HCL technologies limited BPO Services Training and employee development

Introduction

Training and employee development form the essential of any organization be it a small or a big cap firm, no company will be able to function smooth unless they get their basics right and training & development is that base. History tells us the very fact as to how one should be particular about these key factors which has a huge impact on the growth of the business.

Training and development signifies the continuous effort that an organization puts in to improve and enhance the performance of an individual and thereby of the company through varied methods, practices and procedures. In today’s modern world business these efforts have shaped in to broader applications ranging from discussing highly specific job skills to an overall personal and professional development. In recent years, training and development has become a formal business function, an integral element of strategy. Some of the common methods adopted for training by various companies include

orientation, lectures,

case studies,

role playing simulations,

computer based training,

self-instruction,

team-building exercises

And more importantly On-job training (OJT).

Many employees lack confidence in using technology in the workplace because they have not been given enough exposure to it in their education and training, research has suggested. Almost half (49 per cent) of people think there should have been more use of technology in their education or training to prepare them for the workplace, according to a survey of more than 1,800 workers by skills body Lifelong Learning UK.( James Brockett, People management.co.uk ,online magazine for CIPD)

This recent findings reveal the importance of technology to boost the training

HCL BPO SERVICES: HASSLED WITH HIGH ATTRITION RATE AND ACHIEVING SUCCESS BY ITS TRAINING MAKEOVER.

Company overview

HCL technologies limited-BPO Services (or “HCL BPO”) is a division of HCL Technologies Limited, a Global Technology and IT enterprise. HCL Enterprise is a 34-year-old leading Global Technology and IT enterprise, with USD 5.0 billion revenue, 64000 professionals and operations spanning 26 countries. HCL BPO, a division of HCL Technologies Limited started its venture early in 2001 and is now a dominant player in the BPO field drawing revenue of USD 232.15 Million. With over 11,400 professionals operating out of India, UK and USA, HCL BPO runs 21 delivery centres.. HCL Technologies Limited – BPO Services focus verticals include Telecom, Retail, Banking/Financial Services, Insurance, Hi-Tech &Manufacturing and Media publishing and entertainment .Besides the company also offer their services in various areas of operations such as:

Supply chain management

Order to cash

Finance and accounting services

Knowledge and legal services

Technical support services.

Data management services

Customer relationship management.

Employee first, trust, transparency, transformation and value centricity are some of the values that bond HCL BPO. (hclbpo.com)

The Challenge Encountered

HCL BPO was troubled by high rate of attrition just like most other BPO companies; it was an alarming 40% annually and was also struggling with low availability of talent pool for direct employment without prior experience. As a result the profit margin was dropping considerably and that the company was anticipating a steep rise in expenses towards recruitment of new staff, training and development.HCL were increasingly eager to work out a strategy to build an atmosphere for an overall transformation to factors concerning the critical situation it was going through.

The solution sought

HCL BPO decided to introduce and implement a planned strategy and training programme called People Capability Maturity Model (PCMM) designed and developed by QAI, a leading global consulting and workforce development organization addressing ”Operational Excellence” in knowledge intensive service organizations.

PCMM (People Capability Maturity Model) is a maturity framework developed at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) that guides organizations in improving their ability to attract, develop, motivate, organize, and retain talent. Based on the best current practices in fields such as human resources, knowledge management and organizational development, the PCMM guides organization in improving their processes by managing and developing their workforces.

It provides an evolutionary 5-level improvement from dealing with specific areas/subject to inconsistently performing employee practices to a more mature disciplined development of knowledge, skills and motivation of the workforce. The process at each level of maturity creates an inter-linked system of processes that transform the organization’s capability for managing its workforce.

Initial -identifying &evaluating the company’s key areas under performing.

Managed-looking after compensation, effective training and development, performance development, work environment, compensation and coordination staff.

Defined-Areas worked on include culture, workgroup development, competency based practices, career development, competency development, workforce planning and competency analysis.

Predictable-mentoring, organization capability management, quantitative performance management, competency based assets, empowered workgroups and competency integration.

Optimizing-Continuous workforce innovation, organizational performance alignment and continuous capability improvement.

(Source-PCMM model by bill Curtis and others {CMU/SEI-95-MM-02, p30})

HCL BPO’s APPROACH ON PCMM

A core team consisting some top officials, QIA’s consultants and dedicated group of HR, QUALITY and OPERATIONS was formed to drive this initiative of PCMM.A workgroup was formed with definite goals ,strategy and a competency based on team structure. A leader for each area was selected based on the key competencies required and were responsible for creation ,developing and implementing policies and procedures of the people practices. The people CMM started off with development of competency framework, a basis for most people practices. It defines each competency and various proficiency levels.This competency framework is then used for training&development,performance management, career development and strategic employee planning.This overall process helped HCL BPO to monitor the measurement and activities that are necessary to determine the status and trends related to the people practices performed.

HCL also introduced the competency based career development programme to train and guide employee to reach their career objectives.This in turn helped HCL to identify the competencies available within the organization and to develop the competencies required for the current and future business. At an individual level this programme helped the employee to understand the career path available in HCL and also that they could even choose career in other divisions of the HCL Technologies

HCL thus enhanced their recruitment to specifically focus on competency based selection and that indeed helped them to improve the quality of new joinees .Best practices were shared at various levels and the management made use of the company’s intranet facilty to provide an easy access to their employees to various matrices such as KRA’s ,competency levels and career progression.this created transparency and boosted their confidence and overall left a positive impression on the employees.

This programme was trained and Implemented for a period of 15 months and in the year 2008 the implications were recorded.

BENEFITS GAINED

Low Attrition rate-the Attrition rate of the company dropped from 17% to 11% per quarter. Significantly HCL BPO witnessed the lowest monthly attrition of 1.4% in the history of HCL Technologies.

Employee Satisfaction-there was a substantial increase in the satisfaction of the employee from 70.56% to 87%.

Delivery optimization –

Training output increased from 68% to an impressive 84%

Process level efficiency increased from 75% to 94% ,a landmark of its kind.this was due to new certifications,project improvements etc.

Impact on business-

COPC certification(customer operations performance centre, a certification of attaining high standard of services which acts as a benchmark for buyers of call centre services, six sigma projects and various development projects etc.

The overall performance of the call centre increased by 7.4%

Company’s revenue grew from 15.2 m to 21.1 m

The employee count went up from 1354 to 1442.

References

www.Hclbpo.com(29/10/2010)

www.scribd.com(29/10/2010)