At a Busy Gurgaon Call Center, Putting the Phones on Hold for \'Family Day\'

Courtesy of Genpact“Family Day,” an open house event held for employees and their families at Genpact's office in Gurgaon, Haryana, on Oct. 26, 2012.

On a recent Friday, amid the corporate sprawl of modern Gurgaon, Genpact, one of India's largest business process and technology outsourcing centers, transformed an otherwise nondescript conference room into a festive reception hall with bright balloons, waiters passing out candy and a stage set up for the occasion. Employees trickled in, some new to the company, others veterans with years of experience, to slowly fill the 100-odd chairs in the room. But this afternoon, instead of the notepads and pens they would bring to regular team meeting, these workers have got their families in tow.

Welcome to Family Day, an office open house designed for new hires and their parents, who wonder how their children, particularly the daughters, spend the day. “When this industry began, for the first time it was about women doing evening shifts and night shifts, and you had families very worried about something like that,” said Anjali Singh, vice president of human resources and training. “In the Indian culture that wasn't seen so often.”

So about seven years ago, Genpact started hosting Family Day, also known as Family Day Connect, inviting parents and spouses to tour the office and meet the managers, after an icebreaker of music trivia, party favors and sometimes Bollywood dance. Afterwards, dinner is served, a vegetarian buffet of pav bhaji, bhel puri and other Indian favorites. “Some of these things were just to make parents and families feel comfortable with where their daughter or son goes all day,” said Ms. Singh. The function is held anywhere from once a quarter to every six months (sometimes more frequently for larger accounts).

Family days have become an industry standard, according to Roopa Unnikrishnan, founder of Center10 Consulting and senior executive adviser at the Center for Talent Innovation, a New York-based think tank focused on helping corporations leverage talent and diversity in 190 countries, including India. In an environment marked by high turnover, Ms. Unnikrishnan explained, “any company that has to bring on large numbers of young talent and keep them find [family days] to be a hugely attractive, culturally attuned and cost-effective strategy.”

Genpact may not have created the initial concept behind Family Day, but the company became one of India's earliest adopters of the event.

Breaking down work -life barriers benefits the company, too. Ms. Singh said Genpact's annual attrition rate is around 23 percent, a laudable average in an industry notorious for job-hopping. “Because this is India and we listen a lot to our parents, especially when we're younger, if the parents are convinced this is a good place to be, then they're going to encourage their kids to stay there,” Ms. Singh said.

A rigorous interview process, referral programs and “dummy” shifts, which offer potential new hires the chance to work a trial shift before signing on, contribute to the low turnover. Later, opportunities for career advancement, mentoring, internal reshuffling and other incentives keep employees engaged. Many Genpact employees also opt to further their studies, taking advantage of subsidized tuition offered through different partnerships with Indian and foreign universities. Some executives go to Harvard or Duke for senior executive courses.

About 10 years ago, the bus iness process outsourcing sector's average rates of attrition hovered around 50 to 60 percent, said Surabhi Mathur-Gandhi, senior vice president of IT sourcing at TeamLease, an Indian recruitment company. Back then, a fledgling sector was so desperate for talent that companies were willing to hire and train candidates without any experience, who were then poached by rival organizations offering greater compensation.

“Since then, the industry has matured to a large extent. Processes have become more stringent, and organizations are less willing to accept candidates without credentials,” she said.

Since then, attrition rates have continued to fall, from about 45 percent five years ago to around 20 to 25 percent today, which Ms. Mathur-Gandhi calls a “dramatic improvement” from where the Indian outsourcing sector stood five years ago.

“The industry expects a lot more,” she said. While a sluggish economy factors into the improved average since emplo yees are less likely to jump ship, she said, employers are also more discerning in their hiring practices, and those who offer more opportunities for advancement, competitive compensation and other retention techniques to nurture skilled talent enjoy less attrition down the line.

Back at Family Day, Vikas Singhal, a smartly dressed assistant vice president who seems destined for the boardroom, shared his professional journey with the audience, describing how his five years of career progression has culminated in a recent promotion to the head of an account for an important Australian financial client. And as manager to many of the employees in the room, Mr. Singhal thanked the 40-plus families for coming and invited them to ask questions.

One mother raised her hand to ask why their children, who show up at 5 a.m. for work, don't get a free breakfast. (With over 60,000 employees worldwide and about 10,000 employees working in Gurgaon alone, Mr. Singhal explained, it is more expedient to offer meal plans and two subsidized cafeterias). A bespectacled father asked why his son works such long hours. (An eight- or nine-hour day is standard, Mr. Singhal said, but he assured the father that hard workers will be noticed and rewarded.) A faux-hawked teen asked what exactly Genpact does, since his brother sure is tired at the end of the day. (To that, a joke: “We make them work hard for eight hours so when they go home they can have a nice sleep.”)

“Security of female employees is always a big question,” Mr. Singhal said afterward, but added that parents are usually reassured after touring the facility, an 11-story, twin tower compound where separate wings require individual key card access and security guards are posted to each floor, 24 hours a day. Meanwhile, shuttles run from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. from the building to the nearest metro station. Private taxis, on contract with the company, are available for anyone working 8 p.m. t o 6 a.m., and if there are female passengers, a security guard accompanies them, one employee said.

But Genpact, an equal-opportunity employer, goes beyond just creating a safe space for women; gender diversity is among the company's top priorities, and management actively seeks to foster female talent through mentoring and sponsorship opportunities.

“Women bring in a different thought process,” said Ms. Singh, the human resources executive. “If you have a board or a senior leadership team that comprises only of men, versus a team that comprises of men and women, you're going to see that the teams that have women it are more successful.”

N.V. “Tiger” Tyagarajan, chief executive and president of Genpact, agreed, calling the company's relatively high number of female employees, around 40 percent companywide and 20 to 25 percent at senior levels, one of the company's competitive advantages.

In 1997, when the young outsourcing company was the back-end office of General Electric, “we borrowed and stole best practices from across the globe,” he said. (Genpact became an independent organization in 2005, and G.E. remains a client.) The need to relate to Western culture “is important when you're talking about 10- or 20-year relationships,” he said.

But keeping women on the payroll can be a tricky business. Even though Indian women don't face the same pressures to find child care as their Western counterparts, thanks in part to the prevalence of extended families, “Indian women still manage the majority of the domestic effort,” said Ms. Singh.

Genpact has identified some critical points when women tend to drop out of the work force â€" just after marriage, and again in their early to mid-30s, after having a baby or sending the kids to school - and does its best to be flexible with schedules and workloads rather than lose a valuable employee. One female vice president's husband was transferred to Kenya, Ms. Singh said, where Genpact does not currently have an office, so she'll work remotely from Nairobi until she and her family return to India.

The employee-friendly policies seem to be creating loyal workers, judging by the enthusiastic testimonials at Family Day. “This is the best place to work, especially being female, security-wise, environment-wise,” a young woman gushed into the microphone, adding that Genpact's generous culture has made her the envy of all her girlfriends. A young man shared how he felt misplaced when he first started, until his manager helped him find a new role at the company better suited to his qualifications. “People listen to you,” he said, grinning at his colleague-turned-wife in the audience.

A third employee, a young woman wearing a white sari who just joined Genpact three months ago, declared her intention to establish a career at the company. “I hope it's not just six months,” she said, giggling. “I'm going to spend six years.”