BPO industry in Gujarat sees 'brain drain'

Call centres in the state are finding it difficult to recruit or retain staff.

The key reason for this 'brain drain' is the fact that several bigger business process outsourcing (BPO) firms have kicked off aggressive recruitment drives in the state for their BPO centres in bigger cities. Wipro Spectramind, Satyam Online and Convergys India Services organised a number of interview sessions in the last few months.

Canada-based human resource (HR) outsourcing major Sterling Hoffman Software Consultant, which announced its plan to commission a 25-seater call centre in Vadodara, has not been able to recruit more than 25 people against its capacity of 75 employees in three shifts.

Same is the case with Futura Convergence Centre with capacity of 27 seats and requirement of about 85 employees. Futura is facing an attrition rate far above the industrial standard of 30 to 35 as mentioned on the NASSCOM website.

"It is difficult to recruit and retain people in Gujarat as big BPO centres and houses are more attractive for the candidates. Recruiters outside of Gujarat are visiting Gujarat very frequently for head hunting with pay packages that is unheard of in Gujarat" said an official at Sterling Hoffman.

Vadodara, with its large English speaking crowd, has a total capacity of less than 500 seats. At the same time the biggest call centre with about 35 seats has capacity of employing less than 100 people.

According to NASSCOM report on ITES - BPO growth, industry is expected to generate employment for about 95,000 persons in 2003-04 where Gujarat has a very limited to role to play in view of the existing BPO houses.

"People with the right potential and attitude for the call centre industry prefer to work in major centres where there are higher possibilities of growth compared to Gujarat. Due to limited penetration of number of call centres and lower salary standards in state it is difficult to sustain the talent pool in the state," said Pankaj Varma, former manager with Vadodara based Futura who is planning to move to bigger BPO centre for better opportunity.

"Apparently, big players in the industry have zeroed in on Gujarat to attract the potential English speaking people for whom the right opportunity is not available in the state. At the same time, it seems easy to settle in new and big cities as recruiters are willing to take responsibility of accommodation, food and travel. IT is also sure for the recruiter that the new entrant in the city would prefer to wait and watch before changing the job," said Verma.