Hello there, this is episode 2 of My First Job, the podcast and this time we are looking
at careers in the healthcare BPO industry.
We have with us a guest who's learnt the ropes and risen to the very top.
Gautam Shivraman is Chief Delivery Officer of Access Healthcare and he knows what it means
to build a career and handle the pressure that is there practically every day in the industry.
Over to Gautam. Thank you, Venu. It all began 32 years ago for me, the first job and in my
current job I have about 10,000 plus in between India and so going back, yeah, so it was June,
July 1990, that's when I had passed out with a distinction in chemical engineering. It wasn't
a dilemma whether to look for a job or do some post graduation. I wanted to do MBA as well,
but I started applying without really delaying too much because there's only a small window that's
available for applications sent and the first... All of these were written applications, right?
All of these were written, you had to actually hand write and then send it as a post or a career,
that's what, there were no emails at that time. So we received the call later, again it came as a
proper registered post from Tata Chemicals, very elated to receive that. So this is going to be
my first journey to the western side of the country, always been only to the north. So I figured
that the only way to reach Mithapur is to first go to Mumbai and then from there used to be Bombay
then and from there take another train about seven, eight hours of layover in Bombay. So I had a
classmate in Bombay who picked me up the morning that I reached, went to his house and then evening
the train was from Mumbai Central at about 8.15. So we reached the station well in time, maybe 7.30,
7.40, the rake was already in, I still remember the coach S6, birth number five. Yeah, because
I'll tell you why I remember all that. So and then the rake had already come in, there were a few
people sitting, there's still about half an hour for the train to leave. So went quickly inside,
kept my bag under the berth, came out to wish him goodbye, we were there for about five minutes
outside. Then he left, I went in and lo and behold, my bag was missing. There were two bags, one
one airbag and one suitcase, the suitcase went missing. I looked around, couldn't find it,
by then we had all the passengers come in, the train was ready to leave with the help of some
co-passengers. We filed a complaint with the station but I knew it was gone. Basically,
whatever was there in the bag was gone. Unfortunately, the bag had my interview
call letter, some cash, some new clothes, shoes that I bought for the interview and all my original
certificates. My God, what a stud. So this is all gone. So I was like too much of a shock for me to
wear and by night I had high temperature but still went on since I luckily had the ticket with me
and there was this bag that I had. Again, I need to thank my father for it because he would always
say you have to de-risk everything, do not keep everything in one basket, make sure you at least
carry some cash, some clothes in another bag even if you are traveling. So that helped. I had this
bag with me. So I eventually managed to stay through the journey, reached this destination
next day evening for a clock. So I started from Mumbai at 8 pm, reached at 4 pm the next day.
It was a pretty long journey, almost 18 hours. So I had an accommodation at their guest house.
The first look and feel of the place itself was, I was awestruck by it. It was a huge factory
that was there. You could miss it. That was the only thing that was there in that place.
There were townships and people in and around the factory. So once that was done, I went to
the guest house, checked in, actually wondering what has to do, right? Because I don't have the
interview call. I was not sure whether I would be called in for the interview. So I looked through
the telephone directory, found a few South Indian names there who were pretty high up in the hierarchy
there. So I checked with the receptionist, found out where they stayed and went to meet them.
I got a very good reception. I was received warmly, given South Indian coffee and assured
that things will all be okay and I will be allowed to attend the interview. I will be given time,
if selected, to go back to the college and get my duplicate certificate. So all that worked out well.
The next day was the interview. I did well. I got the job and went to the college, got the
duplicate certificates and joined this organization. Tata Chemicals in October, 1990. That's when my
first job started. So obviously, this is a rude beginning to my career, right? As you rightly
said, very rocky beginning, but I was able to withstand and resilient enough to still manage it.
So good induction into the organization and what I was not prepared for is a huge workforce
that I had to manage in my hand. The only languages I knew were in the English and Tamil.
This is a typical Katiya word, Gujarati, brook that I had there.
Complete dialect, everything was different. And obviously, there was this blue collar,
white collar divide in that organization as well, just like any other organization.
There was this, oh, Bada Saab Aagaya, office me engineering karke, kya malo main and all that.
So they were like, this guy's just come in fresh and I'm here for 20 plus years and he's now going
to be my boss. So one of the first takeaways from that exposure, obviously, I was not spoon fed
on the process. I was just thrown into the fire. I had to learn it the hard way.
How did you get over the language thing?
So luckily, since I knew Hindi, I was able to manage to start with, but I knew that if you
have to get the job done, I think those are the first management lessons for me. One, you have to
get down to the brass packs, roll up your sleeves to understand the process. For me, there was no
choice. I had to do that. I had to literally go down to the brass packs and this is a huge chemical
plant, mind you. So right from every valve to every joint to every storage tank, I had to know
what was in it and how the pipelines lead, where they go from one process station to the other
process. Since I had to file maintenance reports as well, so I had to know in and out of all the
pipelines, the joints, the valves, I had to know them by name. So nothing better than actually
learning it on the ground with the people who manage it. So that's where I started. I had to
get an emotional connect with the people. Obviously, Bujraj is very sweet language. Everyone
suddenly becomes your brother, right? Bhai, Gautam Bhai, Venubhai, everyone becomes your brother.
So that itself adds a lot of respect to the way you address people. All of them were pretty
old. Some of them were as old as my father as well. I treated them with respect and got along
very well with them. Within three months, I was speaking very fluently with Gujarati, picked up
from them, their slang and all that. So it was a successful tenure with Tarasimha. So that would
have been a very important part of building bridges, right? Of speaking to them in their language,
you know, actually admitting that getting along with them would be one of the most important
parts. Rather than create a divide between who you are, like you said, Bada Saavage versus
being close to them in several ways. Some of my colleagues did not like me for that because
obviously, I used to go sit with them, eat with them. I wasn't in either. So, every day was at a
different workstation. One day at this workstation and my whole one walk used to be about a kilometer
and a half, one round of the entire plant. So I used to take about three, four rounds,
great fitness exercise as well. Which you continue to this day. I had to climb
a huge storage tank, check the top. So it was a completely different learning and
almost 60, 70% of those people wept when I left in 1996. So it was a six year tenure. By the time
I was ready to leave, obviously I wanted change. I was almost retired in Tata Chemicals. The township
really makes you lazy. You don't have to do anything. Everything was available at the back
I can call. Everything was cheap. People were great. So I could have retired there. But then
obviously I had aspirations. I wanted to challenge the status. I want to get out of the comfort zone.
Plus my parents were alone. My sister had to be married off or she was married while I was there.
Things had to settle at home as well. I want to come back four years of engineering, six years
I thought I was away from home for 10 years, come back as well. So that was a very heart-rending
departure from there and I moved on. And then to Chennai, you came into Chennai from there?
Yeah, so I came into Chennai. I joined an organization called Kothari Petrochemicals,
part of the Kothari Group. So they were setting up a similar kind of a chemical plant in Kareka.
So I joined that project office as a project engineer, given the fact that I had the experience
of having built or being part of the team that built a similar new plant from scratch. So right
from buying equipment, testing them, managing the installation of the equipment, actually
conducting a dry run and commissioning the plant. That was a great experience.
Initial months were spent with the purchase team, having negotiations with various vendors.
Then later on visited the workshops to actually inspect the equipment before they
be shipped. And then of course the installation and all that. So I was there with them for about
2 years, from 1996 to 1998. And is there a point of difference between the cultures? Obviously,
Tata is one of the older names and very well known. So was there something that you...
Market difference. So obviously, most of the people here were educated. So when I say educated,
there were some haunts that all of them had. The only difference between here and there was
in Tata chemicals, you could hardly find anyone who's beyond fifth or sixth standard from an
educational point. But they had a wealth of experience and all you had to do was connect with
them emotionally and they will just pour out whatever they knew. But here, I could see there
is some hesitation in sharing knowledge. They all came from very good organizations with great
background. But I could see the difference, like you rightly said. I could see the difference in
temperament attitude. Not that it bothered me. I continued the same way that I continued in
Tata chemical. Just that I didn't want the plant to work. So they offered me after the project
was all initiated, there's no real work in the project office. So they wanted me to go to the
plant in Karikav, relocate. I said, no, the intent was to stay in Chennai. So I'm not going to
Karikav. So I came back. I actually worked as a consultant there after for about a year.
Even the fact that I had this commissioning experience and all that. So as I joined a friend
who already had an consulting firm and we used to liars with equipment manufacturers and support them
for erection and maintenance and all that. So through that is when my passport got the first
stamping. So I managed to fly out of the country, went to Malaysia, Singapore. So that was my first
outside the country visit. Around 99 is when the entire world was moving towards Y2K.
The Y2K bug was starting to bite everyone. The dotcom company is the IT boom that happened there.
Obviously, I was also attracted towards it. But I obviously did not have any IT or programming
background other than the ops background. I was looking for an organization that could utilize
my ops experience. And I could also make the transition from being a chemical engineer to an
operations manager. And that's where I got this break from. Vetry software. They were pioneers
of IT enabled services during that time. They started in 1993 headed by a great leader and
mentor Raju Venkatraman. So I joined them in 99 and not look back after that. So I just progressed
in the BPO journey thereafter from 99 to 2023 now, about 23 years now.
Yeah. But again, this is another sea change from the plant and to a service led industry in IT.
Absolutely. Worlds apart. Worlds apart. And here we had the, again, the difference was
at manage a lot of youngsters just come out of college. And that's where we used to have
pressures. So with maybe life sciences background or at least a science or mathematics value,
because you had a good aptitude. And then we used to have customized training modules to bring them
up to speed with the processes and then take them through the curve. So completely different ball
game. But given the fact that I had the basics, right, I could, I could adapt faster. Managing
change is has always been a challenge, but that is what has brought the fruits as well. So once
you adapt to the change and you manage it, then you get to see the fruits constantly seeking change
has been an end of that. So when I go into comfort zone, I become restless.
But can you pinpoint a reason why you chose IT? Was it mainly because of the overwhelming,
let's say, impact that IT was creating around that time? Because, I mean, logically, I'm saying if
you already had about six to eight years of experience in the chemical industry, most people
tend to leverage experience within an existing field rather than move into something all afresh
because they say, I don't know enough about this business. So is there a certain amount of risk
taking even while you're on a career path while you're looking for it? It was a big risk. So I had
to consult a lot of people. My father had a lot of acquaintances within the industry and
we met quite a few of them before we took this decision. In fact, I started my CEC plus Java,
those kind of programs as well, because if this is going to be the career shift that I was going to
make, then I was told that you will need to know all these languages. So basically, they assumed
that the only way I could survive is actually doing programming. But obviously, I had no
aptitude for programming. My forte was ops management, people process. That's where I wanted
to go. And the most candid aspect was, despite eight, nine years in the chemical industry,
I was not earning well. This is one area where not just the boom in the industry, but the pay was
also. That's another lucrative option that I had to look at. And to be fair, within two years of
joining this industry, I built my first house. So you can imagine the kind of monetary benefits
that I've got because of the shift I did. So I think it was a risk worth taking. And thankfully,
I was able to manage and wait through. So do you think change happened first in your mind with
respect to, I think I need to make a change and then you begin to explore options or is it that
there is a certain amount of pressure, which is why you respond to it. I'm trying to get a little
deeper into how this transition. This particular change was actually pressure because like I said,
so Tata Chemical 6 years, great. I loved every day. Two years with Kotari, again, great as long as
the project was initiated. But once the option of going to the factory was given, I did not like it.
Then a year as a consultant, right? So it was like on and off. There were days where I had
nothing to do. There were days like where I was traveling and doing a lot. Somehow something
was not right. I had to settle down in life. It's too early in my career to be doing a consulting
role where the remuneration is on and off. It was only used to be basically a task given. There was
no fixed income. So that's the reason that forced me to accept this change. But thereafter, so
let's say for Vetri Software, that organization became liaison. I was there with them for about
five years. So my tenure and streams have been pretty long, almost every organization. And
thereafter, I joined another organization, First Source, where I was there for six years. So as
you can see, the shift did not happen very frequently thereafter. I was pretty secure. I wanted to make
sure whatever trust was enforced on me, I lived up to those and I was accountable for a lot of
growth aspects that were given to me. So I did not want to change just for the sake of changing and
a few rupees more. Now the BPO industry in India has grown by leaps and bounds. There's also the
other side which says that a whole lot of work is routine, mechanical. How do you see this changing?
Do you believe that this is one of the things that has a long-term kind of thing or how is it
that it's going to play out over the next few years? So when I started, the only thing that was
driving outsourcing to countries like India, Philippines, China was the cost arbiter. So
all these countries were at least 35-40% cheaper at a per hour rate when compared to the US. That
was the main reason why work was moving to India offshore basically. But as things have evolved,
as we've got more and more diverse people joining this industry, our skill sets have also improved.
Every organization, BP organization, maybe started with just the basic scanning or data entry, but
then they have moved on up the chain, be it the provider side or the payer side. There are a lot
of high skilled resources that so let's take for example, if you have you're part of the call center,
then there's a certain skill that you need to have, your language skills, your neutral access,
ability to interact with the person on the other side who the US and extract information. So that's
a niche skill. Similarly, you have something called coding. You actually create a bill using the codes,
the diagnosis procedure code. Again, very, very niche skill. So you have something called
adjudication of the claim, very niche. So as the years have progressed, the skill set and the
the process that countries like India have taken up are very, very complex in nature. And we probably
do a better job than actually the US personnel. That's amazing. How do you actually recruit for
these kinds of skills? When you have such a niche requirement, how do you even begin? Is it that
the training process internally? It's all about training. So yeah, you can probably have a competitor,
I can coach a few good people from him, but that's not going to last you forever unless you have
foundational training program that really nurtures a fresher into becoming a skilled resource.
So I think these organizations that I'm talking about have invested a lot in training, building
the training curriculum. So the first source, the organization that I joined after Vetri,
they spent almost 17,000 hours just understanding what process they should be, just creating the
training model when they did not even have a customer. So that's the kind of investment I'm
talking about where really build the curriculum and obviously get the right people who have the
aptitude to train, right? Not everyone can train, even if you're a subject matter expert, you should
have the ability to train people. So you have to get the right trainers and you have to get the
right content in and then you have to lay out the module in such a way it becomes easy for a
fresher to understand, assimilate, a lot of hands-on experience given before he or she actually
goes into the job and then over the months of experience through mistake-proofing, the word
that I use often is obviously you learn only to make mistakes. As long as you learn from your
mistakes and then you can improve upon that, that's when you're mistake-proofing and you're becoming
better at your job. So those are the aspects. Okay, let me take you and do slightly one direction
that I want to explore a little more is when you start out on the job, you're doing almost
everything yourself, you're learning and then it becomes a point as to how do you begin to train
or build a team, whether requirement now shifts from you doing your job to getting something done
from others. So there's a mind shift there, that's one aspect. So I'd like you to spend a little time
on how you made the transition from being a person who got the job, who did the job to
a point where you got it done and first within a small team and then as the team expanded,
what do you think are the changes that you personally underwent?
So to start with, I was actually fortunate that where my first job itself was managing like 40-50
people. I joined already as a leader. So I did not. So I was probably fortunate. It was not an
individual contributor role, it was more of a leadership role again. I was the shift in charge,
but again, you had to learn from those people. So I've already extended, but when I moved into
BPO again, we had some set spans. So for example, if a team leader you manage to be 15, so these
are all tried and tested span ratios that were already in place. So if you're a manager, then
maybe you manage three team leaders, which means you have 45-50. There are some organizations who
create the span basis, the revenue manage, there are some that create these spans basis, the people
to be managed. Again, depending on the skill set of people, so if you have a very high skill set,
then spans could be optimized slightly lower. But if you have an average skill set, then you could
have higher span. But one is to 25 is the best or the uppermost limit, I would say for a team
leader to manage because he or she then has to connect with them all through the shift.
Even our layout in the BPO industry used to be a cluster of 25, 12, each row, and then the leader
sitting right in the middle. So that's how the cluster were also designed those days to make
sure that each cluster was a team and one is to 25, they were managing the cluster. It was like a
home for them, away from home as a family, so they bonded well, celebrated birthdays,
celebrated small successes. Those cultures were completely different from what I had.
So that's the shift I had to make, I just did. And then I learned and I innovated,
created more opportunities to celebrate. Fund has become a default value in our industry today
because there's so much stress and pressure at work that you have to de-stress people from that.
You have to quickly have a lot of fun, literally have your hair down, have fun. That's the kind of
culture we built over the years. And as a leader, I've tried to fan, emanate, and maybe attract
some of my leaders who shy away from maybe singing, dancing. So I go down, I sing, I dance,
have fun with the people and it makes the others also emulate. So each leader has their own style,
but this is how I have managed things. And you asked another thing.
Yeah, the other direction, sorry, yeah, please continue.
Yes, as to how you manage as you grow. So obviously, manager becomes a senior manager,
general manager, which means that his or her span improved. The focus should be on governance,
dashboards, objectively measuring performance. And you have client SLAs, client targets that
you have to make. So your dashboards, your daily governance, weekly governance is what actually
helps you control the game. Okay, now the other thing that I want to look at is your interaction
with clients when you're heading delivery. It's the biggest problems that get escalated to you.
So how is it that you keep calm and how is it that you manage? How do you know what needs to be
done to handle a crisis? Yeah, so I think the culture we've built, not just me, I think across
the multiple organizations is give me the bad news first. So that's the culture we built. So
obviously, we need to know that we have a problem before the customer tell. So we have to have enough
control points, measurement systems in place for us to keep a constant tab on how we perform,
whether it is quality, whether it is turnaround time, it has to be, that's why that's what I spoke
about the governance, right? So the dashboards have to help you with the right metrics to tell you in
advance that, hey, this is good, the trend is not looking right. If this continues, then we're going
to fail their sale proactively, you're able to take money and to prevent failures. But due to some
unforeseen circumstance, if there is a failure that happened, then I've seen nine out of 10
customers love it when you tell them before they realize, you'll be proactive about telling them.
So you're telling them I have a problem which I'm sorry? Yeah, you're telling them that, hey,
I'm going to fail or I have failed before they tell me. But there are instances where I'm not,
where it is the other way around, where we know that there's something that we could not measure and
their end customer escalated and come as a complaint. So those are the instances few and far between,
but predominantly, I think we have enough robust systems in place today where we are able to have
a pulse on the system and proactively react, not react, be proactive and correct.
Fix it. There's a nuance on what you just asked, you can read this, Kotham.
Okay, Ganesh is asking. This is as Ganesh Kalyan Krishnan wants to know about this.
Yeah, so Ganesh, just to answer your question, right? So there the 40 odd people that I managed
were all heads of their workstation. So I had to just go about managing and go visit their workstation,
see what basically the job was to look at the process metrics, control parameters, record them.
So my job was to make sure that anyone and everyone who's there in my shift at each workstation
had their metrics in place, had their control points in place, the pumps were all running,
the storage tanks were all adequately managed, the pressure systems are all running,
equipments have to work in a large factory setup. If your process control equipment fail,
then you have a serious issue. So that's where you have to be proactive in terms of
getting those repaired and all that. That predominantly was my task. I really did not
have to get them to work because they were not doing any work. It is all process control, right?
So the pump is running, it's running, it is doing its job. I don't have to manage the pump. I have
to manage the person who's manning the pump. It was easy there. But when I moved to BPO, then I had
to literally get the best out of every individual. That's when the span becomes an issue. As a human,
you cannot really manage more than 25 itself as a stretch. But if it's really a skilled team,
then one is to 20 would be the ideal. So within a team, now you have your core
reporters, that is, there's a set of people like who are themselves managing very large teams and
stuff. So when it comes to rising within an organization, what are the mental gears that
you have to shift? So the first thing you need to do is succession planning. So obviously,
you need to make sure someone else is ready to take up your job. That's when you can grow. So let's
say I'm managing a team of 25, someone from within that team has to be ready to manage it in my apps.
So I have to groom. So as a leader, it becomes essential that you groom your successor. And
it's an unwritten rule. You have to make sure you develop people who are better than you at the
job that you're doing. They have to be better than you. It's easier said than done. It takes a lot
of mentoring, coaching, delegating effectively and supporting them if they fail, all that so that
they get the confidence to take their own decision. Once they're ready, obviously, you know, then you
can probably expand your span from one team. Now I can manage two teams and that's how you grow.
So it has to be all about finding the right person to do the job that you've been doing so that you
can do, you can expand your role. So can you tell me about some instances where, let's say you found
a particular difficult situation and then what was your response? Take us through one of the scenarios.
Deepar Avi has asked us, how do you manage this particular thing when people were working from?
So the pandemic has taught us a lot of lessons. First of all, none of us were prepared for the
pandemic. Like I said, we have these clusters where we manage the teams. We're all looking at them
face to face in person, we used to driving production that way. And suddenly May 23rd, 2020 happened.
You say that you can no longer work in office, go home. So we've not even factored working from home
as part of the IT setup itself. So it was a lesson for all of us. Obviously, a lot of us stumbled,
but I think most of us managed to do what we did. We managed to get the systems to the employee
homes. We managed to build infrastructure that could connect to every home and then through
that network to the centralized servers, through the servers, to the customer system.
It all happened within a matter of a month. I think maybe by the end of April, most of the
BPO companies are up and running with almost 60-70% of the staff, fully equipped to work from.
So how exactly did you go about that? You looked at the people who are in charge of
certain things and told them or was there a fair amount of understanding with teams which had
already gelled within a proper work environment to then go ahead and do things that they had
not been required to do earlier? So obviously, all of us had to do this weight lifting in the sense,
literally, we had to pick systems and run. And obviously, the admin or the IT did not have enough
staff to make sure. So one thing that we did is we sent the systems to each of the employees
as and when they were leaving the office. So they had the system up and running with them.
Then obviously, we set up. That's when all these Zooms and GoToMeetings and MS teams
really became valuable, where we could address multiple people at the same time to a Zoom session.
Her desk was set up and people could log in and say, oh, this is not working for me. That is not
working for them. The expert will tell them how to get this done. So these are the lessons that
the pandemic has taught us that you can actually work better through a hybrid model. I know of
some organizations who actually let go of the physical space. They are now happy doing 100%
work from home. Okay. So they don't have any physical space. How did you reassure your clients who
suddenly didn't have the same access and that they had earlier? And what are the steps that you took
to ensure that you would manage this? Obviously, the first thing that happened was the fourth major
class came into play where none of the SLAs were applicable. Obviously, given such a major
development, we could not stick to those SLAs. So for some time, maybe three months,
six months, depending on how things were, we got that SLA holiday, which means we really did not
have to worry about day to day measurements of SLAs. But eventually, obviously, there was a
backlog that was building up. Eventually, we had to get rid of the backlog and get caught up. So
that gave us the breathing time and we kept assuring. The only way we could assure the customers
was through constant communication, daily calls, stand-up meetings and saying, okay, now 30% of
the team is up and running, 40% is up and running. This is the age. So in our business, it's all
about claims and how old they are and the system tells them, okay, this is the oldest claim in
the system. This is what we do down from the oldest to the youngest. That's what we manage. This is
the plan for the next week. We don't know what's going to happen next, but these are the people that
so it used to be constant communication progress every week. As long as we were able to show progress
every week and eventually reach a state where I think in both the organizations that I served
during the pandemic, we were back to meeting the SLAs within three to four months. It is just that
window that we needed to settle into a complete work from home. Okay. Now in terms of the
selecting people, which is what I think some of the younger viewers of this podcast will be
interested in knowing. So how exactly do you go about recruiting people and what is it that people
coming into the industry should expect? Good question. So again, depending on the
type of process that we're hiring, right? So in our particular kind of industry, every organization
today is prepared to work on a hybrid mode where you have people working from home as well as
becoming an ongoing kind of a BCP scenario where you don't have everyone working. So at least 20 to
30% of the population is always working. And therefore your infra and firewall, everything is
protecting this hybrid mode. And we sold that to our customers. Customers have done the audits,
pretty satisfied with what we have set up. So this is the, in fact, competition, that's how
they lure, right? So for example, we have competitors who tell our employees saying, oh, you asked to
work in office for the first six months, you can work from home from day one, come join us. We'll
also give you a 15% increment. That's how they lure them. But obviously, when they're, it looks
greener from this side, when they go there, they find that it's completely different.
How exactly do you? So the processes are divided based on the skill sets. So depending on what
kind of skill set we need, there is a minimum requirement to hire. So it could be a life sciences.
There could be some process where we would not hire freshers, we would need experience. And there
would be process where we could hire freshers, but with good English speaking skills for the
voice process. So that's it. Those are the two or three nuances that you have to take care
from a minimum requirement. As long as you get that minimum requirement to hire, right?
The recruitment team is happy. So they know which source to target, where to pull people.
Once the recruitment is done, then each of these process streams has specific training module,
right from pre-process to process, then of course, certification. And then they go through a very
scientifically structured ramp. So they have to start from zero to let's say 10, 15 claims per
day. That's a goal, four weeks, six weeks. It's all well tested out, laid out nicely. Glide path,
we call it. Glide smoothly, go up the curve in terms of speed, make sure we focus on accuracy,
did your accuracy right. And that's how they become a steady state resource. So the progression
from a ramp to a steady state happens when they've started hitting the regular goals on a daily
day. Thereafter, they're all steady, steady state resources. One year into the steady state bucket,
they become eligible to become leaders. They go through internal job postings. They go through
interview panels. If they're really good, like you said, they become the transition from managing
oneself to managing 20 people. And for those young leaders, we have a dedicated training
program on how to be a good leader, how to manage people, what are the tricks of the trade, the
tips, that's the continuous learning. Now, the BP industry is highly processed. So is there any
room for creativity within this for people who want a very structured environment where they
learn, where they'll do well, is where a BP is best suited. So how do people make out before they
begin as to whether this is what they are about or they're not. Yeah. So like I said, so first
two years, you will have to be process driven to this industry to be constantly efficient and
effective. So but there are processes. So again, typically how the BP environment is, right? Most
of the processes are actually dictated by the customer. So you actually have to work on their
system. So there's not much you can do from an innovation or a process change. But there are
processes where customers outsource and allow you to manage using your own product. There you can
do a lot of innovation. You can talk about non-value added steps, you can talk about innovation,
you can talk about using technology to improve product one. Where there is no scope for innovation,
there is scope for moving from one function to the other. So for example, if you are in operation,
okay, you say, oh, two years in operation bugs me, I want to lose. You have the attitude to teach,
you can go into training. If you have the aptitude to you have the right vision, the right eye,
the microscopic lens to actually catch the errors, you move into service quality. If you are good at
mentoring, coaching, then we have these green belts and black belt programs where you can become
certified quality professional and drive in process lab leading. Okay, you don't want that,
you want to go into software development. Okay, if you have the right aptitude skill set, you can
move into software where it's all about innovation, practices, machine learning, AI, you name it, we
have it. So it's about the individual where he or she wants to go. But the problem with today's
generation is I think they're not clear on what they want to do. They probably are not very sticky
in terms of sticking on to one job, building a career, very few people, most of them,
they would jump. They were a competition. Why is that important? Why is it so hard for people to
understand that you will only learn when you spend more time doing something over and over again?
I think just constantly reiterating the fact that you have opportunities to grow here. You really
don't have to jump jobs just because someone else is offering a few rupees more, 5000 or 20%
more, 30% more. Some of them offer a scene, 40%. I don't know how they manage. So just to your
people. But at the end of the day, he's still a processor. He's not growing in his career as a
leader or he's not taking the next step. Those aspects are some things that we'll have to constantly
keep telling our team where we tell them these are the opportunities. And we need to have a very
fair and transparent performance management system where you are really differentiating the
performers and the pretenders. So constantly make sure your performers get the reward that they
deserve. Unless you have the same yardstick to measure people with and you differentiate,
okay, you are rated 5, you get 20%. You are rated 1, you don't get any increase. That difference has
to be made on performance, objective performance. That happens. Let me turn a phrase there. The
performers versus the pretenders. And you're saying some of these because for some people,
they are great survivors. The pretenders are great survivors. They're survivors. Yeah,
they survive because you're not measuring them. They know you're not measuring them and they'll
survive. So for us to make sure that the performers are rewarded and the pretenders are sieved
off, I think you need to have very good performance. And I think that's where we've really invested our
time in in terms of creating these reports, real time production management, user level report,
which help our leaders to manage their teams from the age old days when everything used to be
either pads or Excel. Now the system will tell you who's performing, who's you come in, log in
today, you know what you produced yesterday, what was your quality score, everything is all
dashboarded. For you personally, Gautam, how do you view a career journey? What is your understanding?
Again, this is just me. So I can only speak about myself, right? Every time I look at a youngster
walking into our door, I remember my anecdote before my first job. Okay, so I that is, that's
never going to disappear. That's like an impressive thing with me. So yeah, to be make sure that
every person walking in gets a sense of belonging, gets a sense of I am respected and needed here.
Most organizations, we let the trainers take that role. I think some organizations have now
started making sure at least four or five organizations that I know, where some of the senior
leaders who talk to these people right at the beginning, first week of joining, you have the
senior leaders talking to them, you're telling them, this is the organization, this is where you're
going to come in after complete training, rest assured, we'll take care of you. That's a lot of
important steps to make sure they become entrenched and anchored. Otherwise, they're
like left out as orphans, don't know what's going to happen next. A trainer has his or her job to do.
Okay, I have these modules to cover. He's not going to worry about engaging and telling them
about this. That needs to come from leaders who are going to manage them in the future. So those
are some aspects that are very, very important. So as a leader, that's how we have evolved,
right from managing oneself, trying to manage others, trying to balance between people and tasks.
It's not easy. There are some very tough decisions one has to take as we go up the ladder, but I
have shied away from laying off people as much as possible, try to accommodate as long as they're
performed in various processes in my previous job as well, to ensure that we continue their
livelihood. For most of them, this is their life. At the same time, we have to look at cost, we have
to look at profits, we have to make sure that we are right stuff. It's a constant balance. I always
tell my team, it's the triangle, right? It has to be equal. It's a people business customer. It has
to be equal. There could be instances where it could stretch and become an obtuse triangle because
our customer needs everything. At any cost, you have to make sure SLAs are mine. People take a hit,
business takes a hit. Then suddenly, there's pressure on profitability. You have to cut
cost, maybe cut salaries, cut transport. Then again, people take a hit. So you have to really
make sure that whatever decision, it's not easy, but as much as possible, try and make sure customer
people, business are all equally balanced as much as possible. That's the only way to continue this
journey without really getting hurt. Wonderful. But are there any closing thoughts that you would
have for young people who are evaluating their own skills and seeing where they'll be happy?
How do they begin? Youngsters today are very clear on what they want to do. Plus, when I was,
I just completed 12th, the only options I had was either be an engineer or be a doctor. That's it.
Okay. So obviously, biology was not my cup of tea. I took up engineering. But today,
even before they start going to 11th, they know clearly what they have. There are almost 440
professional streams available when compared to the two that I am aware of. In the science stream
itself, so then you have commerce, then you have mathematics, you have statistics, you name it.
So there's a wealth of opportunity available today. Kids today know exactly what they want to do.
So but they need some capital, right? They want some independence, they need some capital. So
maybe for some, BPO becomes easy way to earn some good money for one year, two years and then
use that capital that they built to go into a career. So this is where it becomes important to
make sure you hire the right people. So you need to see through the highly qualified person. He
or she may not stick. You may have higher attrition. So that has to be balanced. But yes, as long as
everyone's aware of what they want to do and if BPO is the career that they want to take and within
BPO, like I've mentioned, there are so many opportunities available, you can really build
a very good career. Great. So just to summarize, Gautam, from losing all your all important files
on that train from Bombay to heading one of the largest delivery teams in a BPO that caters to
some of the most finicky medical establishments in the US because that process I've been told is
extremely hard to get. Yes. It's been a long journey. So thank you for taking us through each
of the process. And I think you broke down a lot of the steps in terms of how you made the transition
from chemical engineering to the decisions that you made on getting into the BPO and what your
strengths were and how each one of those strengths were leveraged over time. Thank you. It's been
wonderful talking to you. Watch out for our next episode. Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Thank you, Gautam. Thank you very much. I'm ending YouTube. Thank you.