By Tamanna Arora

Employee HR Services (EHS)

Employee Satisfaction

On

Exit Management

In BPO

Report By:

Tamanna Arora
 By Tamanna Arora

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete

this project. I would like to thank Ms. Priya Nair for providing me her valuable time as

well as great deal of information. I have further more to thank Ms. Anjali Joshi for her

time as well as her valuable advice regarding my way forward.

I am deeply indebted to my faculty guide Ms. Ranjana Sharma whose help, suggestions

and encouragement helped me in the time of the training and writing of this project.

I also have to thank Mr. Hardik Sharma, Ms. Pramila Kumari, Mr. Raj Kishore Prasad,

and Ms. Aparna Banerjee for teaching and assisting me in my work and for making

these few a weeks a great learning experience.

At last but not the least I would like to thank my parents who provided me will all their

love, support and means to carry out my studies of which this project is a part.
 By Tamanna Arora

ABSTRACT

Employee exit management is the process used within many businesses organizations
to relieve its employees in a professional manner. It applies to employees who have
resigned and those that have been terminated by the company.

When an employee leaves an organization there are a number of considerations that an

organization needs to make in order to cleanly end the relationship between the
company and the employee. The company as a legal entity has a responsibility to the
employee which may extend beyond the period of employment and this is the primary
focus of the exit procedure.

The service industry, from fast food to business consulting, has long lived by the mantra
that serving the customer is the only thing that matters. As a result, customer need is
placed above all others – often at the sacrifice of employees, managers and
administrators. HCL Technologies, one of India’s fastest growing IT services
companies, which is also rated as No. 1 employer in India, has embraced a new
strategy – Employee First

This approach places the needs of employees before the needs of customers. This
seemingly unreasonable strategy has provoked a sea-change at the company, and
surprisingly, greater customer loyalty, better engagements and higher revenues.

To make the Employee First concept work, HCL has launched a variety of internal
initiatives designed to give employees more personal responsibility for the company’s
service offerings and also a voice with upper management. HCL’s enlightened approach
to employee development focuses on giving people whatever they need to succeed.
One of these initiatives is the Employee HR services or ‘EHS’.

For this project, I have worked with the EHS team in the exiting management of the
company. I worked on a day-to-day basis assisting, learning and analyzing various
exiting formalities and processes carried out by the team. I also looked into its role and
impact in this project.
 By Tamanna Arora

Table of Contents

1. Preface……………………………………………………………..

2. Introduction………………………………………………………...

3. Materials and Methods……………………………………………

4. Results and findings………………………………………………

5. Conclusion and recommendations……………………………..

6. Future Prospects………………………………………………….

7. Appendices………………………………………………………..

8. References…………………………………………………………
 By Tamanna Arora

PREFACE

BPO stands for "business process out sourcing," and is better known as simply "out
sourcing." It is basically the process by which a company can delegate certain functions
of their business to a specialized organization who can get it done more cheaply,
quickly, and efficiently.
BPO is the process of hiring another company to handle business activities for you.
In the early days, BPO usually consisted of outsourcing processes such as payroll.
Then it grew to include employee benefits management. Now it encompasses a number
of functions that are considered "non-core" to the primary business strategy.
Now it is common for organizations to outsource financial and administration (F&A)
processes, human resources (HR) functions, call center and customer service activities
and accounting and payroll.
These outsourcing deals frequently involve multi-year contracts that can run into
hundreds of millions of dollars. Often, the people performing the work internally for the
client firm are transferred and become employees for the service provider. Dominant
outsourcing service providers in the BPO fields (some of which also dominate the IT
outsourcing business) include US companies IBM, Accenture, and Hewitt Associates,
as well as European and Asian companies Capgemini, Genpact, TCS, Wipro and
Infosys.
India is a popular location for BPO activities.
Frequently, BPO is also referred to as ITES -- information technology-enabled services.
Since most business processes include some form of automation, IT "enables" these
services to be performed.

Business process outsourcing includes the following areas ana lot more

Back Office Operation

Customer Relationship Management
Call Centre and Telemarketing
Tele-Servicing and Product Support
 By Tamanna Arora

Payroll Maintainance
Finance/ Accounting /Billing
Human Resources
Logistics Management
Supply Chain Management
Medical Transcription
Back Office Operation
Legal Database Maintenance

The BPO Industry

The BPO industry has flourished at a frantic pace in the last few years and companies
have ended up with huge saving by being a part of the industry. By outsourcing their
back office business processes to cheaper nations like China, India, Philippines,
Mexico, South Africa etc companies can cut costs, better concentrate on their core
businesses and strengths, ensure better customer satisfaction and ina way get an edge
over their competitors. A report suggests that US firms have saved nearly $ 8 billion
through outsourcing to third world nations like India.

India has revenues of 10.9 billion USD[2] from offshore BPO and 30 billion USD from IT
and total BPO (expected in FY 2008). India thus has some 5-6% share of the total BPO
Industry, but a commanding 63% share of the offshore component. This 63% is a drop
from the 70% offshore share that India enjoyed last year, despite the industry growing
38% in India last year, other locations like Eastern Europe, Philippines, Morocco,
Kenya, Egypt and South Africa have emerged to take a share of the market[citation
needed]. China is also trying to grow from a very small base in this industry. However,
while the BPO industry is expected to continue to grow in India, its market share of the
offshore piece is expected to decline. Important centers in India are Bangalore,
Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and New Delhi
 By Tamanna Arora

The booming Information Technology (IT) segment comprising ITES (IT-enabled

services) / BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) are the core sectors that have driven
the country into the epicenter of change. The liberalization of the Indian Telecom sector
in 1994 gave an unexpected boost to the ITES/BPO industry. In no time, India has
turned into a hot destination for global offshore outsourcing companies. The expansion
in this sector can be attributed to the leading IT giants, captive players and third party
service providers, who dominate the Indian ITES/BPO market. While the countries
around the world are vying for a fair share of the cake, India has grabbed the pie as the
preferred destination for offshore outsourcing. Indeed, India is shining!

Back office and Front office outsourcing. Typical back office processes that may be
outsourced include payroll, billing, logistics and human resources. Some companies
offer their services in collections, credit analysis and job recruitment. More than ever,
processes that one would never think would be outsourced, such as claims processing
at an insurance company, are being outsourced to separate companies. Examples of
front office outsourcing include technical support, customer service, marketing and
advertising.
 By Tamanna Arora

The foreign call center has become one of the most reviled aspects of BPO, with many
located in different parts of the world. Where most companies once touted their
customer service as something they took pride in, many customers find themselves
having to explain their problems to someone has little vested interest in the company.
Outsourcing or “offshoring” customer service to countries such as India saves the
company a lot of money and improves their bottom line. Some of the biggest complaints
customers have with foreign call centers are heavy accents and obvious scripting.

A Company utilize BPO because of following reasons

• Cost reductions- Cost reduction is done through process improvements,

reengineering and use of technologies that reduce and bring administrative and
other costs under control.

• Concentration on core business- With the day-to-day back office operations

taken care of, the management is free to concentrate more on the core business
of the company.
 By Tamanna Arora

• Outside expertise- Company is saved from the hassles of recruiting and training
personnel. BPOs ensure that experts from another company provide the needed
guidance and skills.

• Cater to changing customer demands- It is another great advantage of out

sourcing the business processes. Many BPOs provide the management with
flexible and scalable services to meet the customers' changing requirements, and
to support company acquisitions, consolidations, and joint ventures.

• Revenue increase- As stated above, by outsourcing non-core processes,

companies can concentrate on increasing their sales and market share, develop
new products; spread out into new markets and increase customer service and
satisfaction

Top 10 BPO companies in India

It is said that the Indian BPO Industry has come of age. This is very true if we analyze
both the past and present scenarios. Defying all the permutations and combinations, the
Indian outsourcing industry has registered a massive growth over the years. It has
withstood the pressure and negative campaigns by the media and others to emerge as
the hot destination for young job seekers.

It is very necessary to judge the mood of the people working for BPO companies as
success of an organization completely depends on the satisfaction level of their
employees. If they are satisfied with their job and work with a peaceful mind, then it will
enhance the quality of their work and their company will witness better productivity
results. These results are most essential to convince the foreign investors who
 By Tamanna Arora

outsource their businesses to India. It is believed that if an organization can satisfy their
own employees, they will definitely be able to meet the expectations of their clients.

Every organization will candidly admit that it is not an easy task to satisfy its employees.
The real situation becomes clear when it gets down to brass tacks. Keeping in view the
sensitivity of the matter, leading IT Magazine, Dataquest had conducted a survey in
2004, which was known as Dataquest-IDC India BPO Employee Satisfaction (E-SAT)
Survey 2004.

Although some of the leading BPO companies like GE Capital, Convergys, Wipro
Spectramind and Dell refused to participate in the survey, the final result was
overwhelming with a large number of BPO companies participating. The employee
satisfaction score was measured on different parameters, which were basically linked to
the pay structure, work environment, growth prospects and company culture.

Although it is not possible to provide complete details about these top BPO companies,
we can do some justice to their achievements in the E-SAT Survey by describing them
and their services in brief.
 By Tamanna Arora

1. Daksh eServices

Daksh is the fastest growing BPO Company in India with employee strength of over
5,000. It provides solutions in customer care services and back office processes. Its
services include Customer Care, Technical Support, Collections, and Transaction
Processes and so on. It has five facilities in India out of which four are in Gurgaon (New
Delhi NCR) and one in Mumbai. Daksh’s clientele include some major companies who
figure in the Fortune 500. It is to be noted that IBM acquired Daksh in 2004.

2. ISeva

ISeva is a leading BPO and is a part of e4eGroup. It is an ISO: 9001 – 2000 Certified
company and provides services in customer care, transaction processing and data
processing. ISeva has two facilities in India, which are in Bangalore. It has employee
strength of 1,000.

3. ICICI OneSource

ICICI OneSource is one of the leading BPO service providers in India. It has been
successful in providing excellent customer services in Financial Services, Telecom,
Healthcare, Media and Publishing. According to company sources, it has employed
more than 4,500 people in its facilities worldwide. ICICI OneSource has been successful
in receiving the BS 7799 certification for information security.

4. EFunds International

Although EFunds was ranked fourth in the overall E-SAT survey, it had outsmarted its
rival companies by a convincing margin to get the top slot as the ‘Most Preferred
Employer’. It has been chosen by the most number of employees as a ‘Dream
Company’ to work with. EFunds provides excellent services in customer care (both
voice and email process), transaction processes and back office operations. Its areas of
functioning are Financial Services, Electronic Funds Network, Retailers, Telecom,
Software Development and other businesses. EFunds has recruited over 4,000
 By Tamanna Arora

employees in its branches worldwide. In India it has one facility in Gurgaon (New Delhi
NCR) and two in Mumbai. It also has two software development centers in Chennai.
According to sources, EFunds is on the verge of receiving the BS 7799 certificate as it
has already implemented this internationally recognized security standard in the
organization.

5. Hinduja TMT

With employee strength of nearly 2,000, Hinduja TMT has successfully established itself
as one of the leading BPO service providers in India. It provides a wide range of
services in more than 50 countries in the world. HTMT functions in the areas of IT,
Telecom, Banking, Finance, Insurance, Healthcare, Transport and Education. In India, it
has service centers in Bangalore and Mumbai.

6. EXL Services

EXL Services is one of the leading BPO service providers in India, which provide world-
class service to the customers. With more than 5,000 employees in its armor, EXL has
become a well-known name in the Indian BPO Industry. It provides solutions in
Insurance, Banking, Healthcare, Financial & Accounting services, Mortgage Lending
and Collections. EXL has both the customer services and back office operations. It has
already received the ISO 9001:2000 certification for quality assurance and BS 7799
certification for information security. In India, EXL has Delivery Centers in Noida (New
Delhi NCR) and Pune.

7. Ajuba

Ajuba Solutions is a surprise entry in the E-SAT survey. It’s a growing BPO with just a
little over 500 employees. It deals in IT solutions and other customer service operations.
Ajuba is located in Chennai, India.
 By Tamanna Arora

8. Motif

Ahmadabad-based BPO, Motif India provides BPO services to Fortune 500 companies.
It operates in transaction processing, which includes Investor Services, Administration
and Mutual fund and Customer Services like Voice Process, Email Management and
Fax Processing. Nearly 500 employees are currently working for Motif.

9. NIIT Smart Serve

NIIT Smart Serve is a global BPO company, which has expanded its outsourcing
business over the years. Its services include Insurance, Financial Services, Real Estate,
Transportation and Technology. The current employee strength of NIIT Smart Serve is
more than 800. Its service center is located in Gurgaon (New Delhi NCR). It offers
services both in customer care and back office processing.

10. HCL-Tech BPO

HCL Technologies BPO is a subsidiary of IT giant, HCL Technologies. With nearly

3,000 employees, HCL-Tech BPO has established itself successfully in the growing

BPO industry. It provides services in both customer care (voice & web) and back office

processing. With world-class infrastructure, it has succeeded in rolling out a business

relationship with more than 60 Fortune 500 companies. In India, it has four delivery

centers in Noida (New Delhi NCR), two in Chennai and one in Bangalore.

These 10 BPO companies and several other leading BPO organizations have done an

excellent job in the past few years and boosted the confidence of foreign investors in

outsourcing their jobs to India. With a bunch of skillful and sincere employees, they did

their best to meet the expectations of their clients overseas. There is no ambiguity about

the reason for the success of the Indian BPO industry. It must be attributed to the

efficiency and determination shown by these organizations and their employees.

 By Tamanna Arora

1) Customer Support Services

2) Technical Support Services

3) Telemarketing Services
O
4) Employee IT Help-desk Services

5) Insurance Processing

6) Data Entry Services / Data Processing Services

7) Data Conversion Services

8) Scanning, OCR with Editing & Indexing Services

9) Book Keeping and Accounting Services

1. Customer Support Services

Our customer service offerings create a virtual customer service center to

manage customer concerns and queries through multiple channels including
voice, e-mail and chat on a 24/7 and 365 days basis.

Service Example: Customers calling to check on their order status, customers

calling to check for information on products and services, customers calling to
verify their account status, customers calling to check their reservation status etc.
 By Tamanna Arora

2. Technical Support Services

Our technical support offerings include round-the-clock technical support and

problem resolution for OEM customers and computer hardware, software,
peripherals and Internet infrastructure manufacturing companies. These include
installation and product support, up & running support, troubleshooting and
Usage support.

Service Example: Customers calling to resolve a problem with their home PC,
customers calling to understand how to dial up to their ISP, customers calling
with a problem with their software or hardware.

3. Telemarketing Services

Our telesales and telemarketing outsourcing services target interaction with

potential customers for 'prospecting' like either for generating interest in products
and services, or to up-sell / promte and cross sell to an existing customer base or
to complete the sales process online.

Service Example: Outbound calling to sell wireless services for a telecom

provider, outbound calling to retail households to sell leisure holidays, outbound
calling to existing customers to sell a new rate card for a mobile service provider
or outbound calling to sell credit or debit cards etc.

4. Employee IT Help-desk Services

Our employee IT help-desk services provide technical problem resolution and

support for corporate employees.

Service Example: of this service include level 1 and 2 multi-channel support

across a wide range of shrink wrapped and LOB applications, system problem
 By Tamanna Arora

resolutions related to desktop, notebooks, OS, connectivity etc., office

productivity tools support including browsers and mail, new service requests, IT
operational issues, product usage queries, routing specific requests to
designated contacts and remote diagnostics etc.

Insurance Processing

Our insurance processing services provide specialized solutions to the insurance

sector and support critical business processes applicable to the industry right
from new business acquisition to policy maintenance to claims processing.

Service Example:

New Business / Promotion:

Inbound/outbound sales, Initial Setup, Case Management, Underwriting, Risk

assessment, Policy issuance etc.

Policy Maintenance / Management:

Record Changes like Name, Beneficiary, Nominee, Address; Collateral

verification, Surrender Audits Accounts Receivable, Accounting, Claim
Overpayment, Customer care service via voice/email etc.

5. Data Entry Services / Data Processing Services

Service Example:

o Data entry from Paper/Books with highest accuracy and fast turn around
time (TAT)
o Data entry from Image file in any format
 By Tamanna Arora

o Business Transaction Data entry like sales / purchase / payroll.

o Data entry of E-Books / Electronic Books
o Data Entry : Yellow Pages / White Pages Keying
o Data Entry and compilation from Web site
o Data Capture / Collection
o Business Card Data Entry into any Format
o Data Entry from hardcopy/Printed Material into text or required format
o Data Entry into Software Program and application
o Receipt and Bill Data Entry
o Catalog Data Entry.
o Data Entry for Mailing List/Mailing Label.
o Manuscripting typing in to word
o Taped Transcription in to word.
o Copy, Paste, Editing, Sorting, Indexing Data into required format etc.

6. Data Conversion Services

Service Example:

Conversion of data across various databases on different platforms

o Data Conversion via Input / Output for various media.

o Data Conversion for databases, word processors, spreadsheets, and
many other standard and custom-made software packages as per
requirement.
o Conversion from Page maker to PDF format.
o Conversion from Ms-Word to HTML format
o Conversion from Text to Word Perfect.
o Conversion from Text to Word to HTML and Acrobat
o Convert Raw Data into required MS Office formats.
o Text to PDF and PDF to Word / Text / Doc
o Data Compilation in PDF from Several Sources.
 By Tamanna Arora

7. Scanning, OCR with Editing & Indexing Services

Service Example:

o High speed Image-Scanning and Data capture services

o High speed large volume scanning
o OCR Data From Scanned page / image
o Scan & OCR paper Book in to CD.
o ADOBE PDF Conversion Services.
o Conversion from paper or e-file to various formats

8. Book Keeping and Accounting Services

Service Example:

o General Ledger
o Accounts Receivables and Accounts Payable
o Financial Statements
o Bank Reconciliation
o Assets / Equipment Ledgers etc.

9. Form Processing Services:

Service Example:

o Insurance claim form

o Medical Form / Medical billing
o Online Form Processing
o Payrol Processing etc.
 By Tamanna Arora

10. Internet / Online / Web Research

Service Example:

o Internet Search, Product Research, Market Research, Survey, Analysis.

o Web and Mailing list research etc.

Introduction

Employee satisfaction is the mainly used to describe whether employees are happy and
contented and fulfilling their desires and needs at work. Many measures purport that
employee satisfaction is a factor in employee motivation, employee goal achievement,
and positive employee morale in the workplace.

Employee satisfaction, while generally a positive in your organization, can also be a

downer if mediocre employees stay because they are satisfied with your work
environment.

Employee satisfaction is supremely important in an organization because it is what

productivity depends on. If your employees are satisfied they would produce superior
quality performance in optimal time and lead to growing profits. Satisfied employees are
also more likely to be creative and innovative and come up with breakthroughs that
allow a company to grow and change positively with time and changing market
conditions.

Employee satisfaction" helps the company to maintain a standard & increase

productivity by motivating the employees. This study tells us how much the employees
are capable & their interest at work place? what are the things still to be satisfy to the
employees. Although "human resource" are the most important resources for any
organization, so to study on employees satisfaction helps to know the working
conditions & what are the things that affects them not to work properly. always majority
 By Tamanna Arora

of done by the machines/equipments but without any manual moments nothing can be
done. so to study on employee satisfaction is necessary.

Employee exit management is the process used within many businesses to terminate
employees in a professional manner. It applies to employees who have resigned and
those that have been terminated by the company.

When an employee is terminated there are a number of considerations that an

organization needs to make in order to cleanly end the relationship between the
company and the employee. The company as a legal entity has a responsibility to the
employee which may extend beyond the period of employment and this is the primary
focus of the exit procedure.[1]

Let’s understand the term employee. According to various definitions an employee can
be defined as:

1. A worker who is hired to perform a job

2. An individual who provides labor to a company or another person
3. An individual who provides services for compensation to an employer and whose
duties are under the control of the employer.

An employee works for an employer and gets paid for his work and nothing else. The
relation of an employer and employee has a beginning; they stay together for a while
and then they separate. Beginning of the relation is called as recruitment process or
talent acquisition that passes through selection phase and followed by induction.
Staying together in the relation comprises the various phases such has performance
management; career management; professional growth; development and etc. And the
final stage of the relation is the separation.

Broadly speaking, in normal scenarios the separation between employer and employee
can be due to any of the following three (this will be discussed in detail in subsequently):

1) Resignation – Employee decides to leave the organization.

 By Tamanna Arora

2) Termination – Employer decides to break the contract of employment

3) Absconding – When the employee decides to leave the organization without
tendering his resignation or following the proper process of separation.

Apart from the above mentioned, the relation between employer and employee can
also be terminated during the lay-offs (Financial or economic crisis); during the
process of mergers, acquisitions and take-over; or any other legal intervention by the
state or central government. Based on the type of employee that has been hired by
the company, if local or an expatriate or a national of other country or if an employee
is hired through outsourcing agencies, the process of separation and the documents
involved in it also differs.

Later in this report we will discuss these things in more detail.

An exit interview is also conducted by an employer of a departing employee. They

are generally conducted by a relatively neutral party, such as a human resources staff
member, so that the employee will be more inclined to be candid, as opposed to
worrying about burning bridges. For this reason, some companies opt to employ a third
party to conduct the interviews and provide feedback. The purpose of an exit interview
is usually to gather data for improving working conditions and retaining employees.[1]
Common questions include reasons for leaving, job satisfaction, frustrations and
feedback concerning company policies or procedures.

Schools may also conduct exit interviews with students before graduation, or even as a
requirement of it. This is sometimes called a graduation interview.
 By Tamanna Arora

EXIT INTERVIEW FORM

Name: Employee Code:

Date of Joining : Date of Exit:

Name of Organization Joining: India / Abroad: India

Personal Mail id: -

The objective of this questionnaire is to elicit your honest feedback using which the
organization can learn from its shortcomings. All information provided by you will be
kept confidential and used only for the purpose of organizational improvement. Consider
this feedback as a parting gift to us.

1 What is your primary reason

for leaving?

2 Did anything trigger your

decision to leave?

3 What was most satisfying

about your job?

4 What was least satisfying

about your job?

5 What would you change

about your job?

6 Did your job duties turn out to

be as you expected?
 By Tamanna Arora

7 Did you receive enough

training to do your job
effectively?

8 Did you receive adequate

support to do your job?

9 Did you receive sufficient

feedback about your
performance between merit
reviews?

10 Were you satisfied with this

company's merit review
process?

11 Did this company help you to

fulfill your career goals?

12 Do you have any tips to help

us find your replacement?

13 What would you improve to

make our workplace better?

14 Were you happy with your

pay, benefits and other
incentives?

15 What was the quality of the

supervision you received?

16 What could your immediate

supervisor do to improve his
 By Tamanna Arora

or her management style?

17 Based on your experience

with us, what do you think it
takes to succeed at this
company?

18 Did any company policies or

procedures (or any other
obstacles) make your job
more difficult?

19 Would you consider working

again for this company in the
future?

20 Would you recommend

working for this company to
your family and friends?

21 How do you generally feel

about this company?

22 What did you like most about

this company?

23 What did you like least about

this company?

24 What does your new

company offer that this
company doesn't?

25 Can this company do

anything to encourage you to
stay?

26 Before deciding to leave, did

you investigate a transfer
 By Tamanna Arora

within the company?

27 Did anyone in this company

discriminate against you,
harass you or cause hostile
working conditions?

28 Any other comments?

Exit interviews are just not a mere formality, but it's a process to understand a person's
response towards the company policies, procedures and work atmosphere. Exit
interview is partly responsible to reduce attrition in any company because only in that
process a person will come out with valuable comments and suggestions and also his
problems can b tackled. .

REGARDING HCL

HCL (Hindustan Computers Limited) is a leading global Technology and IT enterprise

whose range of services spans Product Engineering and Technology Development,
Application Services, BPO Services, Infrastructure Services, IT Hardware, Systems
Integration, and Distribution of Technology and Telecom products in India. The HCL
Enterprise comprises two companies listed in India: HCL Technologies and HCL
Infosystems. HCL Technologies is the IT and BPO services arm focused on global
markets, while HCL Infosystems deals in the IT, Communication, Office Automation
Products & System Integration arm focused on the Indian market. Today, HCL has
45,000 employees of diverse nationalities, operating across 17 countries including 360
service centers in India. HCL is one of the BPO that provides the top class services that
 By Tamanna Arora

other BPO provides and to be considered as the reputed services provider. HCL has
global partnerships with several leading Fortune 1000 firms, including several IT and
Technology.

Shiv Nadar is the founder of HCL. He founded HCL in 1976 in a Delhi "barsaati". In
1978, HCL developed the first indigenous micro-computer at the same time as Apple
and 3 years before IBM's PC. In 1980, HCL introduced bit sliced, 16-bit processor
based micro-computer. In 1983, HCL Indigenously developed an RDBMS, a Networking
OS and a Client Server architecture, at the same time as global IT peers. In 1986, HCL
became the largest IT company in India. In 1988, HCL introduced fine grained multi-
processor Unix-3 years ahead of "Sun" and "HP". In 1991, HCL entered into a joint
venture Hewlett Packard and HCL-Hewlett Packard Ltd. was formed. The joint
developed multi-processor Unix for HP and heralded HCL's entry into contract R&D. In
1997, HCL Infosystems was formed. In the same year HCL ventured into software
services. In 1999, HCL Technologies Ltd issued an IPO and became a public listed
company. In 2001, HCL BPO was incorporated and HCL Infosystems became the
largest hardware company. In 2002, software businesses of HCL Infosystems and HCL
Technologies were merged. In 2005, HCL set up first Power PC architecture design
centre outside of IBM. In the same year HCL Infosystems launched sub Rs.10,000 PC.
In 2006, HCL Infosystems became the first company in India to launch the New
Generation of High Performance Server Platforms Powered by Intel Dual - Core Xeon
5000 Processor. Today, HCL has a turnover of over US$4billion.
 By Tamanna Arora

"Together we create the enterprises of tomorrow"

"To provide world-class information technology solutions

and services to enable our customers to serve their
customers better"
 By Tamanna Arora

HCL BPO services - An overview

HCL BPO was started in 2001. Today, with USD 231.4 million in revenue and over
11,100 professionals operating out of India, Northern Ireland and USA. HCL BPO runs
22 delivery centers across India, UK and USA and offers 24X7 multi-channel, multi-
lingual support in eight European and eight APAC languages. HCL BPO’s focus
verticals include Telecom, Retail & CPG, Banking & Financial Services, Insurance, Hi-
Tech & Manufacturing and Media, Publishing & Entertainment. The company also
services various areas of operations that include Supply Chain Management, Finance &
Accounting Services, Knowledge & Legal Services, Customer Relationship
Management and Technical Support Services. HCL BPO has the largest Telecom
engagement in India and runs business processes for world renowned Clients in back-
office services, particularly in the Telecom and Retail domain.

Leadership Credentials

• The first Indian BPO to enter the Telecommunications Expense Management

(TEM) market
• HCL BPO ranks among the Top 10 ITeS-BPO companies in India (NASSCOM &
Dataquest)
• Largest BPO service provider in Northern Ireland
• Won the largest engagement in Indian BPO history
• Largest provider of Telecom BPO services in Asia
• First Indian BPO to be COPC certified for Collection Services
• Pioneered blended - shore operations for Indian BPO service providers

Quality Initiatives

HCL BPO follows industry best practices and metric-based quality norms for all its
processes. This is supported by robust technology infrastructure, strong human
resources and a customized training program and transition framework.
 By Tamanna Arora

Career Development & Growth

We are strongly focused on career development and growth of our people. Training is
an ongoing process at HCL BPO. The training encompasses several skill-sets
pertaining to the voice as well as non-voice processes and geared towards scaling up
employees to take on more complex tasks. Our career development plan ensures that
each candidate is provided constructive feedback regularly and given clear visibility on
areas of improvement.

Major Achievements of HCL

• Developed the first indigenous micro-computer in 1978.

• Indigenously developed an RDBMS, a Networking OS and a Client Server
architecture in 1983.
• In 1986, HCL becomes the largest IT company in India.
• HCL introduced fine grained multi-processor Unix-3 years ahead of "Sun" and
"HP".

HCL’s BPO is heading towards a maturity level where a new form of BPO, called
Transformational BPO, is evolving that constitutes Full Process Outsourcing and
Multiple Process Outsourcing. HCL’s BPO serves customers in various industries
including Telecom, Retail, Insurance, Banking & Financial Services, Hi-Tech &
Manufacturing and Media, Publishing & Entertainment sectors, backed by Value
creation, Global delivery processes, new Output-based Commercial Models, and
Strategic Partnerships with clients

HCL Enterprise is a 34-year-old leading Global Technology and IT enterprise, with USD
5.0 billion revenue, 64000 professionals and operations spanning 26 countries.

The 3-decade-old enterprise, founded in 1976, is one of India's original IT garage

 By Tamanna Arora

startups. Its range of offerings spans Product Engineering, Custom & Package
Applications, Business Process Outsourcing, IT Infrastructure Services, IT Software, &
ces, IT Hardware, Systems Integration, and distribution of ICT products. Since its
inception, HCL Enterprise has grown to become what it is today under the strong
leadership and guidance of Shiv Nadar (Founder, Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer).
HCL Enterprise comprises two companies listed in India, namely HCL Infosystems
(www.hclinfosystems.in) and HCL Technologies (www.hcltech.com). HCL Infosystems
deals with hardware, system integration, network and ICT distribution, solely for the
Indian market.

HCL Technologies on the other hand, focuses on Transformational Outsourcing,

working with clients in areas that impact and re-define the core of their business. The
company leverages an extensive global offshore infrastructure and its global network of
offices in 23 countries to deliver solutions across select verticals including Financial
Services, Retail & Consumer, Life Sciences & Healthcare, Hi-Tech & Manufacturing,
Telecom and Media & Entertainment (M&E). HCL Technologies caters to the global
market in areas like product engineering, research & development, enterprise & custom
applications, infrastructure management, and BPO services.

Several Views of the Concerned regarding HCL.

HCL BPO ranked 3rd among the “TOP BPO Employers 2008”

HCL BPO awarded the most coveted “TECHNOLOGY AWARD” on Sep 2008

HCL BPO - First BPO in the world to be appraised at the PCMM level 3 (Noida
center)

HCL BPO is the first BPO in India to train its employees to move into software
 By Tamanna Arora

programming roles

ADVANTAGES OF HCL BPO

Integrated service provider: HCL BPO is one of the leading vendors providing
Operations, Technology & Infrastructure integrated services. These integrated
services provide immense intangible benefits like reduced process duration,
higher appreciation of business criticality, micro level operational details etc.

End-to-End service capability: With over 155+ processes running, HCL BPO
has in-depth experience and knowledge in addressing the existing and emerging
outsourcing requirements of Clients from varied industry segments.

Continuous investment in Technology: DS3 network, Platforms and call

centre specific tools. HCL BPO's IT focus being Server consolidation, application
consolidation and Compliance.

Quality certifications: With stringent internal metrics and audit systems, its
Quality certifications include COPC 2000 (CSP Release 4.1), ISO 9001:2000,
OHSAS 18001, ISO 14001:2004, ISO 27001, ISO 2000 and audit certification in
SAS 70 Type II

Flexible and Innovative Partnership Models:

HCL BPO’s ability to align with the changing needs of its customers has been a
hallmark in all its relationships and is among the key reasons why its customers
cherish their relationship with the organisation.

Leveraging HCL transition experience: HCL BPO has customised its proven
knowledge transition processes / quality methodology to transition work from
 By Tamanna Arora

offshore locations in US / Europe to its delivery centres ensuring risk mitigated,

quick and cost effective transitions.

SERVICES BEING OFFERED BY HCL BPO

Technical Support Services

Companies need to invest, upgrade and provide end-to-

end support services keeping pace with the ever-
changing technology without having a negative impact on
the quality of service. There is a need to focus on
customer service and post-sale technical support as
critical service differentiators that help organizations stay
ahead in a highly competitive business environment.
Outsourcing technical helpdesk is no longer looked upon
as a short-term cost-cutting tool with the focus now
shifting to long-
term competitive gain. In order to provide customers with end-to-end support
services, firms must deliver a superlative customer experience and also find ways to
reduce the cost of operations while driving for new revenues. The technical helpdesk
infrastructure capabilities of the offshore partner are a significant factor in ensuring
seamless transitioning of helpdesk functions. Offshore technical support centers and
helpdesks in India are thus investing in cutting-edge technologies and state-of-the art
technical helpdesk.
 By Tamanna Arora

FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING SERVICES

As business complexity increases, so is the demand for

financial reporting and analysis. The drive towards cost
cutting and better financial reporting and regulatory
compliance will force more chief financial officers to
consider outsourcing finance and accounting (F&A)
business functions. Additional motivations include
access to better technology and improved service
levels. F&A outsourcing increasingly is being used as a
tool not only for cost savings but also for business
transformation. This being seldom a priority for invest-
ment, Finance and Accounting (F&A) departments are stretched at both the tactical
and strategic ends of the business. The challenge is how to enhance and improve
expertise and motivate the resources with the right skill sets to deliver value that
the business demands, while keeping focus on reducing the operational costs. To
do so, it is critical to increase the proportion of time spent on value-added activities
versus transaction processing. The Finance and Accounting (F&A) business
process including accounts payable, accounts receivable, order management &
tracking, treasury functions, financial reporting, tax consulting and internal audit
services is expected to be one of the most widely outsourced business process
categories in the near future as per many industry analysts like the Gartner and the
Everest groups. Many organizations clearly embrace F&A outsourcing as a
strategy for improving service levels, reducing expenses, increasing stakeholder
value and gaining a greater competitive stronghold in their marketplaces
 By Tamanna Arora

KNOWLEDGE AND LEGAL SERVICES

After the success of business process outsourcing, it is now

KPO in India, which is making its presence felt. BPO’s
success in India is encouraging overseas companies to eye
Indian market for knowledge process outsourcing (KPO).
With a huge talent pool, India could emerge as a global
Knowledge Process Outsourcing hub as the sector requires
specialized knowledge in respective verticals. Operational
cost saving, pool of talented workforce, infrastructure
improvement and favorable government policies are the
factors, which are responsible for KPO’s growth in India.

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

The entire customer lifecycle must be properly measured

throughout its duration, and can be examined on an
individual customer or against a mean average. The key
success factors are:

Customer loyalty and Retention that enables better

Return on Investment (ROI)

Product and Service Differentiation that enables

enhanced customer base
 By Tamanna Arora

Brand Equity that enables being first choice and recall

HCL BPO's extensive experience in almost every component of the Customer Life
Cycle Management has enabled its Client to derive significant benefits in terms of
increased market share, Brand equity, customer loyalty and enhanced customer
satisfaction.

SERVICE OFFERINGS

Customer Generation Services

Operations Management Services

Warranty Management Services

Customer Retention Services

Management Decision Services

HUMAN RESOURCE OUTSOURCING

Many organisations are finding innovative ways to grow in

today’s competitive market. However, a few companies are
sustaining their market leadership position by leveraging on
one of their most valuable assets – human capital. In most
of the organisations, the Human Resource function (HR),
 By Tamanna Arora

which is entrusted with managing this asset, spends most

of its time on transactional, non-core tasks. Other key
challenges faced by HR include staying current with
changing compliances, adjusting to dynamic business
needs, coordinating with different HR vendors on a
regular basis and more. These things to a very significant extent reduce the time HR
team spends on strategic priorities that critically impact the bottom-line.

HCL HRO, the next generation of comprehensive and integrated HRO services is a
one-stop-shop that can help you transform your HR into a strategic one. Our HRO
offering blends the perfect mix of HR domain expertise, best practices & processes,
best-in-class IT infrastructure and HR ERP platforms. Our suite of integrated HRO
services can help you streamline & enhance your HR processes and improve the quality
of service to your employees. We partner with our clients to bring about business
transformation through continuous improvements to enhance the process efficiency.
 By Tamanna Arora

SERVICES BEING OFFERED

EHS – An Introduction

EHS stands for Executive HR Services

It is a corporate function at par with other support functions like HR, Finance, and S&M
etc. In HCL, keeping in mind the “Employee first initiative” instead of a per say ‘HR’
department an EHS department was formed to streamline and resolve issues of
employees expeditiously at a more interactive level. The EHS team takes care of
employees from the point they join till they exit.
 By Tamanna Arora

Purpose

• To provide a Single Window to employees to take care of majority of their day-to-

day HR related queries with a “WE CARE” attitude.
• There were certain duplication of efforts at HR, Finance and Administration.
• There was a need to optimize the resource utilization from the company point of
view.
• There was a need for a single group focusing on policy implementation and
independent group for creating the policies.
• There was a need to create a team with multi discipline expertise to handle the
employee transactions
 By Tamanna Arora

EHS Mission

To provide efficient and high quality services to employees while adhering to internal
control norms by consistently achieving

a. Pre-defined benchmarks for Service Level in respect of each type of service; and

b. Zero defect in adhering to pre-defined internal norms and regulatory requirements

In this report contains the role played by EHS in the exiting formalities of the company.

Materials and Methods

Most of the data I collected and included in my report was through primary sources.
However some of the secondary sources also helped me to find out / analyze the facts
on the basis of which the entire report has been prepared. Primary data includes my
practical experience I got while working with the organisation and taking all the calls
which are basically required to be considered and also by analyzing the thoughts and
opinions of the exiting employees. The Project for which I was required to do the in-
depth study and to make the related facts to be a place are being included in it and
being handed over. It really helped me to learn and to understand that how to tackle the
different kind of situation and in which circumstances what steps are required to be
taken by a employee working in HR Department.

I’ve made use of flowcharts in order to make the understanding of the processes easy
and presentable

I also included some documents regarding various exit procedures to help clarify the
process in the project.

I have started with explaining about the organization and the general terminologies in
terms of general business practices, then relating these to the company and highlighting
 By Tamanna Arora

its own practices, then moving into individual component and processes of the working
of the organization with regard to my topic.

My personal challenge was not just be to analyze and understand the current processes
and policies followed by the company, but also to come up with possible
recommendations and suggestions for the company to help improve its current working
state or to help achieve its desired working state.

The suggestions and analysis in the project is personal and entirely based on my
experience and observation within the organization.

ATTRITION IN BPO INDUSTRY

“Unpredictable and uncontrollable, but normal, reduction of work force due to

resignations, retirement, sickness, or death"

Staff attrition rate and workers' absenteeism means significant costs to the
organizations. In many organizations, workers are leaving even after the organization is
spending huge amount of money for the benefits of the workers. Many organizations
accept workers' mobility as part of doing their business, but it is a matter to be regretted.
In these circumstances, the HR Department has got a significant role to play

The IT enabled services (BPO) industry is looked upon as a big employment generator.
It is however no easy task for HR in this sector to bridge the ever increasing demand
and supply gap of professionals. Unlike his software industry counterpart, the BPO HR
is not only required to fulfill this responsibility, but also find the right kind of people who
can keep pace with the unique work patterns in this industry. Adding to this is the issue
of maintaining consistency in performance and keeping the motivation levels high,
despite the monotonous work. The toughest concern for HR is however the high attrition
rate.
 By Tamanna Arora

The much hyped "work for fun" tag normally associated with the industry has in fact
backfired, as many individuals (mostly fresh graduates), take it as a pas-time job. Once
they join the sector and understand its requirements, they are taken aback by the long
working hours and later monotony of the job starts setting in. This is the reason for the
high attrition rate as many individuals are not able to take the pressures of work.

The toughness of the job and timings is not adequately conveyed. Besides the induction
and project training, not much investment has been done to evolve a continuous training
program for the agents.

Motivational training is still to evolve in this industry. But, in all this, it is the HR who is
expected to straighten things out and help individuals adjust to the real world. I believe
that the new entrant needs to be made aware of the realistic situation from day-one
itself, with the training session conducted in the nights, so that they get accustomed to
things right at the beginning.

The high percentage of females in the workforce (constituting 30-35 percent of the
total), adds to the high attrition rate. Most women leave their job either after marriage or
because of social pressures caused by irregular working hours in the industry. All this
translates into huge losses for the company, which invests a lot of money in training
them.

Many experts are of believe that all these challenges can turn out to be a real dampener
in the growth of this industry. This only raises the responsibility of finding the right
candidate and building a conducive work environment, which will be beneficial for the
organization. The need is for those individuals who can make a career out of this.
All this has induced the companies to take necessary steps, both internally and
externally.
 By Tamanna Arora

At HCL Technologies BPO as of last quarter of 2009 the attrition rate was at 21% with
total employee strength of 55688 and net addition of 1691 employees against an
industry attrition rate average of 30% prevailing in the industry.

Attrition Rate is good for the organization as long as the rate is at normal level. This will
help the organization to get new blood into the organization and for the organization to
develop. But it becomes a problem when the attrition rate is abnormal. Therefore, HR
Department has the most crucial role to play

THE ATTRITION PROBLEM

According to NASSCOM data, the attrition rate for voice-based BPO’s is around 55-60
per cent and 15-20 per cent for the non-voice based processes. The attrition rates and
the retention have become the major threat and the biggest challenge for the human
resource professionals of the sector. In fact, the outsourcing industry is expected to face
a shortage of 2,62,000 professionals by 2012. The human resource professionals of the
BPO sector are focusing their strategies on tackling the disruption caused due to the
shortage of the skilled manpower as well as the unplanned or the undesired exists.

The top reasons for employees to leave a BPO company are:

Monotonous work (repetitive nature of work and the average number of calls)

Physical strains because of long and odd working hours

No growth opportunity/lack of promotion

For higher Salary

For Higher education

No personal life

Problems with peers and managers

Policies and procedures

Conducive work culture or environment

Handling abusive calls
 By Tamanna Arora

The high attrition costs increases the costs to the organization considerably. They have
to combat the amount of disruption due to unplanned exits. The more the people leave
an organization, the more it is a drain on the company’s resources like recruitment
expenses, training and orientation resources and the time. The high attrition rate also
affects the productivity of the organization. The attrition cost has been estimated to be
as high as 76 per cent of the annual salary costs for the low-end BPOs. The voice-
based processes, which are facing an attrition rate of 60 per cent, are incurring the
attrition costs of 27 per cent of the total operating costs.

The high attrition costs the BPO industry a huge amount of loss in terms of the
expenses and the losses incurred on recruitment process, the training and development
of the hired. . The retention strategies like providing higher education opportunities to
the employees, creating growth opportunities for employees add to the burden of costs
to the company. .

Another problem being faced by the BPO industry is “Poaching”. Poaching refers to
taking away the experienced professionals by competitors by offering them better
salary, benefits than the competitor. With the already saturated market for the talented
professionals, poaching is becoming a common practice by the organizations. All these
people costs are weakening the position of India as the low-cost destination in the
worldwide BPO industry .

Another point of view explaining the high attrition rates in the BPO industry comes from
the psychologists who argue that physical strains like sleep disorders, depression, odd
working shifts, learning foreign accents, constantly handling abusive calls and high
stress levels are also the major reasons of the high attrition rates in the BPO industry.
There are also pressures from the society for not allowing the youngsters to work in
night shifts. This also discourages the youngsters from joining the BPO industry and
because of the same problem youngsters are scared .
 By Tamanna Arora

Although a large number of youngsters are attracted to the BPO industry because of the
high salary packages offered by the MNC’s to graduates and even the under-graduates;
also the sophisticated work environment, the facilities like free meal and transportation
etc.; failure to cope with the stress of the odd shifts, the monotonous work, the
compensation packages and the opportunities for higher education fails to sustain them
in the organizations .

For the Indian BPO industry to sustain its growth and position, the human resource
professionals have to re-formulate their strategies to check the problem of the attrition
rate without losing their cost-effectiveness. BPOs will have to change their mindset and
the practice of- “No matter I have a high attrition rate, I can cope up if my recruitment
process is good” – to creating a synergy between the work life, growth opportunities,
and the requirements of the job to control the attrition in the organizations.
.

The HR professionals need to redesign the HR policies for the industry without
comprising on the cost competitiveness of the Indian BPO industry, to retain the
employees in the organizations and to retain India’s position as the low cost destination
for business process outsourcing worldwide. .

In the next article, we’ll have a look at the western culture being promoted by BPOs in
India and how the youngsters are losing out in the BPO.

Attrition in the BPO industry is one of the biggest issue which the growing ITES industry
in India is facing. The effects of attrition are wide varying and impacts the firms in terms
of losses (due to training and administration cost, high recruitment cost), incompetent
processes, inability to offer services for highly technical process, etc.

Attrition though a nuisance also has some associated benefits along with such as low
cost of operation, knowledge sharing amongst the firms benefiting the overall industry
in increasing its competencies. Attrition usually occurs on two fronts - people leaving the
 By Tamanna Arora

industry and people shifting jobs inside the industry. Both of them have separate causes
which have been identified in this paper.

The paper attempts to understand the underlying reasons for attrition by analyzing the
BPO industry through Maslow's Hierarchical model of Needs. The Maslow's framework
helps in giving a better perception about the motivation of the employees in the BPO
industry and identifying gaps in their expectations which needs to be filled up.

Finally, the paper concludes by recommending a Win-Win Model which endeavors to

satisfy the needs of both the employer and employee. The model encloses the
employee by 4 level of strategies thus reducing the attrition rate as well as minimizing
the impact whenever it occurs.

EXITING PROCESS OF HCL

Exiting Process refers to making an employee out of the organization either by his
resignation voluntarily or because of being terminated because of any case which
depends on case to case basis. The role of the HR Department is to do all such
activities and the things which could help him to provide him all his dues and if the
employees is being terminated or abscond then to take all such dues of the company
which are lying on the part of the organization. The detailed discussion about such
matter is being mentioned below:-

RESIGNATION - This is the most common way of separation. Employee leaves his job
and employment with his employer to pursue better opportunities; a better position at a
better compensation package in a branded company (or better known company) in a
same city and country or in a different city or different country. So, an employee resigns
for:

1) Better compensation and benefits

2) Higher position / level

3) Challenging role
 By Tamanna Arora

4) To move from an unknown or lowly branded company to a highly branded and

reputed company (Top 10 or 25 companies in the world etc)

5) For foreign or international assignments etc.

TERMINATION - Usually, this process is perceived negatively by employees. In

termination, an employer uses his right to terminate the contract of an employment.
There can be many reasons for an employer to terminate the contract of employment
but some of the common reasons are:

1) Non-Performance 2) Indiscipline 3) Misconduct 4) Insubordination 5) Theft and etc

ABSCONDING - This is one of the most unethical, unexpected and unprofessional way
to terminate the contract of an employment. In this, on one fine day an employee
decides not to go to work. He does not care to hand-over his stuff. In case an employee
decides to abscond (or run-away), it becomes very important to understand his motives
and intentions. Employees can abscond in either or all of the below mentioned
circumstances / situations:
 By Tamanna Arora

GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION TO MAKE AWARE ABOUT THE KINDS OF

SEPERATION

1) After stealing the confidential information or documents or database from the

company.

2) If the intentions of an individual is to commit a crime.

3) If there is a work-pressure and stress and the individual is not able to cope-up with
it (as it happens in call-centers, BPO and other high-stress industries).

4) If the employee has committed any crime outside the office and after working hours
(such as murder or getting involved in terrorist activities or theft or any other civil crime).

5) Then, when priorities are different. Employee has asked for leave due to some
urgency at his home (or might be he is trying to escape from his work responsibilities)
and at the same time his team also needs him in the office and his leaves are not
approved.
 By Tamanna Arora

6) If he has got some exceptionally good opportunity that requires him to join
immediately and he feels that the process of separation in his company is a bit too
complicated. He assumes few things and do not really try to face the challenge.

7) Lastly, it is a personality issue. Employees that abscond have different

personalities. They are low in confidence. They are too weak to face the reality and
challenges of life. They feel that running away from the problem is as good as solving
the problem. They are cowards to take the problems head-on.

Once an employee decides to resign and leave the organization, whatever one may do
but he will leave; if not today then tomorrow. On the other hand, if the employer decides
to terminate the contract, he might change his mind, provided the case against the
employee is not very severe.

Absconding, as mentioned above is in itself is a crime; something that only coward

people do; such people just give-up without even making an attempt. These people run
away from the reality of life and from the challenges that life offers to get best out of you
and to make you master.

As an employee whenever you decide to leave the company, do it in a more

professional and acceptable manner.

As an employer, whenever you decide to terminate the contract of employment of any

employee, make sure that you document all the incidents in a chronological manner and
have in your possession, all the required evidences. Unfortunately, decision of
resignation cannot be challenged in any court and it is considered as a right of an
employee but decision of termination can be challenged.

Employee separation is a big process and does not involve unilateral decisions.
Accuracy and professionalism is the key.
 By Tamanna Arora

The employee separation in HCL is just a 4 step process involving the resignation, exit
interview, F&F and Relieving letter along with the coordination of the EHS Team and the
various centers (N1 & N2, N3, N4, and N5).

The process is similar to the general norms of exit in corporate organization. However,
there is a slight difference in the exiting process of HCL.

In a normal exit situation this is how the process follows:

FLOWCHART

1. Firstly, the employee recognizes his need to leave the company after which he
submits his resignation letter to his immediate superior or manager.

2. The reporting manager before accepting the resignation has a 1-on-1 interview with
the employee to see if there is any scope of retaining the employee. If he is able to
convince the employee to stay then the employee withdraws his resignation and
resumes work as decided.

3. However, even after the session the employee still insists on leaving then his
resignation is accepted by the reporting manager and forwarded to Line HR(which is
the HR in his respective center)

4. The Line HR again has a 1-on-1 with the employee on a second attempt to retain
him and gain feedback from the employee.
 By Tamanna Arora

5. If the employee still wants to leave, his resignation is accepted and depending on
the nature of the resignation (with notice / without notice) his full and final formalities
as initiated at the centre and his salary is put on hold. Notice period of the employee
varies with his designation.

6. Before the employee starts with his F&F formalities at the centre he has to fill up the
MoT (Moment of Truth) it is somewhat like an online exit interview where the
employee fills up the form providing feedback and reasons to the company.

7. Then, the employee fills the F&F form at the centre and submits it to his HR.

8. The center then forwards the form to the EHS team for final clearing and separation.

9. The EHS team processes the form, updates the SAP and makes the payroll
clearance. It also calculates the necessary recoveries and payables and forwards
them to finance.

10. The finance team then works on the settlement provided by EHS, they segregate the
form centre wise and processes them, after which they are sent to a signing
authority who authorizes the issuing of cheque for the settlement of the employee or
if there is a recovery then the employee has to give a demand draft of the amount to
be recovered to the EHS team before receiving his resignation letter.

11. Finally, once the F&F is done the employee is handed over his resignation letter and
his cheque (if applicable).
 By Tamanna Arora

Separation Process
 By Tamanna Arora

FULL AND FINAL PROCESS

Introduction

Full and Final Settlement is a process wherein you settle all financial transactions with
the employee who is leaving with respect to his salary, leave encashment, bonus(if
applicable) etc. It is a part of separation formalities to be completed to pay the legal
dues of any resigned employees. At the end of the process, the company doesn’t owe
anything to the employee and the employee doesn’t owe anything to the company as
well....that's the whole purpose of F&F .

Also, F&F also includes settlement of all assets, equipment, electronics and other
tangible items belonging to the company that is provided to the employee during his
tenure in the organization and vice-versa.

So, even if you terminate the employee, you still need to do his F&F settlement. It’s not
something you 'ask from' the employee. Its something you need to do as part of the exit
process for each and every employee whether resigned or terminated.

A formal resignation letter (duly signed) should be obtained from the resigned
employee. Please note SMS/email / phone call are not formal ways of resignation.

When any employee resigns, they are required to serve a notice period on completion
of which a No Dues Clearance Certificate required to be obtained from all the Dept
concerned stating that he has no dues / issues pending with the Company.
 By Tamanna Arora

On completion of the above procedure, his full and final settlement dues can be issued.
The F&F consists of payment of,

• Unpaid Salary (if any)

• Balance Leave Encashment (Annual Leave)
• LTA / Medical or other Reimbursement pending
• Notice Period Payment (in case of planned /mutual agreed resignation)
• Administration recovery
• Company lease
• Bonds / Agreements / Commitments.
• Car Lease
• Gratuity - Applicable only if employee has completed minimum 5 years in the
Company or for a death case.

An experience letter / relieving letter can be issued to the resigned employee

mentioning the Last working date.
 By Tamanna Arora

FULL & FINAL COMPONENTS

Full and Final Process in HCL

Full & Final process varies with 3 types of cases:

Resignation

Absconding

ATL (Asked To Leave)/Termination

RESIGNATION

A normal exit procedure begins with the submission of the resignation letter by the
employee to his reporting manager. After his resignation is accepted by the reporting
manager and Line HR he can then start his F&F process at the centre.

• As we saw earlier in order to complete F&F formalities the employee has to get a
clearance of dues from various departments. The employee starts his F&F
procedure with his reporting manager. The manager fills part A of the form where he
verifies the date of resignation, acceptance of resignation, notice served, notice to
be recovered, his last working day, if he is given a waiver or not, and deactivation of
his email id.

• Once he is cleared by the reporting manager he moves to his centre HR department

or Line HR. The HR SPOC checks for his date of resignation, acceptance of
resignation, notice served, Date of joining, separation from PRU, covered under
bond or not and reason of leaving.

• He then goes to his IT department to deactivate his internet access account, email
id, administrator password, Nortel phone etc Also, the department checks for any
dues on laptop that is provided by the company or any other company asset.
 By Tamanna Arora

• He also has to go to the administration department to return the id card/smart card

and access card provided to him by the company failing to do so the company can
charge a recovery of Rs.1100/- from the exiting employee. Those employees who
have availed locker services have to return their locker keys before exiting as well.

• If the employee is availing the company transport services he has to get a clearance
from them by removing his name from the transport roster.

• Finally, he goes to his center’s finance department for settlement of dues like notice
recovery; advance salary, vendor balance etc.

• In part G, of the form the employee fills in his own details like his employee code,
name, address, contact information, and provides his name and signatures at the
end.

• After all this, the employee is separated from SAP and he submits this form to his
center’s HR who collect other forms from other employees and send them to the
EHS team in Corporate HR at EOD (End of Day).

• Now the final processing is done by the EHS SPOC in Corporate HR, where he
checks for the employee’s separation from SAP, his LWD, his resignation date, DOJ,
the last day of salary transfer and the day the salary was put on hold. Now, his PL
encashment is calculated using the formula –

Balance Leaves x Basic Salary / 26

His absences are checked and matched with the SAP. They also check if the
employee has an incomplete bond. In that case a recovery is put for the bond
amount which is calculated using –

Bond amount x No. of days not worked / 274

• Notice period served – In this case his notice period recovery is waived off as he has
served his notice period.
 By Tamanna Arora

• Notice period partially served – Then the company makes recovery from the exiting
employee after calculating his due using his basic salary –

Basic Salary x No. of days not served / 30

• Notice period not served – When the employee leaves immediately without serving
his notice period the employee has to give the company his basic salary equal to the
notice period.

The EHS SPOC then makes the entries for all these components into SAP, makes the
payroll clearance, and changes his salary transfer from hold to cheque.

After this final part of F&F is complete, the employees form is sent to the corporate
finance department who make a settlement of the employee.

If the employee has a recovery then a recovery letter is sent to him informing him about
his dues and asking him to personally come and meet an EHS SPOC with a demand
draft of the amount due before his relieving letter can be given to him. If there is a
payable to the employee then the company gives him his cheque settling the dues and
his relieving letter.

ABSCONDING

When the employee decides to leave the organization without tendering his resignation
or following the proper process of separation he is considered absconding in other
words, one fine day the employee just stops coming to work without informing the
company or taking permission of his superior.

When the company realizes his absence a DAF in sent to the employees contact after
3-4 days. The employee is given a period of time within which he should report to work
or else he will be considered absconding, this period of time given is called the
 By Tamanna Arora

intimation period. If the employee fails to return after this period, he is then separated
from the company.

There are two scenarios in this case, firstly, the employee can comeback later to
complete his F&F himself, or the centre where the employee worked initiates the F&F
process where the employee fails to return.

HCL is an employee friendly company hence it allows the absconding employees to

rejoin or finish their exiting formalities.

F&F process remains the same when the employee comes back to fill his F&F form. He
goes through all the processes mentioned above. But he is charged his entire basic
salary as recovery because he ahs failed to serve the notice period.

In the other case where the employee hasn’t returned there administration charges its
administration fees of Rs.1100/- and his entire notice recovery.

HCL does not disclose or show in the relieving letter that the employee has or had
absconded. However, the company doesn’t mention “wishes for his future endeavors
“while relieving him of his services.

TERMINATION

HCL can ask the employees to leave on two grounds:

PERFORMANCE

When an employee performance poorly which is at the NI (needs improvement) rating.

The employee is put to a PIP (Performance Improvement Program) where he
undergoes various exercises to help him improve his performance if again he performs
poorly then he is put into another PIP and if he again fails to perform and continues to
be a hindrance to the team he is asked to leave. Another method that is followed is that
 By Tamanna Arora

the employee is moved to another process so that he is able to perform in a different

process. This is done assuming the fact that a person who may not be good at one type
of work can be good at some other work. However, when all this fails and the employee
does not deliver he becomes a liability not only to the company and his team but
personally as well. Hence, the company can ask him to leave.

BEHAVIORAL

HCL has a ZTP (zero-tolerance policy) laid down and signed by all employees in the
organization. If any employee is found violating this ZTP he can be terminated. The
general guidelines of the policy are as follows:

1.1 Demonstrate non-professional behavior/attitude towards customer.

1.2 Usage of profane or vulgar or abusive language.
1.3 Offensive or inappropriate references to Race, Ethnicity, Religion, Gender,
Lifestyle, Sexual Orientation, Disability and Age.
1.4 Consistent interruptions in a rude and sarcastic manner with a customer.
1.5 Unauthorized release of confidential information. This refers to the
customer’s/organizational information such as account information etc.
1.6 Inappropriate fraternization with customers.
1.7 Exchange of personal e-mail addresses, flirting or making dates with customers.
1.8 Coming to work intoxicated or any disciplinary issues on the floor.
1.9 Refused to escalate to a supervisor at the customer's request.
1.10 Indiscipline while on production: sleeping extended wrap time (applicable for
agents), taking unscheduled breaks, unapproved/ unscheduled leaves, reporting
late to work etc.
1.11 Insubordination with the customers or its representatives. This may be on the
floor/off the floor or with any of the HCL Management Representative.
1.12 Disparaging remarks about HCL or customers, its affiliates, and products.
1.13 Using any of the Process Level Transactions for personal purposes.
 By Tamanna Arora

1.14 Call avoidance (for Voice Processes): Agent intentionally disconnects the
customer during the call (Intentionally transferring a call back into the Queue)
1.15 Usage of Cell-Phone on the floor.

• Prematurely transferring a call to another department for them to do the

troubleshooting. Intentionally giving inaccurate information or
• Placing a customer on hold deliberately until they hang up.

1.16 Transaction Avoidance (For Data Processes): Agent intentionally does not
accept/respond to the customer through a data transaction.

• Intentionally transfers a Transaction back into the Queue.

• Prematurely transferring his/her volumes to another person/department to work for
them.
• Intentionally giving inaccurate information or steps in order to release his/her
workload without assisting the customer. Beside the above mentioned clauses there
are few process specific clauses which are defined and available with respective
Process Managers. It is the responsibility of the Process Manager to ensure that all
employees covered under mentioned scope are aware about the process specific
clauses and they are practiced across the scope.

THE PROCEDURE ON ZTP

2.1 A ZTP undertaking covering the above mentioned clauses is signed by every
employee joining the organization and the same is maintained in their respective
personal file.
 By Tamanna Arora

2.2 In the instance of an employee violating any of the aforementioned clauses and
or any of the process specific clauses, the same is escalated to Line HR by the
Team Leader/ Process Manager/ Function Head.
2.3 After receiving the escalation the Line HR Head forms a ZTP Committee in order
to give an opportunity to the concerned employee to be heard freely and fairly.
2.4 In a case of an agent the ZTP committee comprises of the Line HR Head,
Concerned Process Manager, Concerned SDL and another SDL of other
process. In all other cases the ZTP committee will comprise of the Line HR Head,
Reporting Manager, Function Head, Center Head/ Sr. Management.
2.5 Based on the observations of the committee members a ZTP Letter with the
details of the case and action taken is given to the concerned employee.
2.6 The receipt of the letter and a copy is documented in his/her personal file.
2.7 If the ZTP Committee decided to terminate the concerned employee, then the
standard full and final procedures are followed.

Now, in the case of termination on either ground the F&F remains the same the
employee is asked to submit his resignation to keep his integrity and the rest of the F&F
remains the same.

However, in termination cases no recovery is taken from the employee as the company
is asking him to leave so hence he is not liable for a notice recovery.

These cases are given priority when the EHS team processes the F&F forms over the
other F&F cases.
 By Tamanna Arora

PROVIDENT FUND

Provident Fund is the fund which is composed of the contributions made by the
employee during the time he has worked along with an equal contribution made by
his/her employers. Employer contributes 12% out of which 8.33% goes to Pension fund
& 3.67% to PF fund, subject to maximum of Rs.541/-. Employee can contribute a
minimum of 12% & maximum rate of 20% of the basic wages, dearness allowance and
the retaining allowance. This amount can be withdrawn by the employee at the time of
retirement, in case of termination of services

Once the employee becomes a part of HCL BPO he/she can avail the benefit of PF &
for Pension the employee need to have tenure of minimum 6 months with the company.

Provident Fund is the fund which is composed of the contribution made by the employer
& employee during the course of employment. The contribution percentage of employee
& employer is 12%. The employer contribution is 8.33% towards Pension & 3.67%
towards PF.

PF can be of 3 types:

• Withdrawal
• Transfer In
• Transfer Out

Further ,There are different types of provident funds which are as follows:-

STATUTORY PROVIDENT FUND - All industries and establishments that employ more
than 20 or more people are bound to contribute towards this fund. This fund covers
those whose income is below a certain limit prescribed by the government.
 By Tamanna Arora

VOLUNTARY PROVIDENT FUND: - The contributions to this fund are voluntary. This is
applicable for all those whose salary is beyond the limit specified by the government.
This is applicable if the employee covered under EPF is willing to increase his
contribution towards PF.

RECOGNIZED PROVIDENT FUND: - This is a fund wherein the contributions are

recognized for income tax calculations.

UNRECOGNIZED PROVIDENT FUND: - As the name suggests, contribution to these

funds are not recognized by the by the Commissioner of Income tax in accordance with
the rules contained there in the Act unlike a statutory provident fund, recognized
provident fund or public provident fund.

PUBLIC PROVIDENT FUND: - The Central Government has established the Public
Provident Fund for the benefit of general public to mobilize personal savings. A salaried
employee can simultaneously become a member of employees’ provident fund and the
public provident fund. This kind the provident fund is designed for self-employed people
like doctors, lawyers, engineers, businessmen etc

PROVISION REGARDING THE PROVIDENT FUND UNDER THE COMPANIES ACT,

1956

Companiies are required to consitute a provident fund trust in accordance with the
section 418 of the companies act, 1956 the other applicabilities are as follows.

Provisions applicable to provident funds of employees

1[(1) Where a provident fund has been constituted by a company for its employees or
any class of its employees, all moneys contributed to such fund (whether by the
 By Tamanna Arora

company or by the employees) or received or accruing by way of interest or otherwise

to such fund shall, within fifteen days from the date of contribution receipt or accrual, as
the case may be, either-

(a) be deposited-

(i) in a post office savings bank account ,

(ii) in a special account to be opened by the company for the purpose in the State Bank
of India or in a Scheduled Bank ,

(iii) where the company itself is a Scheduled Bank, in a special account to be opened by
the company for the purpose either in itself or in the State Bank of India or in any other
Scheduled Bank; or

(b) be invested in the securities mentioned or referred to in clauses (a) to (e) of section
20 of the Indian Trusts Act, 1882 (2 of 1882).]

(2) Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the rules of any ' provident fund to which
sub-section (1) applies or in any contract, between a company and its employees, no
employee shall be entitled to receive, in respect of, such portion of the amount to his
credit in such fund as is invested in accordance with the provisions of sub-section (1),
interest at a rate exceeding the rate of interest yielded by such investment.

(3) Nothing in sub-section (1) shall affect any rights of an employee under the rules of a
provident fund to obtain advances from or to withdraw money standing to his credit in
the fund, where the fund is a recognised provident fund within the meaning of clause (a)
of section 58A of the Indian Income-tax Act, 1922 (11 of 1922), or where the rules of the
fund contain provisions corresponding to rules 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 of the Indian Income-
tax (Provident Funds Relief) Rules .

(4) Where a 2[***] trust has been created by a company with respect to any provident
fund referred to in sub-section (1), the company shall be bound to collect the
 By Tamanna Arora

contributions of the employees concerned and pay such contributions as well as its own
contributions, if any, to the trustees 3[within fifteen days from the date of collection]; but
in other respects the obligations laid on the company by this section shall devolve on
the trustees and shall be discharged by them instead of by the company.

HOW TO WITHDRAW THE PROVIDENT FUND

One can withdraw your provident fund after 60 days of your leaving the organization.

· In most cases, employer's HR Department gets the form filled up by the employee who
has left the service and gets it dully attested and stamped and signed by the employee
and the Managing Director or whoever is designated to sign the PF form. Then, HR
people send a person to submit the application. In this case, there is very less work
done by the employee and he/she is to just wait for the PF to come in his/her account.

· But in other cases, employees have to fill the application form on their own. Employees
purchase a form from outside and get it signed and stamped from the employer and
then submit for withdrawal.

· The most important things, which you have to be absolutely sure about, are reviewing
your name, father's name, bank account number, bank name with full address of the
bank, and some details written by your employer's HR Department on the form.

· Always crosscheck all the details before submitting the form because even a single
detail, which is not matched, can lead to rejection of your application. One of my
colleagues got rejected because there was no address of bank in the specified column
and then it takes another 45 days long process to submit the application.

· Please always remember to take a photocopy of your PF application form with you. It
will really help you out in case of a rejection.
 By Tamanna Arora

· According to EPFO guidelines, it takes around 30 days to receive your money in your
account but it is not true, even my money came after 45 days. Some candidates receive
their money even after 60 days.

· There is a long queue at the PF office and it takes around 4 to 5 hours in the queue
before the person on the counter will submit your application and give you the receipt.

· You can check the status of your claim online after 10 days of submitting your
application. Just log on to google, write "epf" in the search column, click the first link
epfo and you will be taken to the EPFO home page, then check for a button by the
name of "KNOW YOUR CLAIM STATUS" click on the button and you will be taken to
another page. On that web page, select your city for example "Delhi", press tab, select
PF branch office where your PF is submitted for example "Delhi (North) Wazirpur, then
enter your establishment code for example 12345, then insert extension code if any,
and then employee number. Hit the button, GET CLAIM STATUS and you will directed
to a page - Form 19 is Under Process. Your Claim is received on 14/01/2009 and is
being processed. Kindly Try after 30 days from Submission. Form 10C is Under
Process. Your Claim was received on 14/01/2009 and is being processed. Kindly Try
after 30 days from Submission.

· In some cases, if it is not updated on the PF server, then it will show, "Your Claim Not
Received By This Office".

So these were some simple steps for withdrawing your PF. In my case, I found "Your
Claim Not Received By This Office" even after I received my money in my account. I do
not know why but it was really serious for me when I was checking it online on a weekly
basis before I got all the money in my account.

Besides these steps, there are some cases where an employee gets in a dispute with
previous employer like leaving the service without notice and in this case, some
employers do not sign up the PF form. For help in these type of cases, please visit this
very good forum of right to information india website
 By Tamanna Arora

The Employees' Provident Fund account often gets left behind in the old workplace and
gets ignored in the euphoria of new jobs. Often our attention it drawn to it only when the
gentleman from the accounts department in the new workplace calls up for details to
route the fresh provident fund deductions.

Unlike tax deductions that get influenced by, among other things, tax saving
investments or expenses, and, therefore, remain within your sight, contribution to the
provident fund account gets deducted before you get your paycheque. As a result, it
often gets ignored even as it silently builds up a corpus for your retirement thanks to
contributions by you and your employer that can be up to 12 per cent of your salary
(constituting of basic, dearness allowance and retaining allowance, if any).

In many cases, when people change jobs, they end up ignoring money lying in existing
PF accounts and open fresh ones without transferring money from the older one.
Eventually, after some more job switches, the older accounts fall off people's mental
radars.

Your PF account is portable and can be continued with during your whole career
despite any number of job changes. You can turn it into a lifelong friend, much like the
pug in a popular mobile phone service provider's advertisement.

Let the PF account be an uninterrupted effort to have a large corpus. However, if the
need is great, you can also partially or fully withdraw money. This can happen in
instances when you expect to be under a spell of prolonged unemployment, a transition
to self-employment where you would want to continue with your retirement
accumulation efforts or have no other option but to tap a part of this money to meet
requirements such as those for kids' higher education, health expenses or building a
house.

Here is a guidemap on how to transfer your provident fund account or withdraw money
from it either partially or in full.
 By Tamanna Arora

TRANSFERRING THE ACCOUNT

When you move to a new job, your EPF account does not get transferred with you
automatically. You have to ask your previous PF office, which maintained your account,
to transfer it. You need to fill up Form 13and give it your present employer along with
your EPF account number with the previous employer.

You can get your account number from the HR or administration of your previous
organisation. The number is a function of your employee code, the PF regional office
with which the account is maintained and your employer's PF code.

After your present organisation gets these details, it adds your current account number
and submits the form to the regional office with which your previous employer maintains
the account.

Pension. Your EPF not only offers you a lump sum during retirement, but also pension
for life. Of the 12 per cent of your salary that your employer contributes to the account,
8.33 per cent gets diverted to the Employees Pension Scheme, which offers a defined
benefit at the age of 58 years.

This 8.33 per cent contribution, however, is made till your basic salary is Rs 6,500 per
month. Therefore, when you diligently transfer your PF account after every job switch,
you secure a source of regular retirement income.

TRANSFER OUT

When an employee moves out of the company and joins elsewhere his company
requests HCL to start his PF process by filling form 13 with the employers stamp and
request letter. The PF process for transfer can be made at anytime after the employee
is separated from the company.
 By Tamanna Arora

The EHS processes form 13 on the following parameters:

1. Name
2. Father’s Name
3. PF account number of previous & present employer
4. Pension account number of previous & present employer
5. Name of previous employer
6. Date of leaving
7. Date of joining present employer
8. Address of previous employer
9. Address of present employer

Any discrepancies in these details; the form gets rejected immediately.

STEPS FOR PROCESSING TRANSFER OUT OF PROVIDENT FUND

1. Again, just like in the previous case the executive logs on to the SAP PF server with
his unique username and password.

2. He/She again verifies the details of the employee like his HR F&F, PF and
Pension a/c no. & fathers name from personal details.

3. He/She then updates the Name of the new employer, Name of the new trust of
RPFC & Reason for Leaving before saving it.
 By Tamanna Arora

4. Once the details are saved, a checklist is attached on top of the form, and company
stamps are put on the designated spaces on the form, the form is sent to the
concerned manager for final signatures.

The entries are made into a tracker and the forms are then couriered to the PF trust
office.

Forms 13 and 19 are processed by the company’s PF trust.

For PF, once, the form is accepted by the trust it takes 1-2 months for the amount to be
transferred, as this is HCL’s own trust.

TRANSFER IN

Transfer In is when an employee joins HCL from another company and wants to
transfer his PF amount from the previous employer to HCL’s. In that case, HCL
requests the previous company to transfer the amount to HCL’s own trust by sending
the form 13 filled by the employee along with company stamp and letter
 By Tamanna Arora

STEPS FOR PROCESSING TRANSFER IN OF PF

1. The steps are almost similar except in this case the employee has joined the
organization hence his transfer amount needs to be transferred to the company PF
trust from his previous PF trust

2. After the executive has logged on to the SAP PF server he uses the employee’s
code to see the details of the employee.

3. In these details he updates the employee’s previous employment details.

4. After the data is updated, Fathers name, DOJ, PF a/c numbers etc. are checked and
the data is saved in SAP.

5. The entries are made into a tracker and the forms are then couriered to the PF trust
office

The executive looks for discrepancies in the same parameters given above for form 13
before processing the forms.

REJECT FORMS

After, the employee submits his PF form; the EHS team screens the form for
discrepancies.

If any of these necessary details mentioned in the previous parameters are incorrect,
missing, overwritten without signatures, don’t match with the SAP server or if the
 By Tamanna Arora

necessary verification documents are missing then the form is rejected. When
discrepancies are found in the form it gets rejected here itself and is not sent to the trust
but there are cases where the forms despite the clearance from the EHS team, gets
rejected by the trust.

In that case, all rejected forms are sent back to EHS team, where the PF executive then
informs the candidates about the status and reasons.

Database of the rejected forms are maintained by the PF department and they are
couriered to the employees and the employee is asked to initiate the process again.

ENCASHMENT

To encash your PF money, you need to fill up Form 19 and submit it to your previous
employer. The PF office lets you withdraw the entire amount on medical grounds,
voluntary retirement and unemployment for more than two months.

The mandatory break of two months for withdrawal is often circumvented by submission
for the claims once two months have passed after a change of organisation. Women
employees who leave their job to get married do not need to wait for two months.

In addition to Form 19, you also need to fill up Form 10C, which lets you withdraw the
pension money that your employer contributes. However, if you do not wish to withdraw
your pension money, you have the option of obtaining a scheme certificate through the
same form which continues your pension account even as you encash your PF money.
So, you can submit the scheme certificate in the next organisation that you join and
carry forward your pension account.

Since the system is fraught with loopholes and making a full withdrawal is just a matter
of submitting an application two months after quitting a job, there are plenty of cases of
people taking out their money. However, with the plan of having Social Security
 By Tamanna Arora

Numbers in the pipeline, it may be that there will be just one account number that will
move across jobs, and then withdrawals may not be that simple.

Claim timeline. A claim is mandated to be paid within 30 days of being registered with
the PF office. If this 30-day deadline is not met, your PF office is liable to pay you penal
interest on the claim amount at the rate of 12 per cent per annum. This will be paid from
the salary of the regional PF commissioner.

PARTIAL WITHDRAWL

It is a good idea to not encash your account, but the scheme does provide for partial
withdrawals in case of emergencies. You can withdraw for many purposes like housing,
medical emergencies, marriage of self or children, and college education of children.

However, there are certain restrictions with every kind of withdrawal. To take out money
for housing, for instance, you need to be a member of the EPFO for at least five years
and the maximum amount you can withdraw is the basic plus DA for 36 months, or your
and your employer's share for 36 months, or the cost of construction, whichever is the
lowest.

It is easy to spend on present consumption and forego accumulation for the future in the
form of EPF money, which will give you both a lump sum and pension. It will serve you
well to not take a myopic view. Stay invested in it and lug it everywhere you go as it can
give you some respite in the second innings of your life.

It is a good idea to not encash your account, but the scheme does provide for partial
withdrawals in case of emergencies. You can withdraw for many purposes like housing,
medical emergencies, marriage of self or children, and college education of children.
 By Tamanna Arora

However, there are certain restrictions with every kind of withdrawal. To take out money
for housing, for instance, you need to be a member of the EPFO for at least five years
and the maximum amount you can withdraw is the basic plus DA for 36 months, or your
and your employer's share for 36 months, or the cost of construction, whichever is the
lowest.

It is easy to spend on present consumption and forego accumulation for the future in the
form of EPF money, which will give you both a lump sum and pension. It will serve you
well to not take a myopic view. Stay invested in it and lug it everywhere you go as it can
give you some respite in the second innings of your life.

Form 13 is filled to get the PF transferred and Form 19 for withdrawal. An employee can
withdraw the PF amount after 60 days from resignation. The employee has to fill up
form 10C along with form 19 in case of withdrawal tto withdraw the entire amount. To
withdraw the same a cancelled cheque, 2 revenue stamps, relieving letter & pan card
(photocopy) should be submitted to Corp EHS team.

The EHS team processes form 19 on the following parameters:

1. Name
2. Father’s Name
3. PF account number
4. PAN card number
5. Date of leaving
6. Reason of leaving*
7. Bank Details
8. Date of join and
9. Date of birth
 By Tamanna Arora

* Reason for leaving is very important component if reasons other than personal, family,
education etc. are given like job change, better opportunity etc. or any other
professional reason than the forms will not be accepted.

And the pension form (10C) on the following parameters:

1. Name
2. Father’s Name
3. Date of Birth
4. Pension account number
5. Date of leaving and joining
6. Reason of leaving
7. Bank Details

5 signatures of the employee are required, 3 on the withdrawal form and 2 on the
pension form.

STEPS FOR PROCESSING WITHDRAWAL OF PF IN CASE OF HCL

1. The executive logs on to the SAP PF server. Not all employees of HCL have access
to this server, based on the designation and nature of work the employee is given
access to the SAP server i.e. an executive looking after F&F procedures will not
have access to the PF server in SAP database, also finance department will have its
own data and access in the SAP server which cannot be seen or modified by the HR
department.

2. Since all HCL employee are provided with an employee code that is unique to all
employees. Hence, this makes identification and access of employee data easy. The
 By Tamanna Arora

executive enters his code on the server which allows him access to the employee’s
details.

The executive matches the details on the form with those on the SAP server like HR
full & final details PF & Pension a/c no & fathers name from personal details.

3. He/she then updates the bank details like a/c number, bank name, bank address in
the PF SAP server from the cancelled cheque provided by the employee, also the
reason for leaving should be the same mentioned in the form before the details are
saved on the SAP server.

(Note: Reason for leaving should not be better prospect.)

4. Once the details are saved, a checklist is attached on top of the form, and company
stamps are put on the designated spaces on the form, the form is sent to the
concerned manager for final signatures

5. The entries are made into a tracker and the forms are then couriered to the PF trust
office.

Final processing of the forms is then done by the trust and in case of withdrawal the PF
amount is transferred to the employee’s bank account in 1-2 months.

Form 10C is sent to the government pension trust for processing. Also, in case of
withdrawal there is a 33% tax cut if his PF amount unless the employee is withdrawing
after 5 years. The Pension amount takes 3-6 months to be processed and transferred
as it is a government trust and not run by the company.
 By Tamanna Arora

THERE ARE SOME OF THE FORMS PRESCRIBED UNDER THE INDIA SERVICE
(PROVIDENT FUND) RULES, 1955

FORM 1.

[Rule] 4(3)]

When the subscriber has a family and wishes to nominate one member thereof-

I hereby nominate the person mentioned below, who is a member of my family as

defined in rule 2 of the All India Service (Provident Fund) Rules, 1955, to receive the
amount that may stand to my credit in the Fund, in the event of my death before that
amount has become payable, or having become payable has not been paid:-

Name and Relationship Age/Contigencieson Name, address of the

relationship with subscriber the happening of person or persons if any
address of which the nomination to whom the right of the
nominees shall become invalid nominee shall pass in the
event of his
predeceasing the
subscriber

Witnesses:

1.

2.

Signature of Subscriber.
 By Tamanna Arora

FORM II

[Rule 4(3)]

When the subscriber has a family and wishes to nominate more than one member
thereof-

I, hereby nominate the persons mentioned below, who are members of my family as
defined in rule 2 of the All India Services(Provident Fund) Rules, 1955, to receive the
amount that may stand to my credit in the Fund, in the event of my death before that
amount has become payable, or having become payable has not been paid, and direct
that the said amount shall be distributed among the said persons in the manner shown
below against their names:-

Name and Relationship Age/Contigencieson Name, address of the

relationship with subscriber the happening of person or persons if any
address of which the to whom the right of the
nominees nomination shall nominee shall pass in
become invalid the event of his
predeceasing the
subscriber

Witnesses

1.

2.

Signature of Subscriber.
 By Tamanna Arora

FORM III

[Rule 4(3)]

When the subscribe has no family and wishes to nominate one person- I, having no
family as defined in rule 2 of the All India Services (Provident Fund) Rules, 1955,
hereby nominate the persons mentioned below to receive the amount that may stand to
my credit in the Fund, in the event of my death before that amount has become
payable, or having become payable has been paid:-

Name and Relationship Age/Contigencies on Name, address of the person

relationship with the happening of or persons if any to whom
address of subscriber which the nomination the right of the nominee shall
nominees shall become invalid pass in the event of his
predeceasing the subscriber

Witnesses

1.

2.

Signature of Subscriber.
 By Tamanna Arora

FORM IV

[Rule 4(3)]

When the subscriber has no family and wishes to nominate more than on person-

I, having no family as defined in rule 2 of the All India Services Provident Fund) Rules,
1955, hereby nominate the persons mentioned below to receive the amount that may
stand to my credit in the Fund, in the event of my death before that amount become
payable, or having become payable has not been paid, and direct that the said amount
shall be distributed among the said persons in the manner shown below against their
names:-

Name and age Amount or Contigencies on the Name, address and relationship of
relationship share of happening of which the person or persons if any to
address of accumulation the nomination shall whom the right of the nominee
with to be paid to become invalid shall pass in the event of his
nominees each predeceasing the subscriber 106
subscriber

Witnesses:

1.

2. Signature of Subscriber.
 By Tamanna Arora

Points To Remember

1. Form 19 – PF withdrawal
2. Form 10C – Pension withdrawal (Tenure need to be more than 6 months)
3. Form 13 – Transfer of PF to another trust
4. PF loan form – Marriage, reconstruction of house or reasons in word document need
to be referred
5. Form 10 D& Form 20 – Death case
6. Voluntary Provident fund form – limit up to 20% only
7. Reason for leaving cannot be better prospect for withdrawal of PF form. It needs to
be same as mentioned in the form.
8. Current PF contribution can be checked for employee not separated by PF server->
ZCST Current statement
9. For pension query office address: RPFC Gurgoan, Plot no 43, Sector 44. Employee
tenure needs to be for more than 6 months for the same.
10. PF a/c need to be for more than 5 yrs in continuity (i.e. employee need to contribute
for continuous 5 yrs for PF) other wise 33% of tax deduction will be there.
11. Verification form need to be sent to Chennai on everyday basis (if required)
12. In case PAN card & PF form signature of the employee do not match, inform HR
manager & take suggestion.
13. Check the date of relieving letter & DOL mentioned by employee on form. Incase of
mismatch don’t send the form, correct the same.
14. Cancelled cheque need to be of employee & not of his family members
15. Status of PF amount need to be updated in tracker with help from PF trust via mail
on regular basis.
16. If employee needs clarification of PF amount mail PFtrust@hcl.in & ask for Annexure
K.
17. Status of PF form updated in PF server in SAP can be checked by downloading the
report.
 By Tamanna Arora

EX-EMPLOYEE VERIFICATION

This is post exit function of the EHS Team for ex-employees who have joined other
organizations. After an employee is relieved of his services from HCL, when an
employee joins another organization, they conduct a background verification of the
employee. As the ex-employee shows the relieving letter of HCL to his new employer
they conduct background verification check by contacting the EHS SPOC in HCL to
verify the details relating to the ex-employee.

They request to furnish the following data during verification from the previous
company, e.g.:
1. Reasons for leaving
2. Attitude
3. Technical Skills and performance
4. If terminated
5. Salary Package
6. Possibility of rehiring: No or Yes with Reasons.
7. Special Remark for the employee.

For responding the queries of the recruiter; one has to frame certain policies:
1. Mode of communication: Email or through the telephone

2. Disclosure of information regarding the Ex Employee, these will cover points 1-7
above or any of 1-7.
3. Rehiring policies
4. Public Information Policy: Policy for the public statements that can be issued on
company behalf.

Therefore, at HCL we provide the following details as far as verification is concerned:

 By Tamanna Arora

1. Date of Joining
2. Last working day
3. His last designation
4. F&F status

All verification queries are handled through mail, no verification is done through any
other mode e.g. Telephone, SMS, Personal visit etc.

During my tenure at HCL, I got the opportunity to work on other functions of EHS apart
from exit management. One of these functions was processing of salary vouchers.

SALARY VOUCHERS

When an employee resigns from the company from that day on his salary is put on hold
i.e. his salary is stopped from being transferred to his bank account. Also, there are
cases where the employee’s salary is put on hold without receiving his resignation later
e.g. If an employee takes unscheduled leaves during the time of his payroll then his
reporting manager may put his salary on hold fearing that the employee may abscond
after receiving his salary.

An exiting employee who is serving his notice period has to be paid his salary for the
number of days he is reporting for work hence to transfer the release amount to his
account he has to fill a hold salary release voucher with the EHS SPOC.
 By Tamanna Arora

Also, there are times where an employee may want his salary in advance; in that case
as well the person has to fill an advance salary release voucher which will allow him to
avail this service.

ANALYSIS & INTERPRETATION

By applying ONEWAY Descriptive test on questions of satisfaction & dissatisfaction we

came to know the following results:

Descriptive

95%
Confidence
Interval for
Mean
Std. Std.
N Mean Minimum Maximum
Deviation Error
Upper
Lower Bound
Bound

HCL 25 1.84 .473 .095 1.64 2.04 1 3

JUST DIAL 25 2.20 .500 .100 1.99 2.41 1 3

satisfied with
the way your
UNICORN
case was dealt 25 1.84 .473 .095 1.64 2.04 1 3
INVESTMENT

Total 75 1.96 .505 .058 1.84 2.08 1 3

HCL 25 1.68 .476 .095 1.48 1.88 1 2

your
interaction with JUST DIAL 25 1.80 .577 .115 1.56 2.04 1 3
 By Tamanna Arora

ehs team UNICORN

25 2.04 .611 .122 1.79 2.29 1 3
INVESTMENT

Total 75 1.84 .570 .066 1.71 1.97 1 3

HCL 25 1.96 .841 .168 1.61 2.31 1 3

your JUST DIAL 25 2.44 .651 .130 2.17 2.71 1 3

experience
with on your UNICORN
25 2.08 .862 .172 1.72 2.44 1 3
organisation INVESTMENT

Total 75 2.16 .806 .093 1.97 2.35 1 3

HCL 25 1.88 .440 .088 1.70 2.06 1 3

satisfied with f JUST DIAL 25 1.96 .455 .091 1.77 2.15 1 3

& f settlement
in lieu of UNICORN
25 2.16 .374 .075 2.01 2.31 2 3
exiting org. INVESTMENT

Total 75 2.00 .435 .050 1.90 2.10 1 3

Test of Homogeneity of Variances

Levene Statistic df1 df2 Sig.

satisfied with the way your case was dealt .187 2 72 .830

your interaction with ehs team .230 2 72 .795

your experience with on your organisation 1.022 2 72 .365

 By Tamanna Arora

satisfied with f & f settlement in lieu of exiting org. .163 2 72 .850

Most of the employees are satisfied with the way their case was processed except in
case of just-dial, where mean value is more than two which means their process is not
satisfactory.

In case of unicon Investment Solution, employees are not satisfied for interaction with
EHS Team as their mean value exceeds two.

In HCL Employees their experience with the organization is satisfactory but they are
leaving the organization for some other reasons. But in case of unicon & just dial their
experience is not satisfactory.

In HCL & Just dial employees are satisfied with the f & f settlement in lieu of exiting the
organization but not in case of unicon.

The low value of standard deviation shows that there is consistency in responses of
respondents.
 By Tamanna Arora

ONEWAY ANNOVA

ANOVA

Sum of Mean
df F Sig.
Squares Square

Between
2.160 2 1.080 4.651 .013
Groups

satisfied with the way your

Within
case was dealt 16.720 72 .232
Groups

Total 18.880 74

Between
1.680 2 .840 2.700 .074
Groups

your interaction with ehs

Within
team 22.400 72 .311
Groups

Total 24.080 74

Between
3.120 2 1.560 2.498 .089
Groups

your experience with on your

Within
organization 44.960 72 .624
Groups

Total 48.080 74
 By Tamanna Arora

Between
1.040 2 .520 2.889 .062
Groups

satisfied with f & f settlement

Within
in lieu of exiting org. 12.960 72 .180
Groups

Total 14.000 74

We have assumed there is no significant difference in mean value of HCL, UNICON and
Just -dial i.e. their sample Mean is equal but Annova test shows that there is significant
difference between groups regarding process of F & F as their F value (probability) is
less than .05, which shows there is significant difference between the groups.

F= Ratio between Mean Square between group & within group

Mean Square= Some of Square/ degree of Radom

Here in case of satisfaction with the way their case was dealt, probability is 4.651 which
is less than .05which shows there is significant difference regarding the procedure .so
our hypothesis get rejected.

But in case of interaction with EHS Team, Experience with their organization &
satisfaction with their F & F Settlement, Probability is more than .05 which means their
interaction as well as their experience is good with their organization & they are satisfied
with their settlement.
 By Tamanna Arora

So our Hypothesis is accepted in that case.

But this table does not reveal where the difference exists & which group is differentiating
with whom? So we apply POST HOC test.

POST HOC TESTS

Multiple Comparisons
Tukey HSD

95%
Confidence
Interval
Mean
Std.
(J) name of Difference Sig.
Error
organisation (I-J)
Dependent (I) name of Lower Upper
Variable organisation Bound Bound

JUST DIAL -.36(*) .136 .027 -.69 -.03

HCL
UNICORN
satisfied .00 .136 1.000 -.33 .33
INVESTMENT
with the way
your case
HCL .36(*) .136 .027 .03 .69
was dealt
JUST DIAL
UNICORN
.36(*) .136 .027 .03 .69
INVESTMENT
 By Tamanna Arora

HCL .00 .136 1.000 -.33 .33

UNICORN
INVESTMENT
JUST DIAL -.36(*) .136 .027 -.69 -.03

JUST DIAL -.12 .158 .728 -.50 .26

HCL
UNICORN
-.36 .158 .065 -.74 .02
INVESTMENT

your
HCL .12 .158 .728 -.26 .50
interaction
with ehs JUST DIAL
UNICORN
team -.24 .158 .287 -.62 .14
INVESTMENT

HCL .36 .158 .065 -.02 .74

UNICORN
INVESTMENT
JUST DIAL .24 .158 .287 -.14 .62

JUST DIAL -.48 .224 .088 -1.01 .05

HCL
UNICORN
-.12 .224 .853 -.65 .41
INVESTMENT

your
HCL .48 .224 .088 -.05 1.01
experience
with on your JUST DIAL
UNICORN
organisation .36 .224 .248 -.17 .89
INVESTMENT

HCL .12 .224 .853 -.41 .65

UNICORN
INVESTMENT
JUST DIAL -.36 .224 .248 -.89 .17

satisfied HCL JUST DIAL -.08 .120 .784 -.37 .21

 By Tamanna Arora

with f & f UNICORN

-.28 .120 .058 -.57 .01
settlement INVESTMENT
in lieu of
exiting org. HCL .08 .120 .784 -.21 .37

JUST DIAL
UNICORN
-.20 .120 .225 -.49 .09
INVESTMENT

HCL .28 .120 .058 -.01 .57

UNICORN
INVESTMENT
JUST DIAL .20 .120 .225 -.09 .49

* The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

The Mean difference is significant at the 0.5 level.

According to Post hoc test, in case of satisfaction with the way their case was dealt,

There is significant difference between HCL & JUST – DIAL as well as UNICON&
JUST-DIAL But there is not much significant difference between HCL & UNICON

But in case of interaction with EHS Team, Experience with their organization &
satisfaction with their F & F Settlement, Probability is more than .05 which means their
interaction as well as their experience is good with their organization & they are satisfied
with their settlement. & there is not much significant difference.

So our hypothesis is accepted.

By applying Chi-Square test on other questions we get following results:

 By Tamanna Arora

You know your f & f spoc

Observed N Expected N Residual

yes 49 37.5 11.5

no 26 37.5 -11.5

Total 75

CROSSTABS

NAME OF ORGANISATION * YOU KNOW YOUR F & F SPOC CROSSTABULATION

you know your f

& f spoc
Total
no
yes

Count 17 8 25

HCL
NAME OF Expected
16.3 8.7 25.0
ORGANISATION Count

JUST DIAL Count 18 7 25

 By Tamanna Arora

Expected
16.3 8.7 25.0
Count

Count 14 11 25
UNICORN
INVESTMENT Expected
16.3 8.7 25.0
Count

Count 49 26 75

Total
Expected
49.0 26.0 75.0
Count

CHI-SQUARE TESTS

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 1.531(a) 2 .465

Likelihood Ratio 1.516 2 .469

Linear-by-Linear Association .784 1 .376

N of Valid Cases 75

0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is
8.67.
 By Tamanna Arora

Here our Hypothesis is : Knowledge about F & F Spoc is independent of organization

In HCL & Just-Dial, Actual value is more than the expected one But in UNICON actual
value is less than tabulated one.

So Chi has disapproved our Hypothesis i.e. Knowledge about F & F Spoc is not
independent of organization.

Expected Value= Row total/total value* column total

49/75*25

If expected value is more than .05, So knowledge about f & f spoc is not independent of
organization.

Que2: Were you aware of F & F process before quiting the organization?

Name Of Organization * Aware Of F & F Process Cross Tabulation

aware of f & f
process
Total
no
yes

Count 22 3 25
NAME OF
HCL
ORGANIZATION Expected
18.3 6.7 25.0
Count
 By Tamanna Arora

Count 19 6 25

JUST DIAL
Expected
18.3 6.7 25.0
Count

Count 14 11 25
UNICORN
INVESTMENT Expected
18.3 6.7 25.0
Count

Count 55 20 75

Total
Expected
55.0 20.0 75.0
Count

CHI-SQUARE TESTS

Asymp. Sig. (2-

Value df
sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 6.682(a) 2 .035

Likelihood Ratio 6.791 2 .034

Linear-by-Linear
6.458 1 .011
Association
 By Tamanna Arora

of Valid Cases 75

a 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected
count is 6.67.

By applying Chi Square test, we came to know that awareness about f & F Process
before quiting the organization is not independent of organization as its probability is
less than .05 i.e At 2% degree of redom with 5% level of significance, tabulated value is
less than calculated value. So our hypothesis is rejected.

Awareness about f & F process is not independent of organization.

Que3: Are you satisfied with time taken for processing your F & F?

name of organisation * satisfied with time taken for processing your f & f
Crosstabulation

satisfied with time

taken for processing
your f & f
Total

no
yes

Count 22 3 25
NAME OF
HCL
ORGANISATION
Expected 18.3 6.7 25.0
 By Tamanna Arora

Count

Count 20 5 25

JUST DIAL
Expected
18.3 6.7 25.0
Count

Count 13 12 25
UNICORN
INVESTMENT Expected
18.3 6.7 25.0
Count

Count 55 20 75
Total
Expected 55.0 20.0 75.0

CHI-SQUARE TESTS

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 9.136(a) 2 .010

Likelihood Ratio 9.004 2 .011

Linear-by-Linear Association 8.174 1 .004

N of Valid Cases 75

a 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is
6.67.
 By Tamanna Arora

By applying Chi Square test, we came to know that satisfaction with time taken for
processing their F & F is not independent of organization as its probability is less than
.05 i.e At 2% degree of redom with 5% level of significance, tabulated value is less than
calculated value. So our hypothesis is rejected.

satisfaction with time taken processing their F & F for is dependent of organization. It
also depend upon culture of organization.

share your experience of f &

f process in your any of
previous org. Total
no
yes

Count 3 22 25
HCL Expected
3.3 21.7 25.0
Count
Count 4 21 25
name of
JUST DIAL Expected
organisation 3.3 21.7 25.0
Count
Count 3 22 25
UNICON
INVESTMENT Expected
3.3 21.7 25.0
Count
Count 10 65 75
Total Expected
10.0 65.0 75.0
Count

Chi-Square Tests

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square .231(a) 2 .891

Likelihood Ratio .225 2 .894
Linear-by-Linear Association .000 1 1.000
 By Tamanna Arora

N of Valid Cases 75
a 3 cells (50.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count
is 3.33.

By applying Chi Square test, we came to know that Sharing of experience in any of the
previous organisation is not independent of organization as its probability is less than
.05 i.e At 2% degree of redom with 5% level of significance, tabulated value is more
than calculated value. So our hypothesis is accepted.

Awareness about F & F process is independent of organization.

name of organisation * would you like to rejoin Crosstabulation

would you like to

rejoin
Total
no
yes

Count 16 9 25
HCL
Expected
15.7 9.3 25.0
Count

Count 18 7 25
name of
JUST DIAL
organisation Expected
15.7 9.3 25.0
Count

Count 13 12 25
UNICON
INVESTMENT Expected
15.7 9.3 25.0
Count

Total Count 47 28 75
 By Tamanna Arora

Expected
47.0 28.0 75.0
Count

Chi-Square Tests

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 2.166(a) 2 .339

Likelihood Ratio 2.170 2 .338

Linear-by-Linear Association .759 1 .384

N of Valid Cases 75

a 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 9.33.

Here, Actual value is more than the expected one & our employee rejoining is
independent of organisation & Chi has approved our Hypothesis as its value is more
than .05.
 By Tamanna Arora

Name of organisation * would you like to recommend your buddy to this org.
Crosstabulation
would you like to
recommend your buddy
to this org. Total
no
yes

Count 11 14 25
HCL Expected
10.0 15.0 25.0
Count
Count 11 14 25
name of
JUST DIAL Expected
organisation 10.0 15.0 25.0
Count
Count 8 17 25
UNICON
INVESTMENT Expected
10.0 15.0 25.0
Count
Count 30 45 75
Total Expected
30.0 45.0 75.0
Count

Chi-Square Tests

Value df Asymp. Sig. (2-sided)

Pearson Chi-Square 1.000(a) 2 .607

Likelihood Ratio 1.015 2 .602
Linear-by-Linear Association .740 1 .390
N of Valid Cases 75
a 0 cells (.0%) have expected count less than 5. The minimum expected count is 10.00.

By applying Chi Square test, we came to know that employee recommendation to their
buddy is independent of organisation as its probability is more than .05 i.e At 2%
degree of redom with 5% level of significance, tabulated value is more than calculated
value. So our hypothesis is accepted.
 By Tamanna Arora

CONCLUSION THAT CONTAINS MY OBSERVATIONS AFTER ANALYSIS AND MY

PRACTICAL APPROACH .

As more BPO's set up businesses, it follows that there will be stiffer competition for
employees and the job market will soon start to thin out. It is the basic law of supply and
demand. In the Philippines, for instance, the demand for call center agents has tripled in
the last two years but the universities are not graduating enough students to meet this
demand. Imagine, for a moment, the IT Park in Cebu City. Just in the last quarter of
 By Tamanna Arora

2008 three high rise buildings have been completed or nearing completion and all three
buildings have been leased to call centers/BPO's. Now, where shall we find the
employees to staff these companies ? .

When the BPO industry was new in the Philippines, two of the most common reasons
for attrition were the work hours and culture shock—dealing with irate foreigners being
the primary stressor. As BPO’s became more popular and started permeating Filipino
society, people had a firmer grasp of what the business was all about and understood
the potential this industry could offer to improve their way of life. As more people
established careers in the BPO’s, the reasons for attrition were no longer simple. This
time, people wanted upward mobility, more money, more opportunities for growth and
just more of whatever they were currently receiving .

New players in the Philippine BPO scene always attract the experienced call center
employees with the promise of a higher pay or even a management position. Many
young people who worked in call centers for six months to a year feel “entitled” for
promotions, thinking that their experience working on the phones has earned them the
right to a promotion. This sense of entitlement reinforces the decision to leave the
company and so they do leave, taking only their experience and tenure but not really
having sufficient knowledge for career growth. Call center agents are becoming
impatient to make it to the next step up .

The new business competition always seems to offer more and call center agents have
dog’s hearing for new call centers, the possibility of a higher position and better pay. I
would not say that employers have completely lost their minds and accept just any
degree of job hopping but I can say for certain that they have become more tolerant of
people who switch jobs every few months. BPO’s are left with little choice because of
the demand for employees. Call center agents get “recycled”, working on the first floor
for company A and then six months later, working for company B on the fourth floor.

BPO’s are facing tough challenges in employee retention. The competition now is not
 By Tamanna Arora

only about who gets to pay more but who can offer the most value. All call centers (in
the Philippines) have night differentials, vacation and sick leaves and allowances
etcetera. To keep its employees, companies have to become more creative with
incentives, rewards and recognition. Not only will employees want benefits, they will
soon want to “design” or choose from a menu of benefits that will be most value-adding.
Employees will want a promotion but many will also benefit from training that prepares
them to become future managers or that teaches them skills that enhance their lives
and not just their computer or English skills. Employees will want a better management
style (and whatever the best style of management should be is still up for debate),
lesser office politics, a career path they can pursue over an extended period of time and
a work environment that is dynamic and allows them to learn.

Competition for talent in BPO’s will continue to become more cutthroat. Attrition will
become more rampant and the challenges of retaining the best employees should
become the primary focus of BPO’s. To hire and retain the best people, BPO’s cannot
survive only by doing the right things. They will survive by doing more things and doing
them right.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Apart from focusing on partner challenges, companies that have launched BPO projects
also have to attend to their internal affairs. BPO contracts require a focus on metrics -
the numbers that show things such as claims-processing accuracy or call center
response times or customer satisfaction - and that means making sure managers are
numbers people, Aron says. "Managing by metrics," he notes, takes "people who know
what is to be monitored, what is to be measured."

Strong communications skills also are needed by managers. Those are required partly
to bridge the cultural gap between the United States and India, according to the CEO
who spoke anonymously. Indians are less likely to express disagreement, so managers
 By Tamanna Arora

have to check in multiple times to make sure a directive has been accepted, he said.
He's had to train and ultimately fire some managers who had a more tight-lipped style.
"You have to be more actively engaged in management."

BPO arrangements in theory can free up a company's managers to focus on forward-

looking activities, such as a human resources executive concentrating on grooming new
leaders rather than wrestling with multiple payroll systems. But Bart Kocha, a vice
president at A.T. Kearney, warns that here, too, the proper talents may be missing: "You
find out the remaining organization doesn't have the skills to be that strategic partner."

Another possible problem when it comes to internal employees relates to how well a
company has prepared its staff for an outsourcing deal, Kocha says. When a function
changes - say, employee benefits that once were administered by live humans requiring
self-service over the Web - dissatisfaction can follow if the shift hasn't been explained
and justified, he suggests.

There's also the danger of losing unspoken employee know-how that has been vital to
the operation of finance or customer-service departments. In the past, many
outsourcing arrangements have retained this wisdom because the outsourcer absorbed
a company's employees. In offshore outsourcing deals, though, employees of a back-
office are generally let go, Cappelli says. "The risks are much greater. The tacit
knowledge is something you're likely going to lose." A tactic here is to keep some
would-be redundant workers on as employees or set up consulting arrangements, he
adds.

Aron has not seen client-company layoffs in his study of the high-level work outsourced
to Office Tiger. Financial firms using the service provider tend to have other work
requiring industry expertise and critical judgment. On the other hand, he says,
permanent lay-offs are likely to result from the outsourcing of simpler tasks such as
basic technical support, account resolution and credit card inquiries.
 By Tamanna Arora

In either event, he recommends that companies be very clear with employees about
their outsourcing plans - including any layoffs. Advance notice and honesty can create
good will and help a company rehire a good worker later on, Aron suggests.

Cappelli agrees that transparent communication with internal employees is a key in

making a BPO contract work smoothly. If there's a lay-off related to the BPO
arrangement, companies should explain what the long-term plans are to the remaining
workers. Otherwise, he says, those "survivors" could fear for their own jobs, resulting in
lower work performance or attempts to abandon the firm. "If they feel that they survived
because of dumb luck, then they are inclined to think their job could be next," he says.

The CEO who spoke anonymously said he laid out his company's BPO plans clearly to
workers. And he has been able to redeploy hundreds of employees whose jobs were
outsourced to India, thanks to growth in the business. Just a handful of workers have
been fired related to the outsourcing, which the CEO attributes to their inability to adapt
to a changing business landscape. His business, which frequently introduces new
financial services products to the market, is all about change, he says. And in his view a
mindset open to change is all but necessary while working with an India-based partner.
"It's very hard to forecast five years in the U.S.," he notes. "Forecasting five years in
India is impossible."

In other words, life after BPO may be better for a company. But it isn't necessarily going
to be calmer.