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19th Issue - July 2008 |
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| Associate Engagement – Key Element for Value Chain Migration in BPO |
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Viswa Kumar Manda, Vice President, ADP Pvt Ltd
“Clients come to India for cost advantage but stay on because of quality & value add”…..so goes the common philosophy that several Indian IT & ITES companies have come to embrace over the last few years. Many companies and the industry in general have recognized the need for and have been making efforts to move up the value chain. There are several factors such as people; domain knowledge; technology; clients; cultural barriers; governance model etc that impact and enable the ability of an organization to help its journey on this path of value chain migration. This article tries to focus on a specific approach centered on enabling “associate engagement” (not the only one, but a vital one nevertheless) that we have adapted at ADP India with a fair amount of success over the last few years.
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*The above chart is derived from Gallup organization’s “The Gallup Path” Copyright © 2004 The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ. All rights reserved |
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At ADP, we believe in what is called as the “service profit chain model” focused on creating a high level of work place engagement and highly engaged associates (that’s how we refer to all our employees). The philosophy of the model itself is very simple – in order to reliably influence the desired outcomes (world class services & products; client loyalty, stake holder value) one must focus on creating a high level of “associate engagement” as it is these highly engaged associates who enable and influence the desired outcomes of the business.
How does one create a high level of associate engagement? How does one measure and evaluate as to the success (or the lack of it) of the various initiatives adopted to create a high level of associate engagement? A primary and probably the most talked about factor is “Retention”. Though a clichéd question, why is retention so important? Obviously because higher the retention rate the longer the associates are involved with the company, the clients; the processes, the platforms and hence higher their understanding of the clients & their needs. This would help the associates provide better service to the clients; cater to not the only the explicit needs of the client but also implicit needs of the client (which one would be able to comprehend based on a tenured association with the client & the domain) and hence deliver more value for the same cost.
What are the various factors that influence “Retention”? At ADP India, we have tried to understand these factors specific to our business, clients / domain / culture etc and have taken up some of the following initiatives which we found to be instrumental in driving up associate engagement. |
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All that begins well goes on well – Focused on the new hire on- boarding process and ensure that the new associates are handled with a definite sense of purpose, focus and sense of belonging right from day 1. We have created an internal program that’s termed as the “Chaperone Process” where in each business unit analyses the data of their new hires and works in conjunction with HR to have specific plans defined for each new hire based on business needs and most importantly assign a designated “chaperone” who will work closely and on a daily basis with the new associate during the first 90 days. This “chaperone” would help the new hires get comfortable in adapting to the new environment and help with getting a complete hang of aspects like understanding the leave policy or security policy or transport policy etc. We have found amazing success with this and have seen more than 50% improvement in attrition through the first few months especially when the new hires are in training period or just coming out of training. |
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Setting the right goals / expectations – clear definition of roles, job functions and what is the expected function of each role and more importantly, how the various roles on the team come together to deliver the overall service and results. Involving associates at every level in the definition of this process; listening to all the views and defining goals that are reachable and would make every associate strive to stretch that wee bit to excel. Make teams own their goals and have the pride in meeting & exceeding the goals. |
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Alignment with the business goals & clients – align the goals of each of team with that of the overall business and end client’s goals. Enable each associate and each team to connect with the larger picture and see how, where they fit in the larger picture and more importantly how they can enable the larger organizational goals. |
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Learning & Development – a strong emphasis on learning & development to ensure that each associate has the opportunity to learn at least one new skill or process each year and equip him/herself to be ready for a higher/different skilled job. Learning programs are designed to facilitate domain specific skills, client specific knowledge, technical / service excellence skills; soft skills; leadership skills; etc. It’s no surprise that our associates clock an average of 60+ learning hours per year. |
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Rewards & Recognition – focus on recognizing and rewarding associates at every level and ensuring that not only the “big successes” are recognized but also the small / day to day successes are also recognized and celebrated. We have created a consistent and standardized Rewards & Recognition framework that ensures that associates of every team / business unit are recognized & rewarded in a consistent manner. A physical and an electronic “wall of fame” display the pictures of the top performers for that quarter within the organization. With this approach we have been able to standardize about 60 different awards across the organization down to about 10 standard and consistent awards. |
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Career Progression – as an organization; we have always been consistent in the demonstration of our commitment to enabling career progression for associates at all levels. This has helped associates move up the value chain to higher / different skilled jobs and experience the growth in their own careers along with the growth of the organization. Over the last couple of years, almost 20% of the new jobs created have been filled by career pathing associates from within. All jobs at all levels are posted within and associates are encouraged to apply and rotate into new roles, new processes or roles with higher responsibilities within the same process. |
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Organizational Culture – strong belief in a value based system where respect for the individual; ethics, integrity, fairness, solidarity, teamwork, innovation and pride are emphasized as the virtues to live every day. Open communication channels and an informal work culture enable associates to connect with one another and are able to learn from one another. |
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Whist we still continue on this journey of creating higher levels of associate engagement with a focus on retention, our experience so far with above listed focus areas (which is only a representative sample) has been very positive and helped us better understand the dynamics of retention & associate engagement. What makes us feel that we are on the right track is a close study of some key measures that we constantly use to check where we are on our journey (see the chart below). |
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The endeavor for constant improvement and learning from our & others experiences continues as we focus on creating an organization where empowered associates create a world class work place engagement and make us an employer of choice. |
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