Are you working hard?

PUNE, INDIA: The rupee is heading northwards and so are the pressures on improving margins and squeezing costs for Indian IT and BPO companies.

Employee productivity has resurfaced as the primary HR concern, one can spot as Sharad Lodhi, vice president, Human Resource, Oceans Connect, launches Oceans Premier League, a new soccer-based performance tournament for his employees.

While they cheer and clap for the new scheme amidst guitars and cakes, BPO workers for this UK call center, are apparently wondering at the new ways of pushing productivity. There are negative points for absenteeism and attrition, and positive scores for better performance.

Each team will have a team leader, captain and goalkeeper and senior associates would hold these positions. Team performance and rankings would reflect the yearlong scoreboards.

“The Oceans Premier League weaves the element of fun into the daily schedule of an associate. However, business is not all about fun, it is about excellence in customer service, meeting SLAs and to put it bluntly making money. The philosophy and premise of the OPL engagement strategy is positive reinforcement. On broader canvas leadership skills, passion, healthy competitive spirit and teamwork attributes will be enhanced. With this engagement strategy which will run until the end of 2008 we intend to reduce attrition by 20 per cent and possibly more,” says an upbeat Lodhi.

Companies like Oceans Connect may be experimenting with new things while there are others who see the current scenario as an opportune time to squeeze the best value out of existing productivity measures.

Just how much of this relentless drive on productivity is coming out of external pressures like the rupee’s appreciation -- no one is confessing -- but it clearly seems to be a time when productivity-led measures are coming to the forefront.

At OPD major Aztecsoft, existing methods, interestingly, don’t stand face-to-face with employees or present them with new scoreboards but rather make sure that there are no hiccups while employees are at work.

Help desks for equipment maintenance like printer disorders, concierge service for taking care of miscellaneous errands like phone bill payments, a well-loaded food cafeteria that is under construction so that employees need not step out and better transportation facilities to optimize the number of hours while an employee is away from work are some of the various measures that Amar Karvir, head of Pune Operations cites for productivity at Azetcsoft.

At the same time, there are direct methods like cross-technology and platform trainings that can prove very valuable in a time when companies can’t afford erstwhile large numbers of people on bench but at the same time have to be ready and responsive for new client requirements.

“For instance, we are imparting trainings to remove the silos between .Net and Java so that our employees are broad-skilled and portable. The opportunity to deploy them and drive more value is higher in current industry challenges,” explains Karvir.

Apart from trainings, acute and stringent data control-cum-analysis is another set of measures that are springing up to maintain and upgrade productivity.

In addition, new trends like bench minimization, value-based approach, fixed cost projects will be the new trends in making organizations more productive as time demands already, points out Sunil Godse, head of operational excellence at Persistent Systems, where he takes care of employee productivity management. “Our bench strength has been reduced quite substantially in the recent times.”

While HR is having one hand full of methods that can increase productivity and consequently curtail costs, thus improving margins for exchange-rate choked bottom lines, their eyes are also watching the wave called Web 2.0 and new Internet trends that might be taking a bigger slice of employee time and attention at work.

IMs, chat rooms, blogs, social networking sites, etc. are ubiquitous and being watched closely.

Internationally, the concerns have already started surfacing as some statistics reported in the media reflect.

Some time back, a couple of Facebook addicts openly declared in a Western behemoth that they spend up to five hours a day surfing this social networking site, apparently oblivious to their managers.

Social networking sites, including Facebook, are distracting workers for at least 30 minutes a day, costing UK Plc close to £6.5 billion annually in lost productivity, says a recent poll of 776 workers, by information security consultancy, Global Secure Systems and Infosecurity Europe 2008.

Another research by Computerweekly.com said, 63 per cent of businesses are planning to monitor or limit staff access to these sites and 17 per cent plan to ban access at work completely over the next six months.

The concerns range from time-wastage, security and information leakage to bandwidth expenses.

Not surprisingly, a 2007 survey of 1,200 global HR professionals that was conducted by content security specialists Clearswift , 79 per cent said their company was completely blocking access to social networking sites.

Interestingly, an IAMAI study on Internet in India for 2007 points out that more recently, Internet users growth is seen to be shifting to office as a main point for Internet access.

Is this trend worrying the HR honchos too much? Are they encouraging or discouraging online social activities for employees? The answer is both yes and no, from various quarters, and for various reasons.

As Aztecsoft’s Karvir shares, while there is a mandate on not accessing certain online formats, the control starts from the client side. “They have confidentiality issues and hence, want to limit use of certain sites that they list down.”

He doesn’t rule out the possibilities of abuse that come with social networking but reckons free mail counterparts on the positive side. “Based on the role of a person and client-driven requirements, we have a certain percentage of employees who are allowed full Internet access. We have to accept new trends that are out there.”

E-learning major Harbinger’s executive director, Swati Ketkar thinks that with positives, social networking craze has its negatives too, specially at the workplace. “We wouldn’t encourage it. There are possibilities of collaboration but only with the right tools and formats. Waste of time is not a welcome thing.”

As far as the argument of refreshment from work goes, she opines that there are enough breaks during lunch-time etc. “Besides, the work itself is of a nature that keeps employees hooked and excited and challenged.”

At Persistent too, use of social sites is not encouraged. “We don’t allow access to them,” says Sunil Godse, head of operational excellence at Persistent Systems where he takes care of employee productivity management. “There is a lot of work, anyway, already. So chat-related and other similar sites are blocked. But we do give access to all information-related Internet mediums that are concerned with work.”

Not everyone is looking down upon social networking at the workplace. Manjot Singh Aulakh, Recruitment Manager at Honeywell Automation, feels that such sites do not necessarily have adverse effects. “It is, on the other hand, helpful and an eye-opener for the organiation in finding out new trends in the marks and formalizing our recruitment strategies accordingly. Finding out loopholes, if we are not aware of them, is possible with these new web avatars,” he says quoting Kabir, Nindak Neeyare Rakhiye.

“As long as we treat our employees with dignity, respect and grace these social networking, blogging sites actually aid growth,” nods another voice of assent. “It is evident in our recruitment as thanks to our associates a significant chunk of recruitment happens through employee referrals. Our IT department and systems are extremely robust to ensure that access to social networking sites is minimal and only for business needs,” says Reasons Oceans Connect’s Lodhi.

This is, perhaps, just the beginning of a story that will script new chapters in employee productivity improvements, which is inevitable today, as companies struggle to maintain yesterday’s margins while the dollar slides.

For those who think that’s cruel, thank your luck that the attention is still on the productivity side of the coin. 

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