Staffing companies can support in hiring job-ready candidates - Rituparna Chakraborty, Co-Founder and VP, TeamLease Services Private Limited.

Q. What are the key challenges facing companies in the BFSI, pharmaceutical, telecom and FMCG sector in building front-sales teams?

• Attrition – particularly in BFSI, telecom and FMCG, the turnover is very high.
• Low productivity.
• Need for higher fixed salary vis-à-vis variable pay to attract talent.

These sectors have very high demand for manpower but they are grappling with the above challenges whose root cause stems from the fact that as a country we are unable to provide employable youth. In majority cases, hiring is a gamble, more because of lack of option, than a choice by employers. Attrition, low productivity and spiraling wage bills are outcomes of our inability to make available a pipeline of appropriately skilled personnel across the length and breadth of the country.

Attrition is also related to the fact that sales teams are widespread and mostly functioning out of the office. In order to meet and address their employment queries, grievances and issues, organizations need to build an administrative network to improve their level of involvement, productivity, and sense of belonging, which becomes a cost ineffective additional burden that organizations may either not have the bandwidth for, or not want to invest in. Absence of such a framework to support these teams leads to dissatisfaction and makes them vulnerable to look outside.

Q. How do staffing companies support these needs?

At TeamLease, we have identified the need early and hence concluded that a better way to provide value to our customers would be to provide them a choice of employable youth anywhere in the country. Besides offering our support in hiring temps, we also give them access to job-ready candidates who have gone through entry-gate assessments, outcome and skill specific training along with certifications. This enables organizations to have the right person for the right job with better fitment and hence ensuring higher probability of longevity and higher productivity at an affordable cost.

We have invested in a combination of centralized and decentralized support system for the associates deployed on our rolls to help them stay in close touch with us for their day-to-day employment needs.

Our centralized support comprises of an 8X8 call center which handles queries in 11 languages that address all inbound calls and emails that are tracked to closure through our CRM platform. We also conduct outbound calls to associates from the time they are confirmed to the time they join (pre-joining confirmation calls), join (induction calls), day-to-day interaction (through feedback calls) till their exit (exit interviews, PF release updates etc). We ensure that we keep them posted through emails and SMS for every transaction that is carried out with them.

We also provide 24X7 access to their own ‘Personalized Web Portal’ http://associate.teamlease.com which provides every relevant and updated information such as pay slips, reimbursement details, PF nomination details etc.
We ensure that, at the time of joining, each associate is given an attractive and informative joining kit which carries all necessary guidelines of their employment, communication charter, bank form, compliance forms (PF Nomination, ESIC) and the associate handbook. Post joining, they are taken through an induction call which helps them understand the relevance of each document shared with them and what needs to be done with each.

An associate interface point is provided at our offices across the country to handle day-to-day queries in associate joining formalities. It is an extended arm of centralized operations at our or client locations.

Q. What are the challenges in engagement, motivation and alignment of temporary employees employed by a third party? How does this model work?

In addition to the model, we also carry out regular health check calls with each of our associate and speak to them at least once every month to understand their issues or concerns. This helps in building the much needed connect with the associate and gives them a sense of being cared for.

Together with our clients (where our associates are deployed) we organize open house forums where we get to meet these associates, discuss their achievements, update them about what is new with us as well as with our clients.

We also work closely with our clients to avoid any kind of discrimination at the workplace which can demotivate the associates. We also work jointly to reward performers through certifications and vouchers, and also nominate our associates for various skills up gradation programs.