Attrition rate in BPO firms slowing down

CEBU, Philippines – The attrition rate in Cebu’s outsourcing industry is going on a downward trend as more workers have learned to love the kind of work they are in.

The Cebu Educational Development of Information Technology Inc., (Cedfit) reported that from as high as 60 percent attrition rate in the past, Cebu’s BPO is now registering at least 40 percent attrition rate.

Cedfit executive director Jun Sa-a said this development reflects the maturity of Cebu's Information Technology/Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry.

Attrition rate is the percentage of people leaving the organization and finding similar employment in other competitive firms, or companies in the same sector.

"Most workers found the right company and realized that hopping from one company to the other won’t give them job security," said Sa-a.

Besides, the new graduates now are already mentally conditioned about the kind of work environment and shifting cycles they are about to enter, if they choose to work in the high-paying BPO sector.

The over 120,000 workers in the IT/BPO sector have already adjusted to the graveyard shift, while some companies have also altered their work schedule to include more loads in the dayshift.

With this, Sa-a said the industry is no longer suffering from high attrition rate, including the high cost of hiring, which was the common complaint of the outsourcing companies in the past.

Based on Cedfit's internal survey, Sa-a said more employees are seeing growth from within their respective organizations. Most outsourcing firms are also generous in giving incentives and salary adjustments to workers.

With this, Cebu have already passed what is considered to be one of the birth pains of the outsourcing sector. Manpower supply is stable, and attrition rate is diminishing.

There are over 200 IT/BPO companies operating in Cebu. This is seen to grow further especially in terms of revenue generation as the sector is moving up to higher value services. (FREEMAN)