Outsourcing companies have enjoyed phenomenal growth. In last few decades, India has grown as an outsourcing hub. Within the global outsourcing market, India had a share of 58% in 2011 that is 7% more than compared to its market share of 51% in 2009. There are several reasons why foreign enterprises look forward to outsource to India. Firstly, it has the largest pool of young talented professionals who can not only communicate in English but also have brilliant technical knowledge that can add value to their organization. Secondly, salaries of skilled Indian resources are many times lower than that of employees working for onshore organizations. Despite of the huge advantages of outsourcing, there are still several challenges before this fastest growing industry. Hiring resources is one among those several challenges. Since workforce or human resource is considered as the key part of any organization, thereby, hiring this workforce becomes one of the most critical processes. Though India boasts to have the largest pool of young dynamic professionals, yet outsourcing companies have to pull teeth to find the right talent on right time and place them at the right place. This challenge is faced not only by the outsourcing companies in India but also by the companies worldwide. Finding or recruiting a right talent may be a nerve-racking experience for an outsourcing company. According to a report, with a population of more than 1.2 billion, India produces approx 2 million graduates annually and out of them, only 15-20% of them are trainable and recruit able. Moreover, with imbalanced work life and high level of stress, BPOs have high attrition rate of 55-60%. These numbers are indicative of tremendous challenges faced by human resource in outsourcing firms while specifically recruiting for the outsourced projects.
The major challenges faced by the human resource team while recruiting are:
Hiring resources meeting business expectations
One of the biggest challenges for the hiring team is to hire resources with the proper skills and talent according to the business requirement. They need a lot of planning to find right talent at right time.
Lack of experienced professionals at managerial level
Though BPO industry has evolved greatly in India but even then, the outsourcing agencies find it extremely challenging to locate an experienced resource at a managerial level. As a result, the available resources come with a higher price point that is way beyond the client’s expectations.
Attracting and retaining competent talent
Attracting competent employees despite fierce competition is also a tough row to hoe for HR team of any outsourcing company. BPO is an industry with a high rate of attrition. Thereby, retaining these employees is even tougher. To attract talented professionals and retain them, they need to design competitive salary packages with appropriate performance incentives.
Adaptability to Global Market
BPO is a rapidly growing industry and so are its requirements and demands. So, it is imperative for HR professionals to stay tuned with the changing times and the evolving business ecosystem.
