TeamLease, which provides temporary staffing, plans to increase its temporary workforce or 'associates' strength from the current 15,000 to nearly 42,000 by 2007, according to Kavitha Reddy, asst VP, with the help of its branded temping solutions ReadyWorkForce. | |
| TeamLease intends to achieve the growth partly in the BPO sector by increasing its workforce in it from the current small 400 to 3,000 by the end of the year. Eventually it plans to have 15 per cent of its total associate count in BPO. |
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| "Temping is relatively new to the BPO industry, but the trend is changing slowly. Whether it is captives or third party vendors, they are beginning to realise there are huge advantages to working with a temporary workforce that is moderated by someone else rather than taking them on in the company," says Kavitha Reddy. |
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| According to her, less attrition, almost total elimination of hiring and training costs, along with the abolition of a bench are some of the advantages temping can offer the industry. |
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| Most companies have certain peak staffing needs, for example, when a new software is released and more calls or more business is expected. These peak times can vary from one month to six months. |
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| "During those times temping become an ideal solution," says Kavitha Reddy. She estimates that nearly 1.5 per cent of the core work done in the BPO industry can be moved to a temporary workforce. |
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| If the entire industry is facing a shortage of skills and the resultant attrition, then how will temping outfits get the better of the situation? |
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| "Yes, we do compete with some of our clients directly. But we also pick parts of our workforce from last round rejects, train them and then use them as part of our workforce. We also look actively at the non- job market prospects, like housewives or retirees, who can work part time for certain periods of the year," says Kavitha Reddy. |
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| Besides, temporary workers get higher pay and benefits than permanent ones because they cut down long term costs for companies. The higher pay temps get makes them stick. |
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| TeamLease itself, by the nature of its work, has a higher churn than the BPO industry but this is not counted as attrition by the company as it doesn't count its associates as permanent employees. Thus it does not maintain a bench. Employees do not get paid if there are no projects to work on. |
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| The company, which is also into recruitment solutions, recently started a training programme by which it claims to increase conversion rates (percentage of applicants who succeed in getting a job) from 3 per cent to 10 per cent. |
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| It has also started 'campus calls', where it offers BPO courses for Rs 1,200 to final year college students. |
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| "Around 30 per cent of our business is based on fixed costs. For the rest, we charge around 10 per cent of an employee's monthly salary. The average salary for our 15,000 employees is around Rs 12,000. You can calculate the rest," she says in response to queries about turnover. |
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| TeamLease expects its revenues to grow at around 20 per cent, keeping pace with the salary hikes in the industry. |
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| TeamLease was started in 2001 with private equity. Most of ReadyWorkForce's revenues come from financial services, including banking and insurance, followed by the telecom sector. |
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