Employee engagement in a leading BPO firm

I work for a leading BPO in Sri Lanka. There are many departments like finance, insurance, legal and accounting sectors. There are around 800 staff. Our firm provides services for international clients from here.

As a leading BPO in Sri Lanka, it is not easy being on the top always. The company faces both internal and external issues. The competition is very high and I has to retain its best employees to achieve the goal.

The department I work for has 85 employees and 6 Managers. On a monthly basis, it has come to light that the firm has started recruiting new people as the old employees have started resigning. Is we look at the reasons for the resignation, majority are because of less engagement within the firm or not been appreciated.

Employees who work hard and their productivity is very high, still they are in the same position for many years. There was an employee who has been there for 13 years, worked very hard and brought a lot of profit for the company. However, she was promoted as a Team Leader just in her 11th year and that was it. No recognition, no appreciation or not even a good promotion. Two years down the line, she had to hand over her resignation which was a major shock to the firm. Few months after she left, the organization started feeling the pressure from the top Management as the sales dropped to significant extents. Deficit increased. Although new employees were brought in, it was not going to be like the well experienced ones as it could take a lot of time to bring them to the required competency. The major reason for many employees like her to leave were not praised for the good work or lack of recognition what they do.

It’s not always about the work and driving sales, but also about getting all the employees engaged in what the company does. It’s not the matter of what the activity could be, big or small get everyone in. The HR recently introduced a FUN FRIDAY activity where they have some sort of activity just for an hour where the whole department will have to participate. They are divided into groups and activities like, general knowledge quiz, singing competitions, best drama and many more were brought in. After few good Fridays, the company realised that people enjoyed their work and the productive levels of many employees increased.

Teamwork is another important factor that is lacking in our organization. Mainly because are people are rewarded for individual performance and achievements. Whereas there should be a parameter where team engagement and or people who supports the team will also be considered for rewards and recognition. When this is in place, people learn to share their knowledge and skills with others and will support the team whenever needed, as stated in the previous blog posts. Unity will prevail within the team and target achievements will be more realistic.

Many of our colleagues who work here, have so many skills and ways of improving the process or even changing them. Since, they are not encouraged or motivated with some sort of recognition program, their skills and talents that may be helpful to the firm are limited. Therefore, to bring the best skills out, some monetary valued system should be introduced. It should be given out to them with their monthly salary. When this happens, new are ideas will be out and innovation will take place. Employees needs to be cross trained so when a need a need arises with the other teams, staff from one team could pool in and help the rest without having the need to hire more staff.

Maslows hierarchy of-needs for employees

Figure 1.0 : Maslows hierarchy of-needs for employees

                                          (Musgrove, 2016)

According to Figure .1.0, the High Flyer right on the top are highly engaged group of employees. They work independently and also help others without even help being requested. Their achievements are always beyond expectations and they create less work for Managers. The engaged group comes 2nd in line. This group of people understand their values and also believes that the company is proud of their work and thinks them as a valuable asset to the firm. They keep themselves occupied all the time and look for more work if needed. The third category are the Almost Engaged group. This set of people are neither happy nor unhappy with their work. They work there as they have no other choice and feels that they have no developments within the firm whatsoever. According to (Holbeche and Springett, 2003), engagement of employees plays a vital role in every work place and if the employees realise that they no development, they tend to look for options.

Further according to Musgrove (2016) the fourth one in line is Not Engaged people. This set of people have more unplanned leaves than planned leaves. They tend to call in sick more often and punctuality at work is nil. Final set of people are the disengaged people. They are more similar to the not engaged group but more towards the time wasters. They hate what they do and their only motive is just to earn money. They always hunt for jobs and ready to resign any minute. The company will have to work hard to bring the disengaged people to the Highly Engaged group through Engagement.
 

Reference list:

Holbeche, L. and Springett, N. (2003), In Search of Meaning in the Workplace, Horsham, Roffey Park Institute, ISBN: 0 907416527.

Musgrove, S. (2016). Employee engagement according to Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs. [image] Available at: http://www.brighterbusiness.co.uk/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-for-employers/ [Accessed 9 Oct. 2019].