RECRUITMENT STRATEGY FOR A KPO FIRM 24/7SOLUTIONS

By Siva Priya S Niraj Singh Pawan Bhati Prashant Mishra Ridhima Chopra (2011012) (2011013) (2011014) (2011015) (2011016)

Submitted to: Prof. Nitika Sharma

Indus World School of Business Greater Noida 02/04/2012

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S. No

TABLE OF CONTENT

Pages

1.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

03

2.

INTRODUCTION

04

3.

ASSUMPTION

05

5.

RECRUITMENT STRATEGY

06

6.

JD & JS FOR FRONTLINERS

07

7.

JD & JS FOR MANAGERS

08

9.

SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT

09

10.

EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT

10

11. 12.

CONCLUSION REFERENCES

13 13

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) are the firms who provide technical solutions to the IT companies and for electrical companies. Knowledge Processing Outsourcing (popularly known as a KPO), calls for the application of specialized domain pertinent knowledge of a high level. The KPO typically involves a component of Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO), Research Process Outsourcing (RPO) and Analysis Proves Outsourcing (APO). KPO business entities provide typical domain-based processes, advanced analytical skills and business expertise, rather than just process expertise. KPO Industry is handling more amount of high skilled work other than the BPO Industry. While KPO derives its strength from the depth of knowledge, experience and judgment factor; BPO in contrast is more about size, volume and efficiency. In this paper we are going to formulate a strategy for Human Resource department.

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I N T R O D U C T ION The popularity and maturity over time of the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector led to the evolution of yet another form of global outsourcing known as Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO). BPOs aimed at managing the most critical and/or non-critical processes of an organization through technology and specialized approaches. On the other hand, KPO refers to the outsourcing of knowledge intensive tasks and functions to outside experts. Unlike BPOs (which nowadays have become more like a commodity business), KPOs offer domain based expert services to various investment and equity research firms, market research companies, etc. The Indian KPO services industry is estimated to be around USD5.7 billion currently and grew by 15-17% in the recent past. Even though the Indian KPO industry is facing stiff competition from Philippines, Russia, China, Poland and Hungary, Indian KPOs have their own competitive advantages in terms of low-cost offerings, skilled manpower with sales and marketing capabilities and domain expertise and knowledge of regulatory compliances amongst others. The Indian KPO providers offer a range of solutions to diverse industry segments such as FMCG, engineering, automobile, telecom, R&D, banking and financial services, insurance, etc. In the coming years, the volume and complexity of work being outsourced to the Indian KPOs is expected to increase tremendously, due to the competitive advantages mentioned above. Another factor fuelling the growth of the KPO sector in India is the scarcity of skilled and qualified knowledge professionals in developed economies like US, UK, especially in knowledge-intensive areas such as R&D in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI), engineering design, IT, financial risk management, etc.

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ASSUMPTIONS

A KPO Company for an IT company 1. 50 Front line call attenders (M/F Ratio: 7:3) 2. 5 Supervisors (Call Transferor No Females) 3. 1 Manager 4. CEO

About External Environment and others 1. Operating in India. 2. Company is already existing and reputed. 3. No night shifts for female employees.

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MERITS AND REQUIREMENTS OF MODES OF RECRUITMENT Front Line Call Attainders External Recruitment Consultants, Job Portals Less Cost & Time (for 50 candidates) Huge Candidate pool with expected skill set Short listing can be done quickly Less training for Experienced candidates For fresher (Induction Training) Stress Management Training

Supervisor Call Director

Internal & External Recruitment Internal Internal Job posting, Employee Reference, Promotion Less Cost ( Possibly no cost ) Less Time No need for induction training (Promotion) Motivation (Promotion) Increased Loyalty & Morale

If not available by Internal sources, External - Consultants Less Time New Blood New Ideas Middle Level Managers Internal & External Sources Internal Employee Referrals External Head Hunting Preference for Employee Referrals If not Head Hunting through Consultants So with above references & facts it is very clear that a KPO firm needs internal as well as external recruitment methods. RECRUITMENT STRATEGY FOR KPO
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JOB DESCRIPTION & JOB SPECIFICATION FOR FRONTLINE CALLERS

KPO Job Description and Profile KPO professionals basically work for the companies, which receive the knowledge-based projects or work from various other companies. It is knowledge outsourcing of intensive business processes, which require specialized domain proficiency and it involves processes like research, valuation, investment researches, insurance and legal claim, patent filing etcthe other responsibilities are viewing the overall performance of staff as well as planning a better training for them.

Duties and Responsibilities There are a number of duties and responsibilities which have to be fulfilled by a KPO and they are as follows:

The person has to monitor the random calls daily for the reduction of number of mistakes or errors and for better performance as well. He or she has to carry out many professional services, like legal services, business research, management consulting and financial analysis. He or she needs to handle all the complex customer queries, complaints, issues and questions calmly. It will be the responsibility to improve the quality, escalating sales, efficiency, and high speed. It will be needed to inspire and motivate the staff by providing the bonus, rewarding schemes, etc He or she has the responsibility to maintain the coordination with supervisors, team leaders, people in charge, and other individuals to collect information. He or she has to oversee the performances of the employees perfectly so has to make an examination of the performance statistically. The duty includes managing the daily tasks and work of the KPO perfectly.

Skills and Specifications There are a number of skills and specifications which are needed in a candidate to do the job of a KPO and they are as follows:

Excellent communication skills Verbal, Written.

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Basic computer Knowledge Ability to adapt to perpetual changes in KPO sector. Should be very patient and motivated towards the work. Should be very clear about the concepts of the business. Very clear understanding of technical skills. Should have the knowledge regarding the current market setting and trends.

Education and Qualifications

Diploma degree in CSE / IT from an accredited institution with minimum 60 %. Bachelors degree in science, engineering, or commerce, or any related field from an accredited institution can also apply. Experience in KPO sector for minimum 1 year is preferable. Salary: INR 1,00,000 1,50,000 P.A Education: Diploma in CSE/ IT Experience: Preferred / Fresher also can apply Industry: IT Industry Functional Area: Knowledge Process Outsourcing Role Category: Giving solutions to customers

JOB DESCRIPTION & JOB SPECIFICATION FOR MANAGERS

Roles and Responsibilities: Coordinating with Finance and Corporate Strategy on budgeting, forecasting and scorecard development.

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Serving as the main interface with the Law Department and ensure organizational compliance with state, federal and client requirements, in addition oversee the organizations required licensing; Collaborating with Six Sigma and Human Resources to develop work force management solutions such as incentive compensation plans, staffing models, capacity planning and schedule adherence systems; Leading organization's BOP efforts and Quality efforts Developing monitoring and reporting capability to effectively track the performance of each functional area. Developing decision and reporting tools to minimize variability, improve quality and maximize profitability of the business. Providing recommendations during implementation of process improvement, automation and other special projects

Key Result Areas: Real time communication of project updates and timely completion of projects. Accurate and timely reporting to Operations, Senior Management and customers. Qualifications: Excellent written and verbal communication skills ( English, Local & Hindi ) with the business sense to recognize both departmental and company priorities. Excellent in Microsoft Office applications. Proficiency in data base management system (Microsoft Access or SQL). Ability to analyze data statistically and provide meaningful and relevant summary. Salary: INR 2,50,000 4,00,000 P.A Education: UG - Any Graduate, B.Tech / B.E. AND PG - MBA/PGDM Experience: 3 to 5 years is mandatory. Industry: IT Industry Functional Area: Knowledge Process Outsourcing Role Category: Business Development Manager Key skills: Business Development Executive, IT Sales Executive, Operations Manager Corporate Strategy, Process Improvement, Business planning, Six sigma.

SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT

The sources of recruitment may be broadly divided into two categories: internal sources and external sources. Both have their own merits and demerits. Lets examine these.
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Internal Sources - Persons who are already working in an organization constitute the internal sources. Retrenched employees, retired employees, dependents of deceased employees may also constitute the internal sources. Whenever any vacancy arises, someone from within the organization is upgraded, transferred, promoted or even demoted.

External Sources - External sources lie outside an organization. Here the organization can have the services of: (a) Employees working in other organizations; (b) Jobs aspirants registered with employment exchanges; (c) Students from reputed educational institutions; (d) Candidates referred by unions, friends, relatives and existing employees; (e) Candidates forwarded by search firms and contractors; (f) Candidates responding to the advertisements, issued by the organization; (g) Unsolicited applications/ walk-ins.

The following are the most commonly used methods of recruiting people. INTERNAL METHODS 1. Promotions and Transfers This is a method of filling vacancies from within through transfers and promotions. Transfer is a lateral movement within the same grade, from one job to another. It may lead to changes in duties and responsibilities, working conditions, etc., but not necessarily salary. Promotion, on the other hand, involves movement of employee from a lower level position to a higher-level position accompanied by (usually) changes in duties, responsibilities, status and value. Organizations generally prepare lists or a central pool of persons from which vacancies can be filled for manual jobs. Such persons are usually passed on to various departments, depending on internal requirements. If a person remains on such rolls for 240 days or more, he gets the status of a permanent employee as per the Industrial Disputes Act and is therefore entitled to all relevant benefits, including provident fund, gratuity, retrenchment compensation.

2.Job Posting Job posting is another way of hiring people from within. In this method, the organization publicizes job opening on bulletin boards, electronic method and similar outlets. One of the important advantages of this method is that it offers a chance to highly qualified applicants working within the company to look for growth opportunities within the company to look for growth opportunities within the company without looking for greener pastures outside.
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3. Employee Referrals Employee referral means using personal contacts to locate job opportunities. It is a recommendation from a current employee regarding a job applicant. The logic behind employee referral is that it takes one to know one. Employees working in the organization, in this case, are encouraged to recommend the names of their friends, working in other organizations for a possible vacancy in the near future. In fact, this has become a popular way of recruiting people in the highly competitive Information Technology industry nowadays. Companies offer rich rewards also to employees whose recommendations are accepted after the routine screening and examining process is over and job offers extended to the suggested candidates. As a goodwill gestures, companies also consider the names recommended by unions from time to time. 4. Advertisements These include advertisements in newspapers; trade, professional and technical journals; radio and television; etc. in recent times, this medium has become just as colorful, lively and imaginative as consumer advertising. The ads generally give a brief outline of the job responsibilities, compensation package, prospects in organizations, etc. this method is appropriate when, (a) The organization intends to reach a large target group. (b) The organizations want a fairly good number of talented people who are geographically spread out. To apply for advertised vacancies lets briefly examine the wide variety of alternatives available to a company as far as ads are concerned.

EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT We have taken following ways to externally recruit Front line call attainders1. Campus Recruitment It is a method of recruiting by visiting and participating in college campuses and their placement centers. Here the recruiters visit reputed educational institutions such as IITs, IIMs, colleges and universities with a view to pick up job aspirants having requisite technical or professional skills. Job seekers are provided information about the jobs and the recruiters, in turn, get a snapshot of job seekers through constant interchange of information with respective institutions. A preliminary screening is done within the campus and the short listed students are then subjected to the remainder of the selection process. Advantages of this method include: the placement center helps locate applicants and provides resumes to organizations; applicants can be prescreened; applicants will not have to be lured away from a current job and lower salary expectations. On the negative front, campus recruiting means hiring people with little or no work experience. The organizations will have to offer some kind of training to the applicants, almost immediately after hiring. It demands careful advance planning, looking into the placement weeks of various institutions indifferent parts of the country. Further, campus recruiting can be costly for organizations situated in another city (airfare, boarding and lodging expenses of recruiters, site visit of applicants if allowed, etc.).
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If campus recruitment is used, steps should be taken by human resource department to ensure that recruiters are knowledgeable concerning the jobs that are to be filled and the organizations and understand and employ effective interviewing skills. RECRUITMENT YIELD PYRAMID We are using a recruiting yield pyramid to calculate the number of applicants they must generate to hire the required number of new employees. The company knows it needs 50 new entry-level accountants next year. From experience, the firm also knows the ratio of offers made to actual new hires is 2 to 1; about half the people to whom it makes offers accept them. Similarly, the firm knows that the ratio of candidates interviewed to offers made is 3 to 2, while the ratio of candidates invited for interviews to candidates actually interviewed is about 4 to 3. Finally, the firm knows that of six leads that come in from all its recruiting efforts, only one applicant typically gets an interview a 4:1 ratio. Given these ratios, the firm knows it must generate 800 leads to be able to invite 200 viable candidates to its offices for interview. The firm will then get to interview about 150 of those invited, and from these it will make 100 offers. Of those 100 offers, about 50 will accept. Recruiting may bring to mind employment agencies and classified ads, but current employees are often the best source of candidates. CURRENT SCENARIO & ATTRITION RATE: Today, the Indian KPO industry faces the challenge of adequate talent availability and high attrition rate among young professionals. A higher education degree and an experience within the sector most often becomes a prerequisite to getting employed with a KPO company. Furthermore, continuous training of business-related skills is essential in the outsourcing services sector. This is because, unlike the BPO industry, which is process oriented, the KPO market demands professionals with decision-making, problem solving and analytical skills. Other essential abilities like stress management and time management training will be given to employees to keep them physically well and process oriented. As far as the KPO sector considered the attrition rate is very high as compared to its related field IT. As of 2011 December it was 55%. So our company will take care of the employee benefits and welfare activities in order to retain the employees. At the same time will be doing man power planning in order to maintain the equilibrium within the company for human resources. CONCLUSION In the future, it is envisaged that KPO has a high potential as it is not restricted only to Information Technology (IT) or Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) sectors, and includes other sectors like Intellectual Property related services, Business Research and Analytics, Legal Research, Clinical Research, Publishing, Market Research (Market research KPO), etc. A research shows that over the past year or two, the outsourcing industry has been throwing up jobs for Doctors, Engineers, CAs, and Architects. "Unlike the first wave which was more about entering data and answering phone calls, these jobs involve skill and expertise."
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REFERENCES

http://www.sganalytics.com/blog/kpo/indian-kpo-industry--evolution-and-theessential-skill-set-requirements/ http://www.india-reports.com/reports/Knowledge-12.aspx http://www.slideshare.net/preetidaga/kpo-market-analysis-in-india http://www.kpoexperts.com/kpo-india/what-is-kpo.htm

http://jobsearch.naukri.com/mynaukri/mn_newsmartsearch.php

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