individuals are not very impressive in an interview because they are mellow and conservative.

"They are also outstanding counsellors and highly trainable which means they can be moved into higher positions," he explains.

India is a strong `S' country and in any recruitment exercise, more than 30 per cent display this characteristic.

Lt Col Govind Rajulu, General Manager, HR, Mainstay, says the test has helped him in retention and increasing productivity.

"We still have 25 people of the first batch that we recruited two years ago. For a call centre with 100 agents, that's pretty good." Mainstay, which handles both inbound and outbound calls, recruits different types for these two campaign areas.

`While the former requires cautious, dependable and process driven individuals, the latter needs all this with just a dash of aggressiveness."

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