The Hindu Business Line : Two heads are better than one

A leading BPO recently realised that that many-a-time employees would go on leave without any prior information. Consequently, office cabs would land up at the absentees’ residences for regular pick-up and drop — leading to unnecessary costs for the company.

Now, thanks to a suggestion floated by its own employee, the BPO has imposed a token penalty of Rs 100 for every ‘no-show’. Needless to say, the wasted cost has come down significantly.

Over the last few months, a slew of companies, both in IT and the BPO industry, have been turning to their workers for “ideas” that can help in cutting unnecessary expenses even as they struggle to cope with the global meltdown. Thus far, the Indian IT and BPO workforce has helped global clients stretch that dollar. Naturally now the $47-billion Indian outsourcing industry is hoping that employees can spin the same magic, back home.

Good ideas galore

Take the case of HCL BPO. The company found that on certain floors within its facilities, seats would remain vacant due to fluctuation in the resource requirements of various processes. The vacant seats have now been clubbed in particular floors, resulting in significant savings in air-conditioning and power costs.

Late last year, BPO major Genpact too reached out to its employees to brainstorm on ways to cut costs and enhance productivity. It set up a mailbox so employees could write to the CEO, Pramod Bhasin, with their suggestions. In less than a week, the mailbox was brimming with an overwhelming 800 ideas! Since then, the initiative has picked up pace with thousands of employees sending in multiple ideas, says the company.

“Several of the initial ideas were small quick hits that were easily achievable. For instance, replacing paper cups with ceramic reusable ones, switching off desktops and laptops when not in use, switching to low-cost vendors and creating digital platforms for manual processes to save time, among other things. We have already executed many of these green ideas and others are in the process of being implemented,” says Bhasin.

Some ideas promised a long-term impact. These included formalising and attaching metrics to long-running successful programs, streamlining internal processes such as ‘transport rostering’ and submission of claims, driving work-from-home initiative with greater rigour, pushing the culture of video conferencing to replace excessive travel, and adding modules to software platforms to enhance capabilities.

EXL Service Holdings says that pursuing strategic cost management is one of the identified areas of focus for 2009; the company has involved its workforce at all levels to contribute and share ideas on managing costs. This, in turn, has resulted in employees bouncing off ideas on travel policy rationalisation; power saving initiatives; and self-procurement of specific services and products to reduce dependence on intermediaries.

“We have also allocated dedicated resources to drive this initiative and pooled in employees from various functions to have a fair representation from all cross sections,” says the EXL President and CEO, Rohit Kapoor, who believes that ‘employee involvement’ is a critical element of this enterprise-wide initiative.

Delhi-based Nucleus Software Exports says it has received a number of powerful ideas from employees — some of which have already been implemented. The ‘ideas’ range from trimming power bills to sharing rooms on tours, availing low-cost airfares, reducing printing costs, and (hold on!) even increasing work timings.

“The ideas on power saving have brought down cost by lakhs, and certain other suggestions, which are to be implemented shortly, could end up saving crores,” says Vishnu R Dusad, CEO and MD, Nucleus Software Exports.

While in some companies such as Nucleus such programmes were put in place in end 2008, for others these initiatives are more recent.

In March this year, Caliber Point, the independent BPO arm of Hexaware Technologies, asked its top 100 employees to look out for opportunities to save costs. “Several minor ideas have been implemented — these span across checking out newer technology more aggressively (earlier we would only use tried and tested ones, now we are willing to try out things), Open source products and rationalisation on travel, transport and electricity,” says R.U. Srinivas, the company’s Chief Executive Officer.

Reward programmes too

So what is prompting more and more companies to turn to employees for a helping hand? “All cost-cutting initiatives impact employees. Hence it is important to communicate this effectively to the employees and get their participation,” points out Ranjit Narasimhan, President and CEO of HCL BPO.

By reaching out to employees at difficult times, companies are able to access a larger pool of ideas and in one stroke engage the workforce. The industry feels that if the ideas originate from the employees, there is far greater acceptance. In addition, it gives employees a sense of participation in achieving organisational objectives. In fact, employers are going a step ahead and rewarding extraordinary ideas.

Genpact, for instance, has already rewarded the top ten ideas with certificates, public recognition and Silver Cheers Awards — a point-based system in its rewarding programme where every point carries a monetary value. Employees can redeem points against gifts and vouchers.

Caliber Point says it plans to reward the top five ideas at its annual employee event called ‘Yuva’. Others, such as HCL BPO and Nucleus, propose to institute a formal reward system on these initiatives, shortly.

The industry admits that for every idea that clicks, there may be thousand others that just don’t work. “What is most encouraging is to see a willingness to participate and share the pain of today’s market realities,” says Bhasin of Genpact. Agrees Dusad (Nucleus).

“This is a basic survival need in today’s environment and we wish to make sure that this culture of employee participation takes stronger roots in our company…We understand that employees are bubbling with ideas and the more we are able to involve them, the more will the organisation benefit,” he says.

Now, that’s certainly an idea whose time has come!

moumita@thehindu.co.in

Related Stories:
Over 100 staff of Axa’s BPO arm face the axe
IT, BPO market in for ‘slowest’ growth
‘Outsourcing to slow down, consolidation likely’

More Stories on : Outsourcing | Human Resources | Trends

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Two heads are better than one

Consumer may vote for 3G

Quiz

True stories from call centres

Cartoon