Mindyourbusiness
Vital Stats: How Healthy is Your Team?
Three years back, Omega Healthcare was faced by a problem that is not unknown to most BPOs, enormously high attrition rates. The company's founder and CEO, Gopi Natarajan tells us about how they took stock of the situation.
To combat the steep attrition at Omega Healthcare, co-founder and CEO, Gopi Natarajan and his HR team instituted a mechanism to get feedback from the different teams in their company, and not just individuals. This diagnosis has helped the Bangalore-based health care BPO cut down attrition by 15 per cent over the last two years. A case of the team that talks together, stays together!
More than identifying the gaps, it is the rigorous follow up that shows our seriousness to address the employees' issues."- Gopi Natarajan
Attrition is the biggest challenge the BPO and KPO industry faces and Omega is no different. Three years back, our attrition rate was the usual industry average of 45 per cent. Hiring 40-50 per cent of your new workforce every year and training each of them for 90 days is a humongous effort. We wanted a solution to reduce attrition. We already had several company-wide surveys and anonymous feedback portals but the response we got from them was very generic. We didn't know how to break it down to understand or draw conclusions from them to form some action plans.
We realised we couldn't fix problems till we found out what they actually were. To do that, we needed to find a way to do so. In 2011, our HR team headed by Lalitha M Shetty along with four senior HR managers came up with the concept of a focused survey called the Team Health Study. It was an employee satisfaction survey of 45 questions to understand where each team stands in terms of seven parameters—pride and ownership, communication, fairness, team approach, training, leadership, and work-life balance. The idea was the survey would be conducted anonymously but on a team-wise basis to assess the "health" of each team—its strengths and concerns. This would also help us compare the results between different teams and get an action plan for change based on the team's requirements.
We did a pilot survey in early 2011 in our Bangalore office with around 300 people and acted promptly on the suggestions and complaints employees had voiced. In the next six months, we observed the attrition rate came down to 3.6 per cent from 4.5 per cent per month. We also got several positive reviews from clients as the same employee worked throughout the lifecycle of the project. This, in fact, increased the projects we got by client referrals. The increased transparency and accountability also led to a lot more collaboration and positivity among the team members.
Due to the reduced attrition rate, we implemented Team Health Study across the whole company towards the end of 2012. The one year gap between the pilot and the launch was to digitise the survey so it can be done on a large scale for 6500 employees in our five offices—two in Bangalore, one in Chennai and two in Trichy.
Increased transparency and accountability through surveys led to a lot more collaboration and positivity among the team members.
We now conduct the survey every six months and have done it four times for our 250-plus teams, each of which has 20-25 people reporting to a team leader. The six months time frame is a good time to revisit if the gaps identified in the earlier study have been filled or need further action. What helps is we make a comprehensive report for each team on three points—strengths, critical areas and what to watch out for. If the score of any team is less than 85 per cent on any of these parameters, we have detailed discussions with the team to understand the areas of concern. For instance, during one of the surveys an employee felt the target set for him was too high. Within that team, 4-5 team members also voiced the same concern so it was quite clear that there was a problem somewhere. Upon further intervention, we found that they needed more training. Once we did the due diligence, in the next survey, they were quite content with the set targets. More than identifying the gaps or doing the survey, it is the rigorous follow up that shows our seriousness to address the employees' issues that helps to build a sense of belonging in them. If they feel their suggestions or views are going into the black hole, the whole purpose of the exercise becomes futile.
Over the past two years, our attrition rate has reduced to 3.6 per cent monthly in all our five units. It has also led to an increase of 40 per cent in referrals from employees suggesting their family and friends to work at Omega. Now, 60 per cent of our recruitment happens from internal references. Reduced attrition has also led to reduction in the cost of classroom trainings and increase in working hours. In fact, if you calculate the benefits, we save a massive Rs2.36-crore annually by doing the Team Health Study.
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