Opting for a call centre career? Check out the flip side!

Call centre professionals are a disillusioned lot today, and the reasons are not difficult to guess. Limited job options, monotonous work and stagnation at the initial stages of career are resulting in higher than the expected rate of attrition. The industry is also plagued with the lack of career growth opportunities, whether it be in sections like telesales, customer service and the help desk segment, or general call centre operations (e.g. training, HR, quality and payroll), very few manage to climb to the top. A majority of them are stuck at the lowest level as customer support executives with only 20-25 percent making a mark and getting promoted. All this is creating a lot of disappointment among the young workforce.

Take the case of Simran and Priyanka. Both were picked up by a well-known Delhi-based call centre through campus recruitment. Very happy and excited initially about their fixed salary and the accompanying perks, they jumped for the opportunity. A year later both are planning to quit. Similarly Suman (who was lucky to get a promotion and become a team leader), plans to quit in a month’s time, while customer support executive Kirti has decided to stick on for another three months in expectation of a future promotion. Speaking on the reasons behind her reasons to quit, Suman says that she had reached a saturation level, where not only was the work getting monotonous, but also exhausting. “After spending almost a year with the company and getting double promotions, I suddenly realised the limited career scope in this field, and what after five years?” These and many other career-related questions are making many call centre executives and managers rethink their choice of career. While many call centres claim to give career guidance to their employees, the reality is very different.

Even high-performers are not untouched by the feeling of stagnation. Sandeep, who is presently working with a recently started call centre, decided to make a career shift in spite of getting a double promotion and another expected one lined up. According to him, besides money it was the different work profile which had attracted him in the first place. “Initially things looked very exciting, however after spending six months I realised that the job was getting monotonous and stagnation was setting in. Even though I could have got another promotion and was managing some of the people whom I had started with, the spirit wasn’t there,” he says. Though Sandeep is very excited about his new assignment as the assistant project manager, he is not very sure about his future plans five years down the line. And this seems to be the case with many individuals who are generally left at the crossroads, as the initial years seem very good, but later have to face some harsh truths. Many individuals even after spending two years in the industry (which is considered to be good), feel that they hardly have a career choice.

“Most of the companies follow a regular growth chart of starting at the lowest level as the ‘customer support executive’ to becoming a senior CSE, then a team leader, a project manager and finally manager of operations. However, in a period of two years, one can only reach the level of a team leader or a project manager, depending on the performance and the company’s policy. But, this journey is very monotonous and a lot of patience is required. Also after reaching that level, one is not sure about the career option as there are only 3-4 choices of becoming a consultant, joining as a manager somewhere else or starting your own call centre. Beyond this there is hardly any kind of vertical movement which an individual can think of,” says Abhay, working as a team leader in one of the biggest call centres in India.

Though the industry insists on the availability of jobs, the reality is that very few are actually available to an individual wanting to make it as a career choice. Majority of the positions in the operations, IT and telecom area are either too specialised or outsourced by the company. According to a GE official, many companies outsource their onsite staffing, resourcing, HR, inventory or even legal requirements as they are not sure of getting it fulfiled from their own employees. This only limits the possible career options available to an individual. Agrees Mahendra Saxena, managing director, Sapphire CallNet, who feels that most of the Indian call centres outsource 100 per cent of their functional requirements, as it helps them to solely concentrate on building on their business.

According to Saxena, the reason behind this chaos is the lack of a ‘knowledge repository’ within the companies. “While many organisations had started their operations keeping the ‘most happening industry’ status in mind, what was lacking was a clear understanding on their part for making use of available skills. Most of the companies are concentrating on hiring people and expanding their base mainly at the CSE level,” he says, adding that this is only making the situation worse, as career planning of individuals at management or higher levels is being overlooked.

This has made things worse and is hampering the growth of the industry as many people give it a ‘stop-gap treatment’ for their future plans, be it an MBA or another career objective. Experts

however believe that things are expected to change and improve in another 8-12 months time, with more maturity and understanding of the future. Saxena of Sapphire CallNet says, “Due to more business coming in, the industry will also witness broadening of scope in the career opportunities available in the call centre industry. Not only would this lead to availability of opportunity in an organised and specialised mode, but also enable movement across horizontal segments.” According to Rahul Thapan, Head-Education, Tata Infotech Education, which has started a course on the call centre training, in a service and performance-based industry, there would be a lot of opportunities available to individuals in terms of lateral growth. “An individual wanting to make a career outside the call centre industry can always opt for industries like finance, banking, healthcare, airlines or any field he specialises in,” he says. He albeit admitted that this kind of a career option is not available to individuals presently working in the industry. Thapan believes that besides growth opportunities for customer service executives there is also going to be a lot of demand for project managers, as they can shift to the IT industry too. “I believe that in one year the demand will outstrip the supply and we will see a lot of horizontal moment across the industry,” he says. But till that time the industry has to find out ways and means to calm their insecure workforce.

WHY DISILLUSIONMENT ?

• Limited career opportunities
• Early stagnation
• Late promotions
• Monotonous work
• Lack of long-term option