The human resources problems facing the information technology-enabled business process outsourcing sector need a concerted industry approach in which even the government may have to chip in. This is because of the stake the country's economy has in its success.

A discussion at the ITES-BPO summit centred around these HR problems facing the industry for which people are the main resource and staff costs account for 40 per cent of total operating costs.

The industry has grown from a total people strength of 5,000 three years ago to over a lakh now. And in five years it will have to add another million or more to its workforce when the IT services have taken 25 years to reach their present people strength of 500,000.

The government's stake in the future of this industry is the million plus white collar jobs it is going to create and the $ 20-24 billion yearly export earnings it is going to bring in by 2008.

The current HR problems before the industry centred around its high staff turnover rate are the result of this hectic pace of growth and the overheated market conditions that it creates, observed Prakash Gurbaxani, CEO of TransWorks Information Service and an industry veteran.

To tackle the turnover problem, the industry needs to recruit those who need such jobs and not those who take up jobs because they require an American accent are considered trendy.

Most leave as they are the wrong people to have been recruited. He advised small firms to move to the B category cities so as to get the right type of people who would stick on without having to compete with MNCs.

A whole lot of sensible advice was offered by Martin Conboy, director of Callcentres.net, Australia, who has done an Indian call centre benchmark study.

Many of his insights and solutions are gleaned from the experience of countries such as Australia which have been in the business far longer than India and have also faced similar problems.

To solve many of the HR problems of the Industry, Australia had made it into a profession. A major forecast and solution was gradual hike in recruitment of older part timers and less of college leavers.

Typically, mothers whose children were a little grown up and needed a second income could come in as part time workers.

The industry also needed to recruit people with the right temperament, those who like serving people, the caring sorts that went into nursing.

And they also had to be trained in stress management as call centre staff had often to handle irate customers.

There was also a need to equip recruits with the right type of skills and to place before them proper career prospects.

The government had to play a role in so shaping the education system that recruits came in already equipped with the right attributes like spoken language skills and selected cultural orientations.

In order to provide staff with career prospects, they had to be taken out of call handling jobs after a point and equipped with vertical (industry) skills.

One set of solutions which did not find favour, aired by Aadesh Goyal, executive vice-president and general manager, Hughes BPO services, was self imposed recruiting disciplines within the industry, which would forbid requirement of people who were less than a year at their existing jobs and payment of a fine by the recruiter to the first employer for breaking the rule.