Let them have cars

But then, why does that have to include late night or early morning pick-ups and drops? An employer cannot, should not be responsible for what happens outside the walls of the workplace beyond a point.

There are always employer motivated solutions. That these solutions disturb the settled habits of existing inefficiencies, is why they are not implemented. Also, they pre-suppose levels of wisdom in employers which have simply not evolved in step with the glamorous new industry of 24×7 infotech.

There is nothing new about women working in 24×7 industries in India. Leave alone health care, politics, hospitality, entertainment, media and aviation, we have had women working night shifts in India in large numbers, for example, as telephone/telex operators in pre-STD/ISD days. The same rules that apply today were applicable even then, and were resolved in simple ways: female night shift staff came earlier and left later by their own transport, were provided space to rest before or after 8-hour duties, were not permitted to venture out in the dark. Simple solutions, based on the premise that people who went to school/ college on their own didn’t need to be ferried to work, but did need to take commonsensical precautions given the realities.

Commuting on their own or in “employer provided transport”, was not the issue. There wasn’t much employer provided transport in those days . But, wisdom distilled over decades of night shift working was allowed for on basic issues like circadian cycles, bio-rhythms, and menstrual cycles for women working at night. An informal system of comp offs, overtime and adjustment between staff worked very well in an age when telecommunications itself was sporadic at best.

So what goes wrong with the 24×7 BPO sector today that they just don’t seem to be able to get their act together? Why are they still stuck in this business of pick-ups and drops at unreasonable hours? Why do their pick-up and drop schedules look like something out of Kafka — the inefficient results of complicated processes which end up leaving young people out on the roads for 5 to 6 round trips a week at weird hours in the hands of callow, often lumpen, elements driving what are probably the worst wheels?

Having been part of many 24×7 industries in India, travel, cargo, media, hospitality, and now infotech , I can tote up a few observations and some facts. Observation: Company provided transport is used as an incentive by the BPO industry in India when it is actually nothing of the sort. It is often a narrow view solution by lazy, incompetent decision makers without much experience in other industries. By rights, getting to the workplace is an option for an employee at his/ her own risk. Modern day BPOs are located in urban centres with public and private transport systems. What is the need for employers to extend their liabilities beyond the workplace? Fact: There is still a sweat-shop attitude towards employees in the industry. Providing company transport is just one attempt to hide it.

Observation: A four night shift week, not exceeding 50 hours including meal-times, is the norm for any 24×7 industry. If you want sustainable optimal performance from your staff, that is. Worked backwards, that translates into 4 warm bodies per seat for a 168 hour week, with an additional person towards attrition, training, leave, peak demand and slack periods. In other words, a 24×7 employer looking at being fair to customers as well as employees needs to provide 5 employees for every seat, so that rosters and shifts can be executed properly. How many of our present day 24×7 BPOs are even close to this? Fact: Industry hires on the basis of peak workload hours and then tries to force a fit. I have not come across even one 24×7 BPO which has more than 3 persons per seat. The industry norm is closer to below 2.

Observation: Common sense shows that timings should be designed with sleep cycles in mind. If you are working India nights and sleeping India days, then you should continue to sleep India days, say, for a month, before switching to India day work and India night sleep. The BPO industry, however, makes rosters and shifts on the basis of highs and lows of demand. Employees end up switching sleep cycles intra week. Fact: A night shift industry needs be differentiated from a 24×7 industry. If an industry is 24×7, then it must have 5 people per seat. That is not the case today.

The BPO industry in India is unwilling and unable to differentiate between a “night shift” industry and a “24×7” industry. Therein lies the root of the issue. So now we have a new sub-set — the “night-shift BPO”. I know of such night-shift BPOs where picking up and dropping people occupies large proportions of management time and cost, in addition to actual costs and potential liabilities. My own calculations for running a proper night shift have shown me that providing a cost to company for each night shift employee of an equivalent of 11 litres petrol would be cheaper, is inflation protected, and without headaches for employer and employee.

With a four-shift week per head for night workers, of course. Bangalore, Pune, Chennai or Delhi, or any city, is not the issue. The gender of the night shift worker is not the issue either. The simple issue is this — are our 24×7 BPOs really 24×7, or are they night shift sweatshops masquerading as a 24×7 industry?

The writer heads the India based Asia operations of a Silicon Valley technology company