It’s all about money

There’s many a catch to working in call centres. Difficult hours and rude customers are just two of the problems, reports Nilanjan Gupta

Call centre jobs lure those fresh out of college as well as the middle-aged. Rajesh Gupta, 34, married with a daughter, has been working in a BPO for nearly three years and has no immediate plans of leaving. "When joined this industry, people were apprehensive about its prospects, but after the initial months of hard work, I never had to look back. If one remains faithful and sticks to a particular organisation, growth will definitely come." He became the team leader of his process within one and a half years

"It’s definitely the money. If one can earn about 15,000 per month just after graduation then why shouldn’t one go for it," asks one of the BPO agents. This logic stands for most young people joining such centres. While the rate of growth may vary owing to the multiplicity of the processes and the nature of the work but on the whole the growth rate is high.

However, not all have the same opinion about the nature of the job. Neeraj Patel (name changed), 21, complains, "I work in an American business processing company related to computers. Sometimes it can get too technical. Customers often tend to be impatient. If they can’t understand something, they lose their temper and can even insult you." This is one of the prime reasons behind the high rate of attrition in the sector despite the lucrative pay.

Yet another factor is the odd timings. The clients mostly comprise American companies. The general shift for these companies starts from 6 pm till 3 am. The succeeding shift, popularly known as the "graveyard shift", starts from 3 am and ends at 12 noon. Such odd timings become especially inconvenient for women employees and recently there have been some cases of rape and molestation.

While some have become paranoid about taking up a job with such odd timings, mainly due to security reasons, others maintain that the breach of security is a one-off thing. "The place where I work gives us regular drop and pick-up facilities and have a very good security matrix system. Although it sometimes become a bit awkward to travel with an unknown person in the middle of the night, the company makes sure that nothing untoward happens," asserts Pathika Dhara, an employee at HSBC. With the state governments becoming increasingly concerned about security measures to safeguard women working in call centres, things have become much better than they used to be.

However, a majority take up call centre jobs as a stop-gap arrangement before moving on. Youngsters mostly take up the job with the sole purpose of earning some extra pocket money, while for others the purpose is less hedonistic. "I want to do my postgraduation from overseas. I need to save up as I don’t want to put any more pressure on my parents. If I can work here for another two years or so, I should have enough savings to go by," says Sujata Pandit.

Rahul Agarwal, senior manager of a consultancy firm, asserts, "Most of the people whom we place at the call centres are studying and are taking this as a part-time job. True, the experience of working at call centres is unlikely to come into any future use, but it does give a youngster an idea of work ethic and how a corporate body works. In the process, when they do take up the profession of their choice, they have some idea about what to expect."

`A0The experienced from this newly emerging industry think that BPO is here to stay. However, not all are happy about it. They think that it is a waste of human resources as many of the young people are doing nothing but selling products for foreign companies. And, the increase in the number of people joining in only goes to show that the present generation would not mind doing so as long as the money keeps flowing in. —`A0TWF