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Does a career in imparting new skills interest you? Do you have a flair for languages and proficiency in spoken English? Are you gifted with an ability to motivate others to learn?
If you’ve answered ‘yes’ to all these questions, then a career in BPO training may be just perfect for you.
Have a question you want to ask?
Employees in BPO companies are engaged in marketing, grievance handling, and technical support services over the telephone for countries like the US, UK, etc. Thus, they need to understand the accents they are hearing over the phone and also need to be well-trained in communication skills. That is where training comes into the picture.
The evolution of training in the BPO industry began with foreign nationals, who came in to train new ranks on accents, soft skills, processes and products, etc. Soon, callers who proved themselves on the shop floor, were picked up and promoted to these ranks.
Many organisations have their own internal ‘train-the-trainer’ programmes, which certify resources to become trainers. However, lack of trained professionals and an ever-increasing demand for trainers have resulted in opportunities for employed, full-time resources and freelancers.
How it works
Training in the BPO industry can be split into two basic elements:
~ Voice and accent training: The objective of the trainer is to improve the speech and diction of the trainees and help them develop a ‘global, neutral accent’.
~ Process training: The objective is to familiarise trainees with standard operating procedures and operating applications for the process, be it collections/billing, technical support or sales.
4 reasons why youngsters quit BPOs
The pay-off
While full-timers can expect a starting annual package of Rs 4.5 lakhs to Rs 7 lakhs annually, freelancers can expect to earn anywhere between Rs 2,500 and Rs 8,000 per day for an eight-hour shift.
Talent and traits
A trainer needs to know how to talk to people — we all talk to people, but not all of us know the right way to communicate. And this is what a trainer is trained on.
Both, voice and accent and process training require people who can present themselves and the information they are sharing, well. Thus, a trainer is supposed to have good presentation skills too.
However to be a BPO trainer you need some additional, specific skills, especially for voice and accent training.
~ Excellent listening skills
“Tune your ears to identify different accents, vowel and consonant sounds, and their pronunciations across regions,” advocates Leela D’Sa, a freelance trainer in Mumbai.
~ Stamina
Because trainers are required to put in a minimum of eight hours per shift, and spend most of their time on their feet, talking, they require both physical and vocal stamina. They also need to be able to motivate their students to put in their best and need high, contagious energy levels.
~ Patience
“Patience must be a trainer’s best virtue. No question is too stupid, no clarification too dumb. You cannot let the frustrations of slow learners drag you down,” D’Sa adds.
~ Expertise on subject matter
“To become a process trainer, one must be a subject matter expert,” says Kunal Gaind, a team leader and process trainer for a Mumbai-based BPO. “Most process trainers are callers, who make/receive calls to/from customers abroad, who have been promoted from the floor. But even these need to have a good command over English and they must display leadership skills,” he adds.
Mario Rui, a former assistant training manager with 3G, says that trainers must have “good process orientation, the ability to analyse, interpret, comprehend information or a process, and the intuitive ability to describe this in detail”.
~ Negotiation skills
“In a collections process, one must be taught to sound convincing and develop negotiation skills. For sales, you must train people to be able to push the deal too,” Rui adds.
~ Improvisation
A note of caution from D’Sa: “Training is different from teaching. Here, unlike in other educational courses in schools or colleges, there is no compulsion to stick with the prescribed syllabus and courseware. As such, a trainer must have the aptitude to improvise on the spot, to demonstrate and to provide more practical techniques.”
To BPO or not to BPO?
Qualifications and certification
Though there are no formal qualifications, a trainer is required to have at least a certification in English language or in facilitation and training.
The Indian Society for Training and Development offers an 18-month diploma in training and development that is recognised by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. This is also approved by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), Ministry of Personnel, Government of India, under its faculty development scheme. For details, one can visit the web site.
The Certificate of English Language Teaching to speakers of other languages (CELTA), offered by the British Council in India, is an internationally recognised qualification awarded by the University of Cambridge and is widely respected too. More details are available on their web site.
Training and facilitation courses are also offered by City & Guild, through the British Council. For more details, you may contact the British Council.
How to choose the right BPO
Career prospects
Those dealing with direct customer interaction as in hospitality industry, aviation and management, have an added advantage as a trainer in the industry.
Psychology graduates who have an understanding of behaviour and MBAs with a specialisation in human resources have also done well as trainers in the industry.
“Though training has not been taken too seriously in India, it is now emerging as a fast-growing and lucrative profession within the services industry,” says Rui who moved out of the BPO industry and now works as an in-flight training executive with Jet Airways.
“But don’t move to training as an escape from a ‘routine desk job’. Do it because you want to motivate people,” he adds.
Four reasons why youngsters quit BPOs
http://www.rediff.com/getahead/2004/dec/16bpo.htm
As industry attrition rates (how soon people quit jobs) climb as high as 80 percent in some companies, human resource executives in various BPO firms tried to pinpoint the reasons that make young people between the ages of 22 and 26 shuffle jobs in months. They were participating in a seminar on key HR issues for the BPO industry in Bangalore today.
This is what they came up with.
1. BPO not seen a long term career
“This industry is still not being accepted for a long term career,” said Mphasis BPO Services’ chief human resources officer Manab Bose.
2. High aspirations that the industry cannot meet
BPO employees have high aspirations. They want to see ‘wealth’ in this lifetime and have low respect for authority. This is because most BPO employees have immense family support.
3. Good talent is prone to poaching
ICICI OneSource President and CEO Raju Bhatnagar said the pulls of the market (poaching by competitors) cannot be countered easily.
BPO firms try to pick the best talent, he explained, and good talent is prone to be poached or to shifting jobs. He suggested that firms should instead look at the average person, train and retain him/ her for the longer haul.
4. Employees face pressure at home and at work
Philips Software CEO Bob Hoekstra felt BPO employees are in a piquant situation, having to handle pressure both from their customers and at home.
“There is an enormous conflict in age group [in terms of the fact that] youngsters are serving mature customers, and they are prone to make mistakes,” he said.
Business author and consultant Ram Charan lists the qualities successful leaders possess in Know-How: The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform From Those Who Don’t. Here is an excerpt.
The greatest psychological challenge in setting and acting on priorities has to do with resource allocation. Whether in a group meeting or through conventional budgeting and capital approval processes, you have to demonstrate judgment and courage in making resource allocation decisions that reflect your business priorities and in following through to ensure that the things that should be happening in fact are.
You have to do the analytic work to separate out the facts and assess the opportunities and risks, but you also need to call upon your inner strength and judgment as John did as CEO of his company.
“You know I’m always behind you, John, but I think you’re making a big mistake on this one,” Art, one of the division presidents, told John during the usual bottom-up, top-down budgeting process.
“My division contributes 65 percent of the company’s profits and our brands need advertising support. If you think we’re fighting for market share now, just watch what happens six months down the road when consumers forget who we are and we can’t get on the shelves.”
John listened intently to all that Art had to say. After all, Art was experienced, respected, and the strongest leader they had. It was true that Art’s division brought in the lion’s share of revenues and profits. The problem was that the division was not bringing in what the company needed most: profitable growth.
All of the divisions had been hurt by soft markets and currency fluctuations, but Art’s business was faced with especially intense competition that was pushing prices down, and it looked as if revenue and earnings would decline for the foreseeable future.
Cara’s division, on the other hand, had good margins and was growing. John had combed through Cara’s business plan and believed she had positioned the division well to grow faster than the market, but she would need ample resources to keep growing at the current rate.
Then there was Peter. He had already been to see John twice to try to impress on him the importance of continuing the development of the SAP initiative. The company had already spent some $50 million on it and Peter needed another $100 million spread over the next three years to bring it to fruition.
John knew that the decisions he made would seriously affect the future of the company and the lives of people who had put their hearts and souls into the business.
But with earnings down and the price of the company’s stock depressed and only limited capital available for investment, he knew that he was about to make some of those people very unhappy, so unhappy that they might even leave the company.
Relying on the goals and priorities he had thoughtfully established to guide his decisions about where resources had to be deployed, how they might be generated, and where they had to be extracted, he prepared himself to withstand the fallout from those decisions.
Building a presence in growth markets was a top priority for the business so he increased Cara’s budget. He made the business judgment that Art’s division was on a downward slide that didn’t look as if it would be reversed any time soon, and cut Art’s budget.
To free up more cash to pursue the opportunities in Cara’s business, John pulled the plug on the SAP project, even though he knew it meant the loss of jobs for people who had been dedicated to it and a write-off of $50 million.
John’s decisions were realistic, well reasoned, and anything but personal, but Art was deeply offended by what seemed to him a loss of power, and he began to consider his next career move. As hard as it was, John stood by his judgment to withdraw resources from places they had always gone.
Six months later, the sales numbers for Cara’s division came in weaker than expected, and John dug in to see what had caused the weakness. He realized that the numbers were low because of currency swings, that the business was on the right track, and that the growth prospects were as bright as ever. Even when the numbers went off track, his judgment told him that the priorities and resource allocations he had made were still correct, and he stuck with them.
Slideshow: 8 Skills of People Who Perform
Build a foundation for your business by homing in on customer needs.
Manage the social system of your business to control how employees collaborate.
Judge employee’s potential and find those who can be developed into leaders.
Bring leaders that complement each other together to form great teams.
Determine what your business can become and what it can actually manage to accomplish.
Use a list of priorities to find a path to achieve your goals.
Face the market forces and trends in society that affect the business.
The Man Behind the Culture Code
While anthropologist, Dr. Clotaire Rapaille, is out there preaching the gospel of indelible cultural imprints, some critics argue that his methods stereotype cultures. In this in-depth interview, we uncover the culture code as well as some of its criticisms.
From: FastCompany.com | January 2007 | By: Adam Hanft
While it seems we’re living in a time of homogenized cultures — a Gapified, Starbuckian world of creepy familiarity — Dr. Clotaire Rapaille is out there preaching the gospel of indelible cultural imprints. Rapaille, a French-born anthropologist, believes that culture is destiny, and that we are conditioned by early archetypes that shape and sculpt our “reference systems.” So a French child and an American child see the world through vastly different optics — such as Barbie versus Brie. And they always will. So why in the world would a company’s marketing plan target them in the same way?
Related Content
Crack This Code
G. Clotaire Rapaille has guided Chrysler, Procter Gamble, Boeing, and other enraptured clients through the “collective unconscious” of dozens of cultures. Now he’s taking on India. Is he a sage–or a charlatan?
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Rapaile’s new book The Culture Code demonstrates how code can explain national behavior, and the marketing consequences that spiral out of it.
Do Jerry Falwell and Chris Rock share the same cultural code?
Absolutely, although they would think I’m crazy for saying it. And that dichotomy is a unique expression of the AMERICAN CODE. You see, a cultural code is not a simple box. It is a complex system — what I call a “reference system. ” It is imprinted at an early age, and contains within itself many tensions. So can we say that we are the land of the free, and at the same time be the land of prohibition and political correctness? Absolutely.
We seem to be sprinting towards homogenization. MTV and Starbucks everywhere. Immigration is churning the social architecture. Globalized companies are spreading consistent values that are country-agnostic. Are cultural codes getting weaker in a so-called flat world?
We are not speaking of countries, or nations, which are obsolete concepts, but of cultures. In that context, cultures are becoming more and more aware of their uniqueness, and are ready to fight and die to protect and preserve them. And when some die in the service of that culture, their deaths have a special meaning, which in and of itself is also a cultural imprint.
The Kurds, who are dispersed in several countries, still preserve their culture, as do the Shia and the Sunnis. Quebec is going to fight again to become independent. The French are actually (and unfortunately) more French than ever.
The Japanese will return to being a military power, following their code, and despite half a century of pacificism. The Russians have snapped back to their code, which combines elements of a Tsarist structure and deeply seated religious beliefs. Culture-codes are enormously resilient, capable of surviving incredibly hard times. In fact, the more they are attacked, the stronger they become as they wait patiently for their time to come back.
People have said that your codes are cultural stereotypes. Can a complex country like the U.S. really be reduced to a bumper sticker?
Reference systems are a complex construct of tensions. The code is a simple way to access this system. But if you just look at the code without knowing the system, it looks like a cliché, or a stereotype. A better way to think of a cultural archetype is as an empty structure, a magnetic field that organizes new content, for generation after generation. A “stereotype” is just an expression of the cultural archetype.
For me, the question is not about the validity of these stereotypes, but about their very existence. They cannot be denied. They cannot be ignored. We should use the culture code to understand them. So we need to ask: Where are they coming from, what do they reveal about the collective unconscious that puts them to use?
America, you maintain, is an adolescent culture. Isn’t that a post-1960s phenomenon? The so–called “Greatest Generation” who marched off to World War II wasn’t wearing backwards baseball caps and refusing to grow up.
Oscar Wilde said that Americans are obsessed with their youth, and he was right. We have been obsessed by it for about 300 years now, way before botox existed. What changes is the temporary expression of the code, but not the code itself. The so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s has been followed but the “say no to sex” boomerang. This is the tension I speak of.
So like adolescents in general were are obsessed by sex. But that doesn’t mean we have a sexual culture. We’re like impulsive adolescents; we never read instructions. Of course not all of us. I am describing what the culture code offers to people in order for them to function and be accepted in a given culture.
Hold on. Aren’t there many dimensions of American life that are far from adolescent? Take our love of self-help and our fixation on germs. Adolescents reject touchy-feely self-improvement and see themselves as immortal.
Yes, of course, adolescents are complex. One day they are invincible, the next day they are depressed and want to kill themselves. For the same reason, we cannot understand the sleeping giant, without the superman archetype.
So these adolescent tensions stay with us as we get older. We have a long-term perspective when it comes to principles — we believe our Constitutional principles are self-evident, universal, and valid forever and ever. Contrast this with our fascination for the “now time,” the quick fix, the easy solution, the microwave metabolism. Both sides are, again, part of the American code. We have the oldest written constitution still operating in the world but we are obsessed by short-term results. Up and down all the time, that is the adolescent mind driven by hormones.
You say that cultures move at glacial speeds. Would you tell that to a 70-year-old black woman or gay man who lived through the difficult years of the 1950s? They’re living in a radically re-structured world.
The times have changed but the tensions haven’t. Here, it’s between our obsession with new (new world, new man, New York, New Orleans, etc) and at the same time creating a place where we can be as rigid and conservative as we choose. We are not tolerant. We just created a new world where all the intolerant people can live together.
“America has never produced a world class classical composer,” you opine in your book. Is Aaron Copeland chopped liver?
Sorry but nobody will ever compare Copeland with Mozart. Most of the people around the world have no idea of who this guy is, but they all know Mozart.
Do companies have Codes? How about religions?
Yes. We have done the code for General Electric, Procter and Gamble, and General Motors. I’ve never tackled religions, but they definitely have deep and resonant codes.
Are there some cultural codes that pre-determine a nation for wealth and success? Or is it the other way around…does economic success shape the Code?
Of course it does. Max Weber is the cultural North Star on this question. Quebec is a good example of a code working against prosperity; it’s a Catholic culture unable to lift its people out of submission and poverty. Confucianism, on the other hand values success. See Joel Kotkin’s books about tribes, identity, and resultant success. Look at the Jews after the Diaspora; the Chinese, Indians and Brits. Their success is based on some basic code elements that they share: tight family structures, a belief in education, and a flexible but powerful network.
