Modern Day Jobs, Shared Service Centers – and Boredom!

A common and informal refrain on modern day jobs, including those in Shared Services Centers, can be summed up in a single word: boredom. And yet, the present generation has more to gain from the choice of jobs available and global mobility compared to traditional jobs in a pre global outsourcing world. Today’s workplaces are much-evolved vis-Ã¡-vis the traditional brick and mortar structures, yet there are increasingly complaints about how boring jobs are. Many organizations have made discreet attempts to eliminate boredom by increasing choices in dress code; introducing an element of FUN at work; Family Day; celebration of festivals; increased tolerance levels on personal computing devices and mobiles; replacing wooden furniture with bean bags; and providing laptops and flexible work arrangements. In addition, organizations are constantly on their toes trying to balance Gen Y and Gen X needs, and keep employees motivated and energetic. And yet, these well-directed efforts can’t tide over an increasing boredom, which, within captive and outsourced Shared Services Centers, may be contributing to the migration of talent to jobs that are more challenging and fulfilling. In the past two decades there has been a heavy lifting and shifting of jobs from the developed world to global outsourcing destinations. Many of these jobs were routine tasks. Furthermore, as the focus on standardization increased, jobs became increasingly "straight line". For example, to process an invoice, you need to execute a set of documented steps as per the global process blueprint. The count of invoices processed accurately determines your efficiency and accuracy. At the end of the month your cumulative data secures your paycheck. Over a period of time this routine activity leads to boredom, hence there are increasingly few aspirants for transactional jobs in captive and outsourced shared service centers. Another element that impacts engagement in the workplace is the automation of tasks. Advances in technology are today replacing a large majority of outsourced tasks. In manufacturing and healthcare, robots have invaded the workplace and now perform routine tasks to precision, thereby standardizing the processes but also allowing less space for innovation. Angelo Kinicki, a management professor at Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business, in an article titled "Bored in the Office: Is It the New Productivity Killer?" claims: "It’s repetitiveness that’s the culprit." Some corporate systems can routinize every task and interaction to the point of utter tedium, he warns. A similar scenario is being replicated in Shared Services Centers, or business process outsourcing engagements, with increasing automation leading to jobs becoming more repetitive (an HfS study earlier this year states that 47% of BPO clients rate automation as an increasingly significant indicator in terms of emerging technology). In this context, the paradigm of outsourcing has also contributed to boredom. The starting point for outsourcing was to offshore routine tasks. But while outsourcing added more jobs and contributed to the economy of low cost nations it failed to induce innovation or add newer challenges to job content. As the nature of jobs became "flat", employees started to exhibit signs of fatigue at the workplace. Over the years the outsourcing industry, hailed as a "sunrise sector" for talent, is now finding it difficult to rope in new talent. This scenario resonates in India where contact and shared services centers are increasingly viewed as less favorable job options by the younger generation. Sarosh Kuruvilla (Professor of Industrial Relations, Asian Studies and Public Affairs at Cornell University) and Aruna Ranganathan (Doctoral Candidate, Sloan School of Management) in a study titled "Globalization and Outsourcing: Confronting new Human Resource Challenges in India’s Business Process Outsourcing industry" (Industrial Relations Journal 2010) state that one of the reasons for high turnover in BPO is the nature of the work itself. They reference international research (Batt et al. 2006; Deery and Kinnie, 2004) around call center jobs being organized after a "tayloristic" fashion: highly repetitive, with tightly regulated lunch and restroom breaks, targeted numbers of calls to be made, and a very high degree of monitoring of employee activity. Post the 2009 recession, the new workplace and job market have only served to lengthen the shadow of boredom. On the one hand, layoffs have often forced displaced employees to pick up routine jobs (typically lesser paying). On the other hand, as jobs are outsourced, new employees are measured by performance indicators designed to reward routine task execution. The majority of SSC jobs, in spite of fancy titles and designations, are repetitive and lead to a less engaged workforce. For those in the higher rungs of management the frustration is masked, as jobs tend to pay more, thereby compensating for the lack of space for decision-making. Jenna Goudreau, in the above mentioned article, refers to Richard Chaifetz, a neuropsychologist and the CEO of ComPsych, who says that boredom may be commonly understood as not having enough to do, but is really about not being challenged enough. "So while employees may be busier than ever, they’re not necessarily doing more interesting work", explains Chaifetz. The global economic slowdown post 2009 has further accelerated boredom. There have been fewer jobs created in the past five years and as a result employees have been left clinging to retained jobs. As the corporate world is struggling to survive, scope to alter existing job profiles has been drastically reduced. Employees are also becoming smarter and more careful: lengthy job descriptions posted on Intranet portals and are being carefully scrutinized. Furthermore, in Bangalore (India) we are witnessing the emergence of multiple start-ups in different sectors. An interesting blog post by Nathaniel Koloc in the Harvard Business Review, "What Job Candidates Really Want: Meaningful Work", points out that employees crave purpose at work—an opportunity to provide meaning and fulfillment. From low productivity levels to diminishing motivation and engagement to increasing levels of frustration … boredom at work is likely to impact the operations of shared services centers in the coming years. Rose Hoare in an article titled, "Is workplace boredom the new stress?" quotes Sandi Mann (senior psychology lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, England) who says boredom is the second most commonly hidden workplace emotion, after anger, and who believes modern workplaces are becoming more boring. Despite this, Mann says there's little awareness. While shared services centers do measure annual employee engagement (via surveys) they do not include any specific indicator related to content or nature of job. As a result, the overall engagement aggregate score fails to provide specific pointers on boredom and job dissatisfaction. Angelo Kinicki says that workplace boredom can strike anyone from low-level service workers to well-paid corporate executives. The impact on shared services could slow down activity with turnover increasing as employees aspire for growth beyond their traditional boundaries. Furthermore, a Deloitte Global Shared Services Centers study conducted in 2013 mentions that shared services centers attribute a significant increase in people related challenges, including maintaining strong morale, in the next three years. With focus on increasing profitability by enabling cost transformations, in ever-shorter time spans, the evolution of modern day jobs will be an ongoing journey. As the workforce cedes ground to machines and automation, to yield lower costs, modern day jobs will be less dictated by conventional skills and allowed less space for creativity and experimentation. On the contrary, the repetitiveness of shared services center tasks will have already delivered a certain level of efficiency and contributed to overall profitability. Hence the option will be to choose between: a) Do I need a job to survive? Or b) could I tide over boredom in my current job? There is no middle path in this context to allow space for creativity or experimentation and risk the financial applecart. It’s something all shared services leaders should be factoring into their recruiting and retention strategies. [inlinead]

Modern Day Jobs, Shared Service Centers – and Boredom!

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