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Business

Outsourcers court Indian parents

By: Santosh :+: Under: Business
On: ⋅ May 27, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment
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We let our parents pick our career paths, so why not let them pick the company where you work at? [Wall Street Journal]

Courting the parents - desi ishtyle
img: via WSJ

As more and more American companies outsource their calls to India, consequently resulting in more employees being hired to work at all odd hours, outsourcers are coming up against the most formidable opponent of all things desi - parents. The bottomline, for a myriad variety of social and cultural reasons and safety concerns, in some cases rightly so, parents are concerned about their adult offspring’s well being.

When outsourcing company Keane Inc. hired Jyoti Taneja 10 months ago to work in its Gurgaon, India, offices, her parents were worried. The 22-year-old Ms. Taneja would be taking calls from American customers of U.S. health-insurance companies, finishing her shift at 2:30 a.m.

Instead of bypassing concerned parents, the companies are courting them instead.

Hoping to reassure their young hire’s parents about her safety, her supervisors at Keane paid several visits to Ms. Taneja’s family home in nearby New Delhi.

They outlined the security measures Keane takes to protect employees, such as providing a shuttle service to and from work, and having security escorts accompany young women who are riding home alone.

Even with the millions of graduates India produces every year, outsourcers are still facing labor shortages, resulting them in actually taking the efforts to bridge the cultural gap of adult children still living at home with their parents and the parents influencing their offsprings’ decisions.

Another hurdle some smaller companies face is the lack of name recognition among parents.

Because Keane isn’t a household name, some parents worry that working there might not enhance their child’s marriage prospects, a key consideration in India, or are concerned about money. “They’ll ask, ‘How much will my son get?’” says Sudip Mandal, Keane’s head of recruitment in India.

But the main concern among parents seems to be the security of their children.

Other parents want to make sure transportation to and from work is safe, especially for young women. Those anxieties were reinforced last fall by the rape and murder of a 22-year-old outsourcing employee of Wipro Technologies Ltd. on her way to the office for a night shift.

Keane’s Mr. Mandal assures parents that Keane conducts rigorous background checks on local drivers before hiring them, and checks them daily to make sure they are alert and aren’t under the influence of alcohol.

Among other methods used to court parents in company sponsored “family days” to give the illusion of a family atmosphere.

At a Genpact Family Day late last year, executives gave a presentation about the company’s business to 75 or so workers and family members. Then family members watched a talent show featuring their young relatives singing and dancing. Next came a comic skit about what life might be like if Americans were the call-center workers and Indians were the customers on the line complaining about poor service.

Comic skit about Americans as call-center workers and Indians as consumers? At least, they have a sense of humor about the entire thing. Either that or this is an eerie prophecy in the making.

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