2010 BPO Monograph (USC)

FOREWORD
The BPO in Cebu:

Challenges and
Opportunities
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THE PHILIPPINES
FOREWORD
The BPO Industry in Cebu: Challenges and Opportunities
FOREWORD
The BPO in Cebu:
Challenges and
Opportunities
Contributors:
Fiscalina Amadora-Nolasco Leah C. Auman
Francisco M. Largo Elmira Judy T. Aguilar
Jiah L. Sayson Reuel C. Yap
Brenette L. Abrenica Tyler C. Ong
Rey Uzhmar C. Padit Charity A. Tecson
Cholen T. Osorio
UNIVERSITY OF SAN CARLOS PRESS
CEBU CITY, PHILIPPINES
2010
FOREWORD
The BPO in Cebu:
Challenges and Opportunities
Copyright @ 2010 University of San Carlos Press
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The National Library of the Philippines CIP Data
Recommended entry:
The BPO in Cebu : challenges and opportunities /
contributors, Fiscalina Amadora-Nolasco... [et. al.].
-- Cebu City : University of San Carlos Press, 2010.
p. ; cm.
ISBN 978-971-539-027-9
1. Contracting out--Philippines--Cebu. I. Nolasco,
Fiscalina Amadora.
HD2365 658.4058 2010 P102010107
Cover design: Julianito Joseph L. Masna
FOREWORD
he Higher Education Act of 1994 or Republic Act No. 7722 mandating the
Commission of Higher Education (CHED) to perform functions related to
research has come a long way since its inception. The Commission is
mandated to promote, direct and support higher education institutions (HEIs) in carrying
out their research and instruction functions. It is within this milieu that the National
Higher Education Research Agenda (NHERA 1999-2008; 2009-2018) was developed
and the Zonal Research Centers (ZRCs) throughout the country were established. Both
initiatives are aimed at enabling higher education institutions in the country to produce
high quality research that will advance knowledge leading to economic development and
better quality of life.
Among the various CHED schemes to support research is the Grant-in-Aid or GIA, for
which this present study on The BPO in Cebu: Challenges and Opportunities, is a case
in point. This grant is provided to research proposals approved from private and public
HEIs developed along the two-pronged Batch III USC-CHED Zonal Research Program
thrusts: Business and Industry Development Studies and Socioeconomic Development
Studies.
Contemporary business and industry is not spared of the effects of globalization. The
phenomenon of business process outsourcing is an impact of globalization. As it is,
globalization has made it possible for historically distinct and disconnected national
markets to merge as one huge global marketplace. For those in the know, declining trade
and investment barriers, the development of microprocessors and telecommunications,
the use of the internet and the World Wide Web, and major innovations in transportation
technology have been identified as the main drivers of globalization.
This study in regard the Cebu BPO industry (2008 and 2009) is timely as Cebu is ranked
as the number one in the Top 50 Emerging Global Outsourcing Cities. This is according
to Tholons (2009), a leading full-service strategic advisory firm for global outsourcing
and investments. According to Professor Fajardo (Sun Star Cebu Yearbook 2010), of the
University of San Carlos, Cebu met the most critical input in business process
outsourcing: An English-savvy and computer-literate work force with state-of-the-art
communication facilities.
This CHED Grant-in-Aid research output likewise comes with meaningful relevance as it
addresses the principles guiding research prioritization: Multidisciplinarity, policy
orientation, participation, balanced attention given to basic and applied research,
dovetailing, and complementation with other R & D initiatives. Moreover, the work is an
expression of the effort towards operationalizing the development of a research culture
through networking and collaboration, as partner HEIs in the USC-CHED ZRC research
capability building process.
Elizabeth M. Remedio, PhD
Director
USC-CHED Zonal Research Center
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
his Monograph was produced under the University of San Carlos-Commission
on Higher Education Zonal Research Center Grant-in-Aid Research Project,
both for Phase 1 (GIA 2008: Research) and Phase 2 (GIA 2009: Publication).
In particular, we thank the USC-CHED-ZRC Director, Dr. Elizabeth M. Remedio, for the
encouragement and remarkable support to this timely undertaking; the Director of the
USC Office of Research, Dr. Danilo B. Largo; and the Dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences, Dr. Ramon S. Del Fierro, for the research opportunity and release time from
teaching.
We sincerely acknowledge the involvement of our collaborating partners from other
Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Cebu, namely, Cebu Doctors University,
University of Cebu, Cebu Institute of Technology, and the University of San Jose
Recoletos.
Additionally, we are grateful to those who have in one way or the other participated in
the capability-building activities, including the conduct of actual fieldwork: Adrian
Boyett D. Agbon, Reymar Zarsoza (CDU), Baby Ting (UC), Jofe Marie M. Garvez
(CIT), Agnes Sequino (USJR), Aldwin Joseph Empaces, Enriquito Satuita, Deborah Liz
Campos, Anna Beatrice Quijano, Leo Gerard A. Caral, Carlo Espina, Jiggs Adiong,
Donna Bacalso, Katrina Chiong, Lauren V. Ligaton, Reino D. Pasay, Anselmo Otero,
Ronnie Mandawe, Ma. Cecilia Caballes, Ana Flouressa Cabanilla, Shazeen B. Cruz,
Cielo Maris S. Badilles, Kaye Hazel Lequigan, Lizette Tomabang, Noel Lentija, Mae
Claire Jabines, Rowanne Marie Maxilom, and Sunleigh C. Gador.
To the technical experts who provided valuable and insightful suggestions, we thank
Gerard Go (Market Structure), Rene E. Alburo (Academe and BPO Linkage), Fernando
Fajardo (Benefits Package), Aloysius M. L. Caete (Gender and Reproductive Health),
and Barbara Christina J. Pineda (Psychological Correlates of Stress).
For her unflagging assistance and for working extremely hard in preparing the financial
reports, we thank Chalemae O. Mioza. We are also grateful to Celeste S. Villaluz-
Sanchez for the painstaking efforts and untiring assistance in preparing the documents
needed for submission to CHED; Julie Ann C. Belaniso and Geillecar C. Bucog for the
administrative and technical assistance; and Julianito Joseph L. Masna for the design and
layout of this monograph.
Finally, our profound gratitude goes to Rene E. Alburo and Aloysius M. L. Caete for
the copyediting assistance, and to Father Dionisio M. Miranda, SVD, President of the
University of San Carlos, for the helpful inputs to improve this work.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Brenette L. Abrenica is a full-time faculty at the Department of Political Science,
University of San Carlos. She specializes in public management and local governance.
She finished her Master of Arts in Public Administration from the Cebu Normal
University, and Master in Political Science degree from the USC. Ms. Abrenica served as
field specialist and data processor of the CHED-ZRC BPO Study. Currently, she is
engaged in expanding her grasp of development issues, Cebuano politics, and voter
transition studies through new teaching responsibilities and training opportunities.
Among others, her extension activities are with the World Bank-Knowledge
Development Center (WB-KDC).
Elmira Judy T. Aguilar is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology
and Anthropology, University of San Carlos. She obtained her Masters in Health Social
Science degree at the De La Salle University. Dr. Aguilar served as Component Leader of
the CHED-ZRC BPO Study. For several years now, she headed several gender, sexuality,
and reproductive health projects.
Leah C. Auman is a full-time faculty at the Department of Psychology, University of San
Carlos. She obtained her Master of Arts in Psychology from the University of the
Philippines Diliman, with concentration in developmental psychology. Ms. Auman has
taught courses in research methods, statistics, psychological testing, training and
development, and developmental psychology. Her research interest includes
commitment, psychology of religion, and developmental concerns.
Francisco M. Largo is Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics, University
of San Carlos. He obtained his Master of Arts degree in Economics from the University
of the Philippines School of Economics. His current research interests revolve around the
role of institutions in public policy formulation and implementation especially in the field
of water resources management and the economics of intra-household resource
allocations. Mr. Largo served as Component Leader of the CHED-ZRC BPO Study.
Fiscalina Amadora-Nolasco is Professor of Anthropology and Graduate Program
Coordinator in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, and currently
Coordinator of the USC Social Science Research Center. She obtained her Ph.D. in
Anthropology under the Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs Anthropology
Program Affiliation between USC and the New Mexico State University. She served as
Project Leader of the CHED-ZRC BPO Study. Her research interest includes among
other concerns, women and health, HIV/AIDS, child labor, water in urban poor
communities, and other development-related issues.
Tyler C. Ong is a full-time faculty at the Department of Psychology, University of San
Carlos. He is a psychotherapist in private practice. Dr. Ong earned his Master of Science
degree in Psychology specializing in Marriage and Family Therapy from the California
State Polytechnic University at Pomona, and his Doctor of Psychology in Clinical
Psychology from the California Southern University. He teaches courses in clinical and
counseling psychology. His doctoral project was a proposed psychology of religion for
gay men. His research interest involves gay mens issues, psychology of religion, and
religio-magical practices.
Cholen T. Osorio is a full-time faculty at the Department of Psychology, University of
San Carlos. She earned her Masters degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from
the USC. Her thesis focused on stress and teaching performance. She teaches human
behavior in organization, human resource management, techniques in counseling, and she
handles internship supervision. Her research interest involves issues related to work
performance and occupational stress. Ms. Osorios professional experience includes
working as a training and development officer for two organizations: one in Cebu and
another in the Laguna area. Her eight years of experience as a guidance counselor has
given her a wider view of the developmental concerns among the adolescent age group.
Rey Uzhmar C. Padit is a full-time faculty at the Department of Economics, University
of San Carlos. He teaches microeconomics, macroeconomics, and health economics. His
areas of interest include political economics, institutional economics, economics
education, and public policy. Mr. Padit served as field interviewer and data processor of
the CHED-ZRC BPO Study, and is currently active in development-related undertakings.
Jiah L. Sayson earned her Master of Arts in Development Studies major in Politics of
Alternative Development at the Institute of Social Studies, Den Haag, The Netherlands in
2004. Her training includes urban and regional planning and development (UP-Cebu
College), geographic information systems (USC and Larenstein University), and
American political thought/political development (University of Massachusetts). Ms.
Sayson is the former Chair of the USC Political Science Department, and she served as
Component Leader of the CHED-ZRC BPO Study.
Charity A. Tecson is Professor of English, Speech, and Linguistics in the Department of
Languages and Literature at the University of San Carlos. She earned her Master of Arts
in English Language Teaching and Doctor of Philosophy in Education at the USC. She
has also pursued short-term courses in Linguistics at the Linguistics Summer Institute of
the Philippines. Her researches are language and linguistics-related.
Reuel C. Yap is a full-time faculty at the Department of Psychology, University of San
Carlos. He obtained his Master of Arts degree in Psychology from the USC. His latest
research endeavor was as a collaborator for a cross-cultural research on happiness and
quality of friendship. He served as one of the technical experts of the CHED-ZRC BPO
study. Mr. Yaps research specialization includes attachment styles, forgiveness, positive
psychology, and other topics under social psychology.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
CHAPTER 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . 11
Fiscalina Amadora-Nolasco
The Story
The Method
Plan for the Monograph
CHAPTER 2 Market Structure and Labor Market
Adjustment Mechanism
. . . . . . . . . 15
Francisco M. Largo and Rey Uzhmar C. Padit
Introduction
Conceptual Framework
Methodology
Findings
Implications
Policy Recommendation
CHAPTER 3 Academe and BPO Linkage:
Matching Workforce Competencies
. . . . . . . . . 27
Introduction
Competency Needs of BPO Management
The Metro Cebu Sample BPO Workforce
Conclusion and Recommendations
CHAPTER 4 Benefits Package and Worker Satisfaction . . . . . . . . . 43
Jiah L. Sayson and Brenette L. Abrenica
Introduction
Decent Work Agenda
Investigating BPO Benefits Packages in Metro Cebu
Decent Work Status in the BPO Industry
Decent Work Status in the BPO Industry: Per Subsector
Perspectives
TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 5 Identifying and Addressing Gender and Reproductive
Health Issues in the Business Process Outsourcing
Companies
. . . . . . . . . 62
Elmira Judy T. Aguilar
Introduction
Health Concerns and Experiences of Men and Women
Addressing Gender and Reproductive Health Concerns in the Workplace
CHAPTER 6 Psychological Correlates of Stress Among BPO Industry
Workers
. . . . . . . . . 70
Leah C. Auman, Cholen T. Osorio, Reuel C. Yap and Tyler C. Ong
Introduction
Method
Results
Implications
Recommendations
Special Paper USC English and ICT Curricula
Charity A. Tecson
. . . . . . . . . 88
Introduction
USC English Curriculum
USC ICT Curriculum
Recommendations

CHAPTER 1
I In nt tr ro od du uc ct ti io on n
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
The Story
he study of the BPO is not restricted to any single discipline. It is an area of
concern which is of special interest to many people in contemporary Cebu and
can be analyzed in a variety of ways. This monograph is a five-component
study that makes use of the social science approach, and interprets findings obtained from
both quantitative and qualitative interviews. This project is a product of a CHED-ZRC-
funded research conducted by social science departments of the University of San Carlos
and their collaborating partners from other HEIs, namely: University of Cebu, Cebu
Doctors University, Cebu Institute of Technology, and the University of San Jose
Recoletos.
The overarching goal of this undertaking is to foster collaboration between the academe
and business sector as well as to support the priority thrusts of the CHED-ZRC,
particularly Business Industry studies. It aims to build a body of knowledge of the BPO
industry based on verified observations.
The research was first conceptualized by the USC Social Science Research Center in
2008 to encourage collaboration in research, demonstrate the importance of working
together, and enhance the research competencies of faculty and students. Given the
holistic intent of the study, the project had to be a collaborative effort among four social
science departments (Sociology and Anthropology, Economics, Political Science, and
Psychology), the Department of Languages and Literature, and the Social Science
Research Center, each with specific objectives and interpretation for a given concern. A
series of consultative meetings initially funded by the USC Office of Research were then
carried out to plan the research process and mobilize resources for action. Consultations
were also regularly done with the USC-CHED-ZRC to shed light on the relevance of the
research in contemporary society and the strategies that will need to be employed to
fulfill the objectives of the study.
In a forum held with the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information
Technology, the agency which has been instrumental in positioning Cebu as a location
for the development of IT and IT-enabled services, the matter of strengthening the BPO
workforce competencies was raised. The same concern was emphasized in a separate
forum initiated by the USC-CHED ZRC. A clear gap was seen between what the industry
needed and what the academe was producing, leading to efforts to fill in the perceived
mismatch including an assessment of the regions demand and supply of human resources
in the IT sector. CEDF-IT also collaborated with academic institutions for faculty
training and curricula development. Despite those attempts, however, it was suggested
Introduction Amadora-Nolasco l 12
that the BPO industry in Cebu still has to face the challenge of improving its workforce to
move up in the value chain.
Following these fora and upon the suggestion of the industrys stakeholders, the study
team reexamined its original proposal and thereafter incorporated the concerns raised by
the BPOs in the forum. The first proposal (Phase 1: Research) was then submitted in
response to ZRCs call for proposals under CHEDs Grants in Aid Research Projects for
2008. Upon completion of the research phase, a second proposal (Phase 2: Publication)
was submitted for GIA 2009.
The objectives of the study include (i) to examine the reported mismatch between the
workforce produced by the academe and BPOs demand in Metro Cebu in the context of
predicted market structures for business process outsourcing industries, (ii) to determine
the mental, emotional and psychological well-being of the sample workforce, (iii) to
explore the dynamics of gender, sexuality and reproductive health in the workplace, (iv)
to look into the status of decent work in the BPO industry and examine the benefit
packages and workers level of satisfaction, and (v) to determine the needs of
BPO management insofar as competencies of workforce are concerned, and assess how
the academe can best address these concerns.
These concerns are only a few areas that warrant immediate attention as BPOs continue
to expand their operations in Cebu. We hope that other equally significant issues not dealt
with thoroughly in this monograph can be examined by other researchers who may wish
to continue the journey of writing about the BPO industry in Cebu, the changes it is
undergoing and future directions.
The industry has placed Cebu on the global map thereby promoting the Cebuano
capability and culture. It has encouraged Cebuanos to expand their skills in marketing
and communication, among others, to ensure that the industry will remain and continue to
provide economic incentives to families and communities particularly in the context of
difficult economic realities.
Recognizing that the industry is not just about opportunity and innovation, there is
therefore a need to better understand the challenges faced by both workers and
management. The study explores the links between labor market efficiency and the
various social and psychological factors that impact on work effectiveness and day-to-
day living. It intends to demonstrate how the BPO industry has reshaped the lives of
people, not just insofar as economic incentives are concerned but also with regard to
changes and adjustments they need to make to accommodate the pace of rapid change.
While it is imperative to understand the risks, threats and challenges faced by the BPO
industry in identifying concerns that can be addressed by the academe and training
institutions, it is equally important to understand situations faced by its workforce. It is
believed that while they enjoy better-paying jobs and perhaps better living conditions,
they also need to have a supportive environment that promotes their health and well-
being, and prevents other factors from affecting work competencies and competitiveness.
The complexity of the phenomenon highlights the relevance of a multidisciplinary
approach, which the academic sector is uniquely equipped to contribute to addressing
problems in the real world. This monograph is our way of addressing our corporate social
responsibility, our academic contribution to the business world, and to the Cebuano
community in general, albeit limited. Because this monograph provides exploratory
analyses, its results would have to be taken as guides for a more thorough investigation.
The Method
The companies involved in the project were pre-identified and determined on the basis of
the BPO category to which they belong to ensure representation of categories. The study
population comprised men and women of varying ages in Metro Cebu who work in
technology-empowered companies that provide outsourcing services to other companies
whether local, national or international.
The BPO/IT sub-sector categories which have been identified for inclusion include call
center, back office, medical transcription, legal transcription, animation, software
development, engineering design, digital content, and companies that offer multiple
services.
For triangulation and validation of results, the process of gathering information
proceeded along certain quantitative (survey) and qualitative (key informant interview)
methods. The survey instrument was crafted with close-ended and open-ended questions
designed to draw out participant socio-demographic characteristics, entry qualifications
and skills training, gender and reproductive health, benefits package and enabling
policies, psychological well-being, occupational stress and coping styles. Interviews were
carried out with a sample of 118 purposively-chosen workers from 15 purposively-
selected BPO companies, between May and July 2009. Apart from the involvement of
our partner institutions, our field researchers comprised of graduate and undergraduate
students and faculty of the departments of Political Science, Psychology, Sociology and
Anthropology, and Economics.
There are portions in the instrument, particularly on the psychological well-being and
benefits package sections, which are self-administered or filled-up by participants
themselves owing to the length of multiple-choice items. In this study the PWB scale of
C. Ryff was adopted to measure the psychological well-being of the sample workforce,
while the J. Greenberg scale was used for occupational stress.
A set of open-ended questions was prepared for the key informant interviews. BPO
management and human resources heads in five companies were interviewed to obtain a
broader understanding of the BPO industry in Cebu and draw out information about
needed competencies and concerns which they think can be addressed by learning
institutions. Prior to actual fieldwork, courtesy calls were made to various BPOs that fall
within the inclusion criteria, letters were distributed, and appointments for interviews
were made to those who agreed to participate.
Company names are not mentioned in this monograph to protect their privacy and
maintain confidentiality of information, and only participants who were willing to
participate in the study were interviewed. To ensure that the survey instrument and key
informant interview guides contain relevant concerns that address specific objectives, a
series of long and serious deliberation among key project staff and technical experts were
carried out prior to considering these as final and ready for field implementation.
Plan for the Monograph
This monograph is organized into six chapters. The present chapter provides a short
background to the monograph including a discussion of the methodology used by the
different components in the study. Chapter 2 describes the prevailing characteristics of
the market structure of the BPO industry in Cebu and analyzes the possible adjustment
mechanisms resulting from these structures. This analysis is extended to possible
implications for public and business policy. Chapter 3 presents the kinds of competencies
required or preferred by the BPO companies. It discusses the current profile of the sample
workforce, their entry qualifications and skills training. Chapter 4 discusses the status of
decent work in the BPO industry and analyzes the benefit packages offered by companies
and workers level of satisfaction. Chapter 5 identifies the gender and reproductive health
concerns and corresponding health services and other related benefits in the BPO
workplace. Chapter 6 examines the mental, emotional and psychological well-being of
the sample workforce. It discusses their level of stress and identifies their coping style as
well as social support networks. A special paper on the USC English and IT curricula is
included in this monograph to show the extent the University of San Carlos has addressed
some of the competency needs identified by BPO companies.
CHAPTER 2
M Ma ar rk ke et t S St tr ru uc ct tu ur re e a an nd d L La ab bo or r M Ma ar rk ke et t
A Ad dj ju us st tm me en nt t M Me ec ch ha an ni is sm ms s
Francisco M. Largo and Rey Uzhmar C. Padit
Department of Economics
Introduction
he markets for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) have enjoyed considerable
growth in the past decade. Galvanized by substantial reductions in the cost of
information technology infrastructure, professional services such as payments
processing, customer contact, records encoding, and others that were
previously done inside the firm were now contracted out to external parties either
proximate in terms of geographical location (nearshoring) or not (offshoring). The
outsourcing of these information technology enabled services (ITES) is estimated to
reach USD 110 to 180 billion globally by the current year. The Philippines is poised to
capture a substantial portion of this market. If government reports are to be taken at face
value, the Philippines is now a very close second to India, with the total value of BPO
transactions estimated at USD 7 billion as opposed to the latters USD 9 billion. Despite
the advent of the global financial crisis of 2008, the sector has continued to show
resiliency and is preparing for even further growth (Rodolfo, 2009; Tolentino, 2010).
The exuberance surrounding the BPO phenomenon in the Philippines has been dampened
somewhat by problems identified by the industry especially with respect to the
availability of human resources. As industry insiders point to the availability of human
resources as critical to sustaining its growth
1
1
See Nolasco, Chp 3, this volume.
, these issues present considerable causes for
concern for the industry. Belen (2008) identifies two issues that are relevant to this
study: 1.) the lack of people with the required skill sets, and 2.) the high rate of turnover
among employees. Applicants to the workforce are assumed to be ready for their
assignments in the workplace but only a small fraction is claimed to be so. The first
problem is of particular concern to the academic sector especially higher education
institutions (HEI) as industry insiders are wont to attribute this deficiency to the nature of
training received at the tertiary level. Proposals for solutions have come thick and fast
from industry to address these deficiencies but to our knowledge, these have come
without an analysis of their economic context. Such an analysis is especially pertinent in
ensuring the efficacy of these solutions at the very least. For example, asking for
education supply to meet industry demand shows a basic misunderstanding of the
nature of the markets involved. It is the household that demands education for its
members from HEIs that supply it. These work force participants then supply labor to
firms that demand them. For industry to ensure that its needs are met, firms must ensure
that they recognize these channels and work through them. No mention, for example, has
been made of the crucial role that alumni have on the feedback process for curriculum
Market Structure Largo and Padit l 16
development. It is also our hypothesis that economic forces largely account for the nature
and magnitude of the problem of employee turnover. Accounting for these forces will
similarly fruitful in determining the appropriate actions to take to mitigate the effects of
this problem as well.
This paper aims to contribute to an emerging literature on BPOs and ITES by developing
a rudimentary framework of the economic forces at play especially in the Philippine
context. The literature on BPOs, as opposed to that concerning manufacturing
outsourcing, is still in its infancy. This is largely due to the recentness of the phenomenon
and its very dynamic nature in the short time it has been in place. We develop such a
framework by starting at the most basic level possible, the decision on the boundaries of
the firm. We then proceed to showing that the forces that determine whether or not the
firm outsources operations also determine the nature of the service being outsourced.
The nature of these services, the ease of entry and exit of firms selling them, and the
ability of prices to move in reaction to changes in market conditions determine the
behavior of service sellers. This behavior in turn affects the behavior of BPO firms as
buyers of human resources as inputs to the production processes and the nature of
production processes themselves. The following section shows this framework.
The subsequent section shows how the predictions developed in this framework perform
when checked against anecdotal evidence from key informant interviews with six firms in
the Cebuano BPO/ITES industry. These interviews were conducted with senior and
human resources management. The paucity of willing participants is in itself a result
consistent with our framework as we will show below. We next discuss the implications
of this framework for the issues previously identified. Finally, we provide some
recommendations for stakeholder action and further research.
Conceptual Framework
The Nature of Outsourced Services
At the most fundamental level, the decision whether to outsource a service or not is
typical of a make-or-buy decision that faces the firm in organizing its production
processes. The classic reference on this is Coase (1937). Coase revolutionized the view of
the firm and markets by introducing the concept of transactions costs as the primary
determinant for this decision. A firm decides to produce something with its boundaries
within direct administrative control if this control is less costly compared to enforcing
contracts with external market players for the same level of production costs.
These costs are independent of the costs of production, i.e., the costs of attracting inputs
from alternative employments so that while lower production costs might make market
provision attractive, the costs of finding these low cost participants, engaging them in a
contractual arrangement, and monitoring their contractual obligations might be so high as
to make in-house provision less costly.
Coase, however, failed to describe precisely how these costs of transacting were
determined both within and outside the firm. Subsequent work in transaction cost
economics and organization theory extended his analysis to provide testable
propositions.
2
Williamson (1971, 1979, and 1981) develops Coases arguments further by pointing out
that transactions costs of market contracting hinge on two important factors: the
complexity of transactions and the specific nature of human and physical assets.
3
The
more complex the transactions involved, the more detailed the contracts need to be. This
is a patently falsifiable proposition as complexity and detail may be measured or scaled.
Complex transactions are then done within the firm or done in environments amenable to
detailed contracting and enforcement.
4
Looking further at transactions costs further gives us other predictions related to market
structures. The relatively homogenous nature of products and processes will mean that
substantial economies of scale will be available for both in house production and market
The converse proposition is that outsourced activities tend to be simple and easily
verifiable in nature. Williamson also argues that when assets utilized in the production of
activities are specific to a relationship, there is a danger of being held-up by the owner of
specific assets, that is, firms find themselves being subject to opportunism by partners.
This opportunism may take the form of sub-standard provision of the activity or
extraction of surpluses through higher fees on renegotiation or hidden fees during
operations. The high cost of ensuring that rent is not extracted leads to activities of this
nature being provided in house. The converse proposition is that when activities are
outsourced, the assets involved tend to be of a homogenous and transferable nature that
are widely applicable to several partners or even industries.
The nature of markets that result in professional service outsourcing is then predicted as
follows:
Proposition 1. The markets for outsourced professional services will be those involving
relatively simple services which require standardized inputs and production processes.
Outsourced professional services that are more complex will involve more detailed
control procedures.
The Nature of Sellers of Services
2
Alchian and Demsetz (1972), for example, pointed to the need for understanding the implications of
monitoring work effort inside the firm and the role played by proprietors and employee status in the
latter.
3
The scientific primer on Oliver Williamson at the Nobel Foundation website (www.nobelprize.org)
provides very accessible information on his work.
4
Jester and Pedersen (2000) argue that increasingly complex transactions being done in both
manufacturing and services outsourcing require the arrangement of total solutions, a veritable package
of material and services that ensure the satisfaction of client standards. This is based on the premise that
both client preferences and provider technologies are well defined.
transactions. However, when external providers enjoy lower production costs then this
will incentivize the firm for market provision or outsourcing, when the requisite
transactions costs are lowered.
This lower production cost, especially for human resources, is identified as a primary
driver for outsourcing to developing countries. NeoIT (2006) mentions that savings from
activities involving Indian and Filipino professionals could be 80-85% of wages of
comparable staff in Western countries. Nicholson et al. (2006) report a lower differential
of 70% for India, the premier outsourcing destination. Combined with the large volume
of transactions, the potential cost savings can be substantial. However, it has only been in
recent years when the cost of transmitting and verifying data has fallen, has the
outsourcing of professional services been actually done.
While the homogeneity of output and input would normally be conducive to competitive
markets, the presence of substantial transactions costs would cause the opposite. When
activities are transferred to locations with differing practices, choosing the correct firm to
contract poses information costs on the searching firm. These may include ensuring
familiarity with standards, awareness of cultural sensitivities, and other similar costs.
When these costs are especially acute, a firm may give up altogether and just offshore
operations and keep them within management control of the firm if only to take
advantage of lower production costs. At the next level, firms may choose to employ a
near-shore provider or a firm incorporated in the same jurisdiction that is known to
operate in offshore locations. Both offshoring and near-shore outsourcing will be
prevalent in the early stages of industry development as they are in the Philippines when
home-grown provider track records are still unproven. This is our second hypothesis:
Proposition 2. Firms engaged in professional service provision will either be offshore
units of mother firms located in developed country jurisdictions or branch plant locations
of third party near-shore outsourcing firms.
If this proposition is borne out, the firms that provide services will have some degree of
market power. However, with non-asset specificity, entry into the markets for services
whether off-shored or outsourced, will be relatively easy. One can then point to seller
markets that more or less border on monopolistically competitive markets with the
attendant implications on their behavior as sellers. The most relevant of these is that firms
will earn normal or near-normal rates of profit.
Proposition 3. Professional service firms will earn market rates of return as easy entry
drives profits down to normal levels.
As employers of resources, the requirement that assets be non-specific to client needs
means that skill sets are well-defined for labor resources and that fixed capital costs are
not significant barriers to entry. The fact that off-shoring is an option means that an added
dimension of location choice is added to the firms decision if several low production
cost locations are available. As pointed out in NeoIT (2006), one can model this decision
as akin to choosing a portfolio of plant locations that minimize costs subject to some
quantity constraint. Operations will be spread across locations possibly as a response both
to client demand for redundancy and the above motive. Whatever the case, net returns are
maximized across locations and profits are driven down to normal levels as ease of entry
extends to location choice as well.
This ease of entry in both service markets and location has implications for labor
markets. As already alluded to, labor supply will have to be devoid of firm specificity.
This precludes any learning by doing on the job of any skills or the acquisition of
proprietary information that would render the firm and its client dependent on any one
resource. When a supply of labor can be had at a prevailing price, firm demanders will
have no difficulty finding required amounts of this resource. However, as entry
continues and labor demand expands in a market with a finite resource pool, firms
quickly find themselves fighting over a fixed but highly mobile resource base in the short
run. Wage competition will be out of the question if firms only earn normal profits. The
enticement of labor will then take the form of non-wage benefits.
Proposition 4. When normal profits prevent firms from paying wages at levels to ensure
participation (i.e., reservation wages), turnover rates will be high.
Findings
This research is exploratory in nature. In this light, any results gained would have to be
taken as guides for a more rigorous investigation. This does not, however, discount the
value of this effort in providing preliminary insights to the problem at hand. In particular,
this research may be regarded as an exercise in deduction. The general assumptions are
laid out from which relevant predictions are made. These predictions are then subject to
falsification through the search for contrary results. The presence of corroborative results
lends itself to the possibility of the assumptions being correct but not conclusively so.
Contrary results, however, offer stronger indications that the assumptions are not correct.
The propositions were verified using key informant interviews with the senior
management and human resource officers of six BPO firms based in Metro Cebu. These
firms were the only ones willing to participate in the exercise out of the ten initially
targeted from a list of identified BPO firms from private and government sources.
Additional information about these firms were gleaned from other sources such as
company websites and third-party online resources. The findings for any exploratory
study must be considered preliminary and serve to direct future research. These findings
are discussed below.
The findings for propositions 1 and 2 are best discussed in relation to one another. The
firms in the sample provided a variety of services. Table 1 enumerates these firms and
their broad category of services provided and whether they are Philippine firms or
multinationals / wholly owned subsidiaries of multinationals.
Table 1
Services Provided and Type of Participant Firms
Firm Service Type
A Call Center Multinational Subsidiary
B Digital Content Multinational Subsidiary
C Graphics Multinational Subsidiary
D Medical Records Review Local
E Online Marketing Multinational Subsidiary
F Software Local
Four of the six firms are subsidiaries of firms based outside the Philippines. Firm A is the
subsidiary of a BPO service provider based in the United States. Its presence in Cebu is
for the provision of customer contact for a key client. It undertakes both sales creation
and customer service activities for its client which has a substantial market share. Firm B
is a long-standing player in the market based in the United States engaged in a wide range
of services from software development, business process services, and content creation.
Its Cebu operations deal mainly with textual content processing. Firm C is the local
subsidiary of a major player based in the US in the graphics-related services including
advertising, animation, and digital graphic content. Firm E is another multiple-service
firm based in the US with its Cebu operations concentrating on on-line marketing.
Firm D is engaged in the review and summarizing of medical records. While it had earlier
been involved in the transcription of medical notes, it exited from this market due to the
increasing competition. Firm F is a local firm engaged in software development using
industry standard software and the packaging of software solutions.
While almost all of the participant firms are subsidiaries of multinational service
providers, a result in support of proposition 2, the converse proposition also has some
support from the sample in firms D and F. In terms of physical asset specificity only
Firm C provides a clear-cut case consistent with proposition 1. Firm C is engaged in very
sophisticated graphics content provision. Its design facility in Cebu is touted as at par
with any design facility in its market. The fixed investment for such a facility would be
understandably important. Such asset specificity predicts that this firm would just be an
offshore facility still within the control of a vertical firm hierarchy headquartered in the
primary market being served. This indeed is the case for this firm.
The firms interviewed hired labor of varying qualities (i.e. participated in several labor
markets as a demander). Customer contact services such as those provided by Firm A
would be the most standard in form and requiring the least amount of in-house training.
When firms require more specialized (specific) labor it would be typical for hiring to be
conditional, based on a specific base criteria with subsequent specialization provided in-
house. For Firm D, a medical background was key. For Firm Bs highly specialized
projects in legal, medical, and chemical data and content processing, the relevant
specialist degree was required. Firm F professed a preference for exemplary students
without work experience indicating that most training would be done in-house. Despite
these, the actual work would be subject to clear definitions of output quality and form and
hence a high level of standardization is expected for outsourced services as is consistent
with the first proposition.
The exercise of market power is clearest for Firm C as it professes to have a substantial
portion of its market (~20 percent market share). This leads to its above-normal rates of
return as highly specific assets and high fixed costs play their role as barriers to entry and
the increase of profit rates above normal levels. For the rest of the firms, the model of
monopolistic completion appears to be corroborated. Firm D reviews medical records for
one of the largest sub-national political jurisdictions in the United States. Given its
current capacity, it is unlikely that it accounts for a substantial share of the transactions
for this entity. Firm F recently expanded operations to Manila and the US. In this market
it faces numerous other competitors. All other firms compete in markets that are subject
to easy entry from competitors. It would be reasonable to say that the third proposition is
corroborated. Firms in the sample, with the exception of Firm C, enjoy normal rates of
return.
The inability to offer at least reservation wage levels appears to plague Firm D the most
as it competes for labor with very high alternative wage levels (nurses working abroad).
As predicted, this firm is the most vocal about its turnover rates. On the other hand, Firm
F with its willingness to pay even new entrants high wages said that turnover was not a
problem. This will, in general, be true for work that is valued at such levels as to enable
market participants to apportion a greater share of the gains from market participation to
labor. These will typically be true for the more specialized forms of labor.
Implications
The Lack of Qualified Labor Resources
What accounts then for the lamented lack of qualified human resources from HEIs? An
understanding of the nature of the education and labor markets makes this clearer. As
previously mentioned in the introduction, firms are not usually direct participants in
education markets. The usual participants are households building up human capital and
HEIs facilitating the process. Graduates who finish their programs then supply their
labor to firm buyers of labor. It is the workers and their employers who bear the brunt of
any deficiencies in training: workers, in terms of delayed advancement or even lay-off,
firms, through additional expenditures on training. If the philosophy of higher education
is to emphasize enduring principles, this gap in training in immediately applicable skills
and knowledge will be glaring if the industry concerned is experiencing significant
changes as the BPO/ITES industry is. This is a coordination problem that has no inherent
immediate mechanisms for correction in the markets concerned if this strict dichotomy is
maintained.
Are stop gap measures possible? In terms of the analysis presented above, the answer is
yes.
The general need for inputs that are not specific to any client requirements means that
demands placed on skill sets for labor resources will be for generally available and
clearly defined ones at least at the early stages of BPO/ITES industry development. This
points to the feasibility of measures that specifically aim at the deficiencies that are easily
verified and addressed through directed interventions. This ease of definition should also
take into account the appropriate level of educational careers where this training or the
appropriate intervention would be most effective. Firm specific skills might be provided
in house, general professional skills at the tertiary level while competencies in analytical
thinking, reading comprehension or language proficiency are built up over the years of
basic education. Remedial measures aimed at producing immediate results may be
possible given the concreteness of the desired results. The next question is who bears the
cost of these measures. Some firms who are earning above normal profits may choose to
bear this expense. Workers may opt to defray this expense on their own through
enrollment in specialized training providers (e.g. English for Call Center training
centers). Government may also provide bridge training in a similar vein as it is currently
doing for other industries requirements. HEIs may offer non-traditional or vocation
instruction as well in addition to the menu of traditional programs. The point is that
remedial measures are feasible and from several providers.
The long-term answer to this coordination problem lies in mitigating the dichotomy of
the education and labor markets. Firms who want to ensure the availability of qualified
personnel must undertake measures to ensure this availability as a participant in the
education market. How is this done? Several avenues are possible. Firms may choose to
endow HEIs with funds to operative specific initiatives which would otherwise not be
financially or technically feasible. Firms may also choose to participate in the demand
side of the education market by funding scholarships specific to the profile of desired
potential recruits with concomitant employment agreements. Firms may also seek
participation in the certification processes of professional programs as government
regulation for professional programs are well in place. Another avenue that is not often
mentioned in the discourse in this area is the role of alumni feedback on curriculum
development. The alumni of HEIs may be in a better position to dialog with their alma
maters on the matter of workplace competencies especially if they occupy leadership
positions in the concerned industries. Concerned alumni would also have an incentive to
ensure that their degrees remain valuable and untarnished by subsequent entrants to the
labor market. Whatever the case, there must be a mechanism whereby the costs of these
adjustments are shared in proportions amenable to all parties with recognition of the
various constraints that impinge on the ability of all parties to act.
An even longer term structural problem that needs to be addressed is the quality of
training received in the basic education levels where basic skills such as language
proficiency and analysis are developed over the longer term of the 10-12 years of basic
education. Skills training at the tertiary level will still not produce the volume of
competent graduates required with growing industries if this is not answered.
High Rates of Labor Turnover
The non-specialized nature of outsource services and the labor that serve as inputs in their
production provide for significant labor mobility between employments and across
industries. High rates of labor turnover are expected for an industry with ongoing entry
of firms and fixed resource pools. Wages may not be able to rise due to the presence of
competitive pressures on service firm profits. This is particularly true for the current
level of development of the industry, dominated as it is by multinationals. Given that
multinationals engage in location choice in the manner of choosing a portfolio of
locations to minimize costs, wage increases will make one location more unfavorable.
This inability of wages to rise is crucial as it means that incentives for the transfer of
labor resources from other industries will not be present.
The appropriate long term measure to address any lack in the availability of labor with
the appropriate skill sets is the expansion of labor supply at the same or lower wages.
This expansion is again subject to the conduct of short-term and long term measures
mentioned in the above section predominantly on ensuring that the quality of labor meets
industry standards.
Firms subject to downward pressures on their profit levels will also be reluctant to
provide in-house training as the ensuing labor mobility means that the returns to this
investment are lost. Firms will then find ways to offload the cost of training to other
sectors of society (to the laborers through paid internships, to the educational sector
through curriculum changes that closely mirror firm requirements). This will determine
in part the avenues that firms take when seeking to breakdown the dichotomy mentioned
above.
High levels of turnover also result from the inability of firms to pay reservation wages
given that normal profits are just earned. The wages that can be earned in alternative
employments may be sufficiently high such that long-term employability with BPO/ITES
firms is undesired (e.g. nurses working as medical transcriptionists).
Firms may also resort to process innovation and substitute away from relatively costly
inputs (i.e., work at home schemes). If this innovation is not possible, then labor costs
will rise to a point where new entry is discouraged. The fact that expansion is still
occurring at a rapid pace means that these limits have still not been reached.
Summary and Recommendations
This paper aimed to develop a rudimentary framework for analyzing the market structure
of BPO/ITES services with which the problems of lack of qualified labor resources and
high labor turnover may be analyzed with greater focus and aid in suggesting solutions to
these problems. This framework builds on the assumption that the costs of searching and
maintaining market contracts engenders a market for outsourced services that are easily
verified and utilize inputs that are non-specific to the client firm to guard against the
problem of over dependency on outsourcing firms. These costs also imply that BPO/ITES
firms will tend to be multinationals offshoring their service operations or subsidiaries of
near-shore outsourcing firms at least in the early stages of industry development as is
currently the case for the Philippines. This non-specialized nature of the production
processes imply that entry is easy and that competition will drive profits to normal levels.
Rapid industrial growth and the need to keep wages low will mean that firms will be
fighting over fixed labor resource pools, hence, the high turnover rate. We find support
for the predictions of this framework in a very limited sample of six firms that
participated in key informant interviews.
This framework also implies that stop gap measures to address the bewailed lack of
qualified labor resources are possible given that the competencies required are clearly
defined and non-specialized. Longer term measures to address this gap however will
entail closer partnerships between industry, academe, and government. As there are no
automatic incentives for such partnerships, this presents a collective action problem.
High labor turnover in this framework is the result of short-term deficiencies of labor
resources that may not be addressed with wage increases due to the competitive nature of
the industry. High rates of turnover will persist pending long-term adjustments in labor
supply. Making this happen at the soonest possible time should be the locus of solutions
for this problem.
Even with such a rudimentary framework, we are able to provide insights to what often
puzzles industry insiders. While formalizing this framework and ensuring the testability
of predictions for rigorous empirical tests should be the next order of business for
research in this area, substantial data gaps, including a census of all firms in the
BPO/ITES industry in Cebu province, would have to be filled even before such an effort
is possible. The latter is an effort of the highest priority in our opinion and should be the
next worthwhile undertaking in this field.
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The American Journal of Sociology 87, No. 3: 548-577
CHAPTER 3
A Ac ca ad de em me e a an nd d B BP PO O L Li in nk ka ag ge e: :
M Ma at tc ch hi in ng g W Wo or rk kf fo or rc ce e C Co om mp pe et te en nc ci ie es s
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
Abstract
he biggest challenge of BPOs in their workforce is the inadequacy of skills in
oral and written communication. Other challenges include inadequacy of skills
in computer/ICT, comprehension and analytical thinking, and management.
Lessons learned can be used as benchmark for future reference in order to arrive at a
situation that will translate to the level of skill and competence needed to promote a
sustainable BPO industry. Although this paper reports exploratory analyses and is by no
means complete, readers will find a window through which the role of the academe in
filling-in the competency needs vacuum of BPO management may be assessed.
Suggestions have emerged from this exploration and are presented in the discussion.
Keywords: business process outsourcing, academe, competencies, Cebu, Philippines
Introduction
The purpose of this study is to explore the kind of competencies required or preferred by
BPO companies, assess the gaps between workforce skills and BPO competency needs,
and determine the role of the academe in addressing these concerns. By providing useful
data for both the academic and business sectors, the findings are expected to contribute
not only to the enhancement of knowledge of the BPO industry but also to efforts toward
developing a framework that integrates concerns of the academe and BPO. It is
envisioned that further studies will validate results obtained from previous works and
eventually enable learning institutions and program planners to effectively address the
problems in workforce competencies.
The BPO industry involves the contracting of a task to a third-party provider. As the
Reynolds and Magno study (2006) puts it, BPO is hiring someone else to do all of your
chores while you concentrate on core business, like manufacturing (p. 2). The industry
has been proven to be a viable business strategy in the Philippines particularly in Cebu
where the BPO boom was triggered by a demand for call centers sometime in 2004.
TESDA (2007, p. 8) reports that the factors that make Cebu an ideal location for contact
center firms outside Metro Manila include (i) a pool of customer-oriented and service
driven call center agents who are proficient in English, (ii) adaptability and familiarity
with the western culture, (iii) delivery of quality services at cost-effective rates, (iv) low
operating costs, and (v) presence of adequate infrastructure and service support.
Academe and BPO Linkage Amadora-Nolasco l 28
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is also one of the four priority
sectors being promoted for development in Region VII, to include Cebu. The many
employment opportunities therefore that it provides stimulate more BPO activities. Other
outsourcing services include back office, medical transcription, legal transcription, other
data transcription, data encoding and processing, web design, software development,
animation, engineering design and other services, digital content, financial management,
accounting and payroll services.
A total of 30 major companies in Cebu that provide IT and IT-Enabled Services
(ITS/ITES) was reported by JETRO Philippine IT Industry Update (2007, p. 1), many of
which are engaged in call center and software development services. In 2006, there were
11 call centers which employed more than 6,000 call center agents. The number
increased to 20 in 2007 employing 18,000 people. During the Cebu ICT 2007, a two-day
event hosted by the Cebu Chamber of Commerce, the most pressing issue raised for the
sustainability of Philippines' ITS/ITES industry was human resource development, that
is, expanding the supply of human resources that the industry needed. Another common
challenge for many companies in the young and rapidly growing industry was the critical
shortage of middle-management talents. In this two-day event, a CEO pointed out that the
lack of managers was an even more pressing issue for the Philippine BPO industry than
the lack of agents, and needed immediate attention and action.
Using survey and focus group discussions as main elicitation techniques, Sequino (2008),
in collaboration with the Cebu Educational Development Foundation for Information
Technology (CEDF-IT), conducted a study that looked into the factors affecting BPO
suppliers sustainability, the sales performance levels of BPO companies in Cebu City,
and the support provided by government and other institutions to the industry. In this
study, Sequino identified inadequacy of skills and competencies of the workforce as one
of the challenges faced by BPO firms. She recommended that apart from curriculum
development and skills enhancement activities to improve the competencies of potential
applicants, tertiary level faculty needed to undertake BPO immersion programs to better
understand the dynamics and intricacies of the industry (p. 26).
Human resources is what the business is all about, say Reynolds and Magno (2006, p.
3). What is therefore needed for the success of the industry include, first and foremost,
qualified and competent people. Similarly Saxena and Bharadwaj (2007) note that
human resource is the most crucial resource in the high growth BPO industry. They
imply that BPO companies are faced with numerous human resource challenges,
particularly the problem of attrition and finding the right people who can keep pace with
the unique patterns of the industry. To combat these challenges, Saxena and Bharadwaj
put forward the need to develop competency in building innovative process (p. 99).
In view of these observations, the need to highlight the role of learning institutions and
assess how a partnership between the academe and the BPO industry can be most
beneficial is imperative, both to the workforce and the industry. Schools and training
establishments play a significant task in creating jobs for students and graduates, and in
providing the industry with appropriate human resources.
Since the competencies of the BPO workforce in Cebu are inadequate this study assumes
that the academe can help address some of the challenges faced by the industry through
curriculum enhancement and other capacity-building initiatives for faculty, students and
graduates. It is a fact that the BPO industry plays a significant role in Cebus local
economy but its sustainability depends largely on the competencies and competitiveness
of its workforce. The quality of the workforce in turn depends on the quality and
effectiveness of education and training obtained from institutions and the relevance of
curricular program offerings to BPO needs.
Recognizing the economic incentives brought about by the industry to families and
communities in Cebu and the concerns that need to be addressed to ensure a sustainable
business, a partnership between the academe and BPO industry is critical. Such a
collaborative effort can help ensure the promotion of a sustainable and fertile business
atmosphere and a stable quality of life for a skilled and competitive workforce.
Basic information and insights collected from this study are intended to be used as a
preliminary basis for learning institutions to rethink course offerings which could lead to
decisions toward improving course contents, quality of instruction and teaching
strategies, and perhaps, developing elective courses primarily designed for students and
graduates who are looking at a future with BPO. Intensifying research endeavors on BPO
life will generate more public awareness and guide learning institutions, BPO companies,
and policy makers to arrive at decisions that will lead to achieving a sustainable industry.
Competency Needs of BPO Management
This section presents what the surveyed BPO management and human resource heads and
directors have to say about needed workforce competencies, problems faced with their
workforce, and how the academe can help address some of these competency-related
problems. Results can be used by the academe to develop a mechanism to address weak
areas.
The two sets of key-informant interview participants indicate strong preference for
applicants who are, first and foremost, proficient in English (which includes skills in oral
and written communication) and computer/ICT literate. In all interviews with
management, they emphasized that workers must have a strong command of the English
language and must be familiar with technology-based and ICT-related activities in order
for them to meet the demands of the highly competitive and dynamic BPO industry.
While English proficiency is a general education competency, computer literacy on the
other hand is a basic technical competency. This may therefore lead one to say that the
BPO companies prefer applicants who are competent in both categories.
A similar finding was found by TESDA in its study of call centers in 2007. All of the call
center companies they had surveyed specified that applicants must be proficient in
English, and nine out of 10 of them indicated computer literacy as equally important.
Other qualifications mentioned in the TESDA study include higher educational
attainment, training in call center jobs, positive comprehension and right attitude, and
web-hosting skills (p. 21).
Then comes other preferred competencies such as skills in comprehension and analytical
thinking, and interpersonal and management skills. While the former is a general
education competency, the latter falls under the social skills category. The BPOs
commented that the workforce must possess these skills to ensure that they become
productive and are able to sustain their level of energy and enthusiasm in the BPO work.
In the absence of these skills, BPO companies in Metro Cebu are most likely to face the
problem of dearth of qualified people.
Their responses suggest that the primary objective of these companies is to provide
clients with the most efficient customer-oriented services. Hence the hiring process must
also be efficient so that management will be able to get the right people with the right
skills and attitude. It may be well worth to note at this point that these are almost the
same skills which the study sample in the survey component claims to be needed at the
time they were hired.
The most critical competency problem that emerged from this study is the inadequacy of
the workforces skills in English proficiency, both oral and written. For both management
and human resources heads, this is the biggest stumbling block faced by their companies.
This observation appears to be consistent with what TESDA reported about the
attractiveness of jobs brought about by the call center business boom being
overshadowed by the observed decline in English proficiency among graduates.
Likewise, inadequacy of skills in computer/ICT, comprehension and analytical thinking,
and management are essential competency problems faced by BPOs. These revelations
can serve as guide for learning and training institutions to devise more effective strategies
to ensure that potential applicants are qualified to work in whatever position they may
choose to apply.
Another concern cited by the sample BPOs is weak work ethics, referring in particular to
not having a positive attitude towards work, tardiness and inability to work well with
others. Reportedly, workers tend to slow down on their job or delay work assignments
when no supervision is provided, hence the need to constantly remind them about their
work attitude. In another interview, a human resource head commented that some of their
workers have the tendency to come late for work, a practice which is detrimental to work
efficiency. They pointed out that workers need to demonstrate not only a high degree of
knowledge and skills but a positive attitude and good work ethics.
This study may not be able to show whether the sample workforce is looking at a future
with BPO but the reality is that they are, at the time of the study, working in a BPO
company. Such could be attributed to the incentives it offers or because of a lack of other
options. The assumption is that these workers may not have been cut out for and/or
trained for BPO work hence their personality may not fit into the industrys type of work
environment. This is presumed to be the reason why mentions were made by
management regarding the workforce not having the right attitude or problems in
attitude. To cite an example, many of the learning institutions in Metro Cebu offer
courses in management and marketing, but these are general courses that go into every
type of industry. Thus if an applicant possesses the necessarily skills but is not familiar
with the nature, scope and environment of the BPO industry, he/she is likely to
experience various difficulties which in effect might lead to inefficiency at the
workplace.
Suggestions on how best the academe can help address some of the challenges faced by
BPO companies were obtained from management and human resource heads of the
surveyed BPOs. These include (i) strengthening students skills in English (oral and
written, to include correct grammar, spelling, sentence construction and punctuation),
reading comprehension, analytical thinking, computer skills and other technology-based
and ICT-related competencies; (ii) educating students on the nature, scope and
environment of BPO work, giving special emphasis on topics that relate to work ethic;
(iii) assisting in the training and integration of students and graduates into the industry;
and (iv) facilitating in the work placement of interested and qualified individuals coming
from different disciplines.
The Metro Cebu Sample BPO Workforce
This section presents the data collected through interviews with 118 workers to show
whether they possess qualities and skills preferred by the selected BPO companies. It
discusses the workforce profile, perceived entry qualifications, and the in-house skills
enhancement activities they had to go through at the time of employment. Specifically, it
describes the characteristics of the sample by age, gender, marital status, highest level of
education, last school attended, course taken, nature of BPO work and employment
status. Subsequent sections focus on examining the responses of participants in terms of
skills training which they think should have been given stronger focus in schools.
Recommendations that have emerged from this exploration are presented in the
discussion.
Profile
Table 1 provides a profile of the sample by age, gender and marital status. Evident here is
that the BPO workers are mostly in their 20s. Their ages range from 19 to 43 years old,
the mean and median ages of which are 27 and 25, respectively. The proportion of
females is slightly greater than the males, although this study could not say whether the
BPO companies surveyed have a strong preference for females. In this study, the
difference can be attributed to the fact that there were more females than males who
agreed to participate and be interviewed.
In the TESDA study (2007) of call centers, however, close to 60 percent of their finishing
course graduates were females, and more than 40 percent of them were eventually
employed in call centers. Among the male graduates, only a third of them were
employed. TESDA implied that females have more chances of landing a call center job
than the males (p. 29). Whether such observation holds true in other BPO categories is
something which requires further study. Managements gender preference is therefore a
potential area for future research.
On the aspect of marital status, those who are single account for over 70 percent of the
sample while a little over a fifth of them are married. Workers who claim to have live-in
partners or have been separated from their partners account for only a slight percentage.
Table 1
Study Sample by Age, Gender and Marital Status (N=118)
Background
Information
N Percentage
Gender
Male 56 47.5
Female 62 52.5
Marital Status
Single 87 73.7
Married 25 21.2
Living-in 4 3.4
Separated 2 1.7
Age
Age Range 19-43
Mean Age 27 years old
Median Age 25 years old
The sample workforce is composed mostly of college graduates (Table 2). This illustrates
that the BPO industry in Cebu has become an appreciable employment alternative for
many college graduates. But whether the reason for the choice of work is a consequence
of a lack of other employment opportunities or the lure of a higher income is something
which this study has not looked into. This is perhaps one possible area which other
researchers can explore. While close to a fifth have had some form of college education,
a little over 10 percent of them have post-graduate degrees. Only three workers are high
school graduates while one has finished a vocational course.
The majority has studied or is studying in the major universities located in Cebu, with
USC accounting for a fifth of these (23 out of 118). Other schools registered only less
than 10 percent of the sample. These data should not be interpreted as an indicator of
BPO preference for graduates of specific universities. It is also worth noting that a
significant number of BPO workers obtained their education from schools located outside
Cebu, an indication that the industry provides employment opportunities not only for the
Metro Cebu workforce but to those in neighboring places as well.
Table 2
Study Sample by Highest Level of Education and School Last Attended (N=118)
Highest Level of Education N Percentage
Post Graduate 12 10.2
College Graduate 79 66.9
College Level 22 18.6
High School Graduate 3 2.5
Vocational 2 1.7
School Last Attended
University of San Carlos 23 19.5
Cebu Institute of Technology 10 8.5
Southwestern University 10 8.5
University of San Jose Recoletos 10 8.5
University of Cebu 8 6.8
UP-Cebu/Visayas 7 5.9
Cebu Normal College 4 3.4
University of the Visayas 4 3.4
Velez College 4 3.4
Other Schools in Cebu (merged) 17 14.4
Other Schools outside Cebu (merged) 21 17.8
We now turn to the distribution of participants according to courses taken at the tertiary
level (Table 3). A preponderance of workers who have taken or are currently taking
courses in Computer Science and/or Information Technology is evident in the study.
Applicants who are in the field of CS and/or IT appear to be at an edge when compared to
those in other courses insofar as finding work at the BPO is concerned. If such becomes a
trend, it is likely that enrolment in the CS or IT curriculum will double in the next few
years particularly if the industry continues to expand operations in Cebu. This will give
all the more reason for learning institutions that offer CS and IT to strengthen their
curricula and ensure that their students and graduates possess the required and preferred
skills.
Other courses which registered an appreciable percentage of workers include Commerce,
Nursing, Engineering and Education. One can also see in Table 3 that students and
graduates who are in the Medical and Allied Programs, Law, Social Science, and
Architecture and Fine Arts are among those who have been given opportunities to work
in the BPO under the assumption that they possess the competency requirements of the
company at the time they were hired. Even those coming from the natural sciences and
individuals who have not had a College education have found work in the industry.
Table 3
Study Sample by Course Taken (N=118)
Course N Percentage
CS and IT 24 20.3
Commerce 16 13.6
Nursing 14 11.9
Engineering 14 11.9
Education 11 9.3
Medical & Applied Programs 9 7.6
Law 7 5.9
Social Sciences 6 5.1
Architecture and Fine Arts 5 4.2
Natural Sciences 3 2.5
Journalism/Mass Communication 4 3.4
High School Graduate 3 2.5
Others 2 1.7
BPO Work and Employment Status
As earlier pointed out, there are 30 major BPO companies in Cebu many of which are
engaged in call center services. This perhaps explains why the bulk of the sample
population, as shown in Table 4, works in a contact center, followed by more than a fifth
of them who work in companies that offer multiple services to clients, that is, a
combination of two or more of the identified services. It appears that the presence of
BPOs in Cebu that offer multiple services is increasing. If this is the case, this would
translate to wider employment opportunities, higher demand for competent human
resources and tighter competition. Those who are engaged in medical transcription
account for 17 percent of the sample, and there is an equal number of workers who are
engaged in back-office and software development. The others are into animation and
digital content-related work.
Interestingly, over 70 percent of the workers hold regular employment status (83 of 118),
a finding which can be considered a positive development in the BPO world. This fact
contradicts anecdotal reports that working in the BPO is temporary and workers are
generally contractual or do not have security of tenure. Given this finding, it would not
come as a surprise if more and more potential applicants would want to pursue a career in
this industry.
Table 4
Study Sample by BPO Work and Employment Status (N=118)
BPO Work N Percentage
Call Center 45 38.1
Multiple Services 29 24.6
Medical Transcription 20 16.9
Back Office 8 6.8
Software Development 8 6.8
Animation 6 5.1
Digital Content 2 1.7
Employment Status
Contractual 34 28.8
Regular 84 71.2
BPO Work and Course Taken
CS/IT students and graduates are mostly engaged in call center, software development
and multiple outsourcing services. Whether this is going to be the trend is something
which future research endeavors can confirm. At this point, we could not say, for
instance, that only CS/IT students and graduates have wider opportunities for work in the
three mentioned categories. On the other hand, Nursing students and graduates of other
Medical and Applied programs are involved in medical transcription although it may be
well worth noting that even the three high school-graduate participants have found
employment in the BPO as medical transcriptionists. This may be an indication that a
prerequisite for this line of work is computer literacy rather than knowledge in the
medical field. Most of those who are in the field of Commerce or Education also work in
call centers while among the Engineering and Law students and graduates, multiple
outsourcing services appear to be the common niche. Other courses which registered a
few participants are no longer included in the discussion herein.
BPO Work and Last School Attended
In reference to the distribution of participants by BPO work and last school attended, the
data show that the number of USC participants who work in call center and medical
transcription companies is higher compared to other institutions. Many of those who
come from CIT and UC also work in call centers while the SWU and USJR students and
graduates are mostly involved in multiple outsourcing services. Other participants are
spread over the various BPO categories. This sub-study, however, could not say whether
BPO companies in Cebu have school preferences in hiring. Perhaps a more thorough
study on this can be made to enable learning institutions to become aware of the quality
of their students and graduates, and provide them with directions on aspects that need to
be given special emphases in the teaching and learning process.
Perceived Entry Skills and Qualifications
One can see in Table 5 the perceived entry skills of the workforce at the time they were
recruited and hired. For clarity, these are divided into four types: (i) general education
competencies, (ii) basic technical competencies for BPO work in general, (iii) specific
competencies for the particular BPO, and (iv) social skills. Among the various types,
computer/ICT literacy, which falls under the second type, appears to be the most sought-
after skill that facilitates entry into the BPO world. A far-second skill requirement
mentioned was English proficiency, a general education competency, although this did
not elicit as many mentions as computer or ICT literacy. The data show that the entry
skills as perceived by the workforce match those identified by the BPO companies.
Other skills which registered relatively higher frequencies fall under two categories:
general education (comprehension, analytical skills, problem solving) and social skills
(attitudinal and interpersonal skills, management skills). The workers themselves are
aware that more skills-enhancement activities on these aspects need to be undertaken to
make them more effective for BPO work.
Table 5
Entry Skills and Qualifications Possessed by the Surveyed BPO Workforce (N=118)
Entry Skills and Qualifications N Percentage
General Education Competencies
English Proficiency 32 27.1
Comprehension and Analytical Skills 22 18.6
Problem Solving 13 11.0
Communication Skills 8 6.8
Reading Comprehension 2 1.7
Basic Technical Competencies
Computer/ICT Literacy 50 42.4
Specific Competencies
Web Hosting 6 5.1
Foreign Language 5 4.2
Knowledge in Medical Field 5 4.2
Knowledge in Legal Profession 3 2.5
Graphics Design 3 2.5
Technical Support 3 2.5
Production Skills 3 2.5
Filing 2 1.7
Social Skills
Right Attitude and Interpersonal Skills 18 15.3
Management Skills 13 11.0
Experience in Other BPO 2 1.7
multiple response
To determine whether the entry skills mentioned by the workforce match the nature of
their work, cross-tabulations were made. The results show that many of those who
mentioned computer and ICT literacy found employment in call centers and companies
that offer multiple services. Clearly, participants who possess proficiency in the English
language, have good comprehension and analytical skills, and those who claim to possess
the right attitude and interpersonal skills as well as management and problem solving
skills are more likely to be hired in call centers.
The BPO In-House Skills Enhancement Training
The workers were next asked to identify the skills training activities they had to undergo
at the time of their employment at the BPO (Table 6). For this part of the exploration,
more mentions were made for computer/ICT training, English proficiency, and
management skills. Despite the claim of many workers that they possess such
qualifications as computer/ICT literacy and English proficiency when they were hired by
their current BPO employer, it appears that the surveyed BPO still saw the need to further
enhance the skills of their workforce in these aspects. One can therefore say that the
workers perceived skills in both computer and English proficiency may not be sufficient
to warrant managements trust and confidence.
The frequent mention of computer/ICT literacy, English proficiency, and management
skills as BPO in-house skills enhancement activities is an indication that honing the
workforce skills on these aspects is critical to the operations of the sample BPOs. Other
skills-enhancement activities which registered an appreciable number of mentions include
product-sales-marketing, right attitude and interpersonal skills, comprehension and
analytical skills, and problem solving.
Table 6
BPO In-House Skills Enhancement Training (N=118)
Entry Skills and Qualifications N Percentage
Product, Sales Training, Marketing 17 14.4
Web Hosting 4 3.4
Foreign Language 4 3.4
Others (1 mention each only) 21 17.8
Social Skills
multiple response
The survey participants (N=118) were then asked which of these skills should have been
given stronger focus in schools. The responses laid out in Table 7 show four types of
competencies. Under general education competencies, a considerable number of
mentions was made for English proficiency (76%). This is a clear indication that despite
the claim to English proficiency as one of their entry skills, the sample workforce
recognizes the need to improve on language and communication skills. They are also
aware that comprehension, analytical and problem-solving skills are equally significant to
prepare them for more challenging roles. Under the social skills category, the workers
identified right attitude, interpersonal and management skills as competencies which
learning institutions must give stronger focus in school. Other mentions which registered
high frequencies include computer and ICT literacy and web hosting.
In a study of call center communication, Forey and Lockwood (2007) explained the
importance of interpersonal language. They affirm that the demands of interpersonal
language rely on more than just a proficient understanding of English grammar and
vocabulary (p. 13). Interpersonal problems may arise when the caller and the agent
come from different cultural backgrounds, and the agent does not know the right
interpersonal response. This implies that an agent needs to learn how to interpret
language in the context of the call and the culture of the caller to avoid frustrations on the
part of the client.
Table 7
Skills Training Which Should Have Been Given Stronger Emphasis in School (N=118)
Skills Training N Percentage
Social Skills
Web Hosting 64 54.2
multiple response
When the participants were asked to rank the abovementioned skills-enhancement
activities in the order of importance, English proficiency (Rank 1) still appears to be the
most important skill to them, followed by computer/ICT (Rank 2) and comprehension
and analytical skills (Rank 3), interpersonal skills (Rank 4), skills in management (Rank
5) and problem solving (Rank 6). This is an indication that the sample workforce
recognize that they could be better prepared for BPO work as well as in other work
opportunities should these skills be given stronger emphasis in schools.
As noted above, the objectives in this analysis of data collected as part of a larger study
of the BPO industry in Cebu were to examine the competency needs of BPO
management, the skills-training the workforce had to go through at the time of
employment, workforce demographics, and their perceived entry skills and qualifications.
It is the goal of this study to determine the gaps between workforce skills or
qualifications and BPO competency needs, and determine the role of the academe in
addressing these concerns.
This study raises important concerns which can be used as guide by learning or training
institutions and BPO companies to devise more effective strategies which could lead to
decisions toward strengthening workforce competencies and competitiveness of the BPO
industry in Metro Cebu. The message obtained from the survey and key informant
interviews is clear: There is a need to strengthen the competencies of the BPO workforce
in Metro Cebu and such concern directly affects the academe in a variety of ways.
Evidence suggests that, despite the perceived knowledge and skills of the workers, BPO
companies are still confronted with the problem of, among others, inadequacy in English
proficiency and computer literacy of their workforce.
What is clearly borne out from the data collected for this component of the study is that
contact centers, companies that provide multiple services and medical transcription jobs
posted the highest number of participants. In all three BPO categories, technical
competence in computer, English proficiency, good communication, interpersonal, and
comprehension and analytical skills, and reading comprehension are pre-requisite
qualifications. A medical transcriptionist, for example, does, among others, medical
reports, and hospital and clinic reports. Any worker, despite his/her expertise in the
medical field, who is not adept with the computer, and is deficient in communication
skills will not likely succeed in this line of work. Inability to work well with others and
inadequacy in comprehension and analytical skills are also hindrances to ones desire to
becoming a good medical transcriptionist. One can therefore say that general education
competencies, basic technical competencies and competencies that relate to social skills
are important in BPO work particularly for the abovementioned BPO categories.
In todays working environment, good interpersonal and communication skills are just as
important as technical abilities. BPO workers need to possess these skills to support their
technical expertise should they desire to be more productive. The ability to get along with
others at the workplace requires interpersonal skills, but the key ingredient to achieve this
is good communication skills. It is imperative that learning institutions find ways to
enhance the competencies of students such that when they decide to work at the BPO,
they possess the needed skills particularly for tasks which fall within their field of
specialization.
The sample population comes from various learning and training institutions. Whether
these workers have a strong desire for BPO work is something which the current study
could not say. What is apparent is that most of them work in contact centers, and this,
perhaps, is a job which does not require sophisticated technical competencies. However,
other than computer literacy and English proficiency, a call center agent must be able to
demonstrate a positive attitude as an indication of self-discipline and self-responsibility, a
high degree of analytical skills, and a willingness to work with others.
In view of the findings, the following recommendations are put forward:
General
(i) To the academe as a whole. Review the skills training which the BPO workers have
identified as important and should have been given stronger emphasis in school.
(ii) To the BPO. Identify more specific and explicit criteria for recruitment as well as
productivity criteria for retention and promotion. These could be used by the
academe as guide in skills-enhancement activities.
(iii) To the current workforce and students intending to join the BPO industry. Prepare
adequately for the qualifications needed by the BPO industry.
Specific
(i) For the English department of any learning institution to review curricular offerings,
the course contents of each offering, and assess the relevance and effectiveness of
teaching methodologies. Further, there is a need to set higher standards of
competencies in both oral and written use of the English language (to include
grammar, spelling and sentence construction), design a language and communication
training, and develop a skills assessment program.
While the language and communication training is for the purpose of enhancing the
reading, speaking, writing and comprehension skills of students, the assessment
program is to periodically monitor the effectiveness of the teaching strategies and
determine students performance.
Developing an assessment program to monitor the effectiveness of a teaching
strategy as well as students performance in activities is therefore worth pursuing
because the academe is duty-bound to produce quality graduates not just for the BPO
industry but for other industries as well.
(ii) For the Computer Science and Information Technology department of any learning
institution to review course contents, reassess teaching methodologies in ICT
courses, set higher proficiency standards, and design an assessment program to
determine students performance in ICT activities. It could also re-tailor some
programs to conform to BPO basic requirements.
(iii) For the College of Commerce of any learning institution to explore the possibility of
offering a management elective course designed primarily for students who are
looking at a future with BPO. Such course must put emphasis in work ethic, the
nature, scope and environment of BPO work. Management and HR from the sample
BPOs say that workers need to demonstrate not only a high degree of knowledge and
skills, but a positive attitude in order to be responsible and productive. The ability to
work well with others, self-esteem, honesty, reliability, self-discipline and self-
responsibility are considered equally as important.
(iv) For the College of Nursing and Pharmacy of any learning institution to explore the
possibility of offering an elective course in medical transcription.
All told, this sub-study has shown that the BPO industry has become a significant option
for the workforce. It has become a reality and a necessity in Cebus marketplace. Data
obtained from management point to the need for the academe to ensure that students and
graduates possess the necessary skills (e.g., comprehension and analytical skills) to
support their technical expertise (e.g., computer/ICT). It is thus imperative that learning
institutions re-examine the content and quality of instruction provided to students, and
assess their relevance in addressing the needs of contemporary world.
It is possible that learning institutions might claim that their English and IT course
contents are sufficient to fulfill the objectives of the courses offered. However, if data
obtained from this sub-study point to students who are not proficient in English, then one
can presume that the process of transferring knowledge and skills to students is where the
gap lies. It is now a matter of teaching students properly such that they will improve their
skills.
Of equal importance is that learning institutions are duty-bound to look at teachers
performance periodically as well as determine whether their teaching strategies are
effective or not.The future of the BPO industry in Cebu depends largely on the ability of
the academic sector to prepare highly-competent and responsible individuals, applicants
who possess a positive attitude towards work and the ability to work well with others, and
applicants who possess other necessary skills to support their technical expertise. The
challenge therefore is how to further enhance and sustain a BPO industry-academe
partnership to contribute to efforts toward improving Metro Cebus local economy.
The academe and BPO industry can be effective partners in addressing the problem of
inadequacy particularly when a supportive policy and an enabling business environment
are established. With a mechanism for these properly put in place, Cebu will have a
greater chance of surviving the demands of the industry and developing a globally-
competitive service sector.
References
Reynolds, J. J. & M. T. Magno. (2006). BPO (pp. 2-9). Philippines: Vibal Publishing
House, Inc.
Saxena, KBC & S. S. Bharadwaj. (2007). Business process outsourcing for strategic
advantage (pp. 99-111). New Delhi: Excel Books.
Sequino A. C. (2008). An environmental scanning of the business process outsourcing
industry in Cebu. A GIA research report for the USC Commission on Higher
Education-Zonal Research Center.
Technical Education & Skills Development Authority Region VII. (2007). A survey of the
graduates of the PGMA-TWSP 100-hour finishing course for call center agents
(2005-2007) in Region VII. Philippine-Australia Human Resources Development
Facility (PAHRDF).
Forey, G. & Lockwood, J. (2007). Id live to put someone in jail for this: An initial
investigation of English in the business process outsourcing (BPO) industry. Elsevier
Ltd. on behalf of The American University. Doi: 10.1016/j.esp.2006.09.005.
CHAPTER 4
B Be en ne ef fi it ts s P Pa ac ck ka ag ge e a an nd d W Wo or rk ke er r S Sa at ti is sf fa ac ct ti io on n
Jiah L. Sayson and Brenette L. Abrenica
Department of Political Science
Introduction
egitimated as one of the flatteners of the world, outsourcing is claimed to have
evened the level playing field for both rich and poor countries. The process
allows companies from developed countries to split service and manufacturing
activities into sub-components, which are then subcontracted and performed in
the most efficient and cost-effective way by a workforce situated in many developing
countries.
1
Lured by compensation and benefits packages much better than those offered by local
companies, recruited employees work within the productivity standards of the business
process outsourcing (BPO) companies. In comparison with their counterparts in the
sending countries, said compensation and benefits packages are lower notwithstanding
occupational hazards the workforce is subjected to because of graveyard shifts. Even
then, BPO employment is valued today more than ever especially in a world with 20
million jobs lost since October 2008 when the world financial crisis started.
2
In the
Philippines, the government forecasted the employment of 1.1 million workers in the
BPO industry alone by 2010. An input-output analysis of the industry however estimates
a total workforce size of only 500,000 - 600,000 in 2010. Nevertheless, this still amounts
to 7-11% share in the labor entrants from 2007-2010.
3
Literature and self-help books on business process outsourcing seek to aid prospective
companies make the best decision model for outsourcing parts of their operation. These
guide managers to make decisions beginning with the identification and selection of BPO
opportunity, managing the costs of BPO, vendor and consultant selection and contracting,
transitioning human resources, leadership requirements, infrastructure challenges, and
preparing for business risks and mitigation strategies.
4
1
Thomas Friedmans The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century
2
See ILOs World of Work Report 2009: The Global Jobs Crisis and Beyond
3
See Input-Output Analysis of the Philippine BPO Industry by Magtibay-Ramos et. al
4
Examples of which are Duening and Clicks (2005) Essentials of Business Process Outsourcing, Mols
(2007) Outsourcing: Design, Process, and Performance, Linders (2004) Outsourcing for Radical Change: A
Bold Approach to Enterprise Transformation, Jenster et.al (2005) Outsourcing-Insourcing: Can Money Be
Made From The New Relationship Opportunities?, and Friedmans (2006) Demystifying Outsourcing: The
Trainers Guide to Working with Vendors and Consultants.
Expectedly, studies on BPO
radiate on how successful companies have kept or raised revenues because of the
decision to engage in BPO activities.
Benefits Package and Worker Satisfaction Sayson and Abrenica l 44
Lately, curiosity into the social costs of BPO decisions in developed countries focus on
the anxieties of employees-in-waiting who only see defeat in the current preference for
Indians or Filipinos. Likewise, the negative impact that outsourced employees might have
is on the social cohesiveness of the organization as the former might find it difficult to
share the latters corporate culture. In all these, hardly is there discussion on the benefits
package and decent work status of the BPO employees in the host countries aside from
testimonies of salaries doubling or tripling the Philippine standard. The subsequent
section shall present the decent work agenda, set by the International Labor Organization
and adopted by the Department of Labor and Employment, which shall serve as this
studys framework.
Leaping to the top spot, Cebu City was ranked first in the 2008 international survey of
fifty emerging global outsourcing cities worldwide followed by Shanghai, Beijing, Ho
Chi Minh City and Krakow city in Poland.
5
The Cebu Investment Promotions Center
(CIPC) records 22 call center companies and 36 non-voice companies in Cebu which
offer content and medical transcription services among others. The industry employs an
estimated 50,000 workers. Cebu Citys ranking in the survey was due to its high ratings
in the scale and quality of workforce, cost effectiveness, infrastructure and infrastructure
support, risk profile and quality of life. Cebu proves viable for US firms that aim at
competitiveness and expansion. Securing a location in Cebu City reduces the cost of
operation by as much as 90 percent. Cebus local competitor is Metro Manila with a
labor force of between 100,000 to 200,000. A major challenge for Cebu City to develop
as a prime outsourcing destination is to increase its qualified labor force capable of
handling varied and complicated services.
6
Leading higher education institutions in Cebu City become recruitment sites where BPO
companies are continuously spotting, assessing, matching, and offering placement to
students (graduates and non-graduates) with appealing compensation and benefits
packages.
7
Work is any creative or productive activity. We live in a period where children are raised
to be working men and women. Societies complain perennially about unemployment,
Students are lured by the financial opportunities while BPO companies
expect returns on productivity, efficiency, and low attrition rate. Yet, attrition rates
remain high with varying causes and degrees. Necessarily the question before us
concerns the nature, quantity, and quality of compensation and benefits packages offered
by BPO companies and the perceived satisfaction of the workforce. This exploratory
work hopes to gather insights on the decent work status of BPO employees in Cebu for
purposes of policy advocacy.
Decent Work Agenda
5
The ranking was based on a study conducted by Global Services and Tholons for 2008.
6
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/enterprise/view/20081021-167633/Cebu-is-top-BPO-
site-study
7
In Reynolds, Joseph J. and Magno, Marlet T. (2006) Business Process Outsourcing, Pacific Rim,
Incorporated. p. 76
now highlighted by the scramble for work in the recession-stricken North America. The
value of human existence is almost reduced to the amount of work and its material
equivalents notwithstanding undignified work conditions. What constitutes dignified
work? Is dignified work universal?
The call for universal rights of work is cautioned by suggestions that working conditions,
economic systems and stages of economic development in many countries and at various
levels of their societies differ. However, it may be argued that universalism is an effort
towards security for all. The Rawls Difference Principle states that a policy is just if,
and only if, it reduces the insecurity of the least secure groups in society. The principle,
if applied in labor policy and legislation, privileges workers and their need for greater
autonomy, security, and equality. Universalism however is not just about codification of
principles into laws. This is about structuring work in order to shape work to suit
people, not merely shape people for jobs, or to make them more employable.
8
In June 1999, the Director General of the International Labor Organization (ILO)
declared in the 87
th
International Labor Conference its primary goal in keeping with its
mandate to create the conditions of freedom and dignity, of economic security and equal
opportunity in which all human beings, irrespective of race, creed or sex, can pursue
both their material well-being and their spiritual development:
9
Problems of human insecurity and unemployment have also returned to the top of the
political agenda in most countries. The social dimension of globalization, and the
problems and demands it brings to the world of work, are becoming public concerns.
There is growing realization that markets do not function in isolation from their social
and political contexts. Social protection and social dialogue, for example, are increasingly
seen to be integral elements of the adjustment process itself. The experience of the
transition economies; increasing social polarization; the exclusion of Africa; and the
recent crisis in emerging markets, have all made evident the need for a strong social
framework to underpin the search for a new financial architectureThe primary goal of
the ILO today is to promote opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and
productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity (Italics
supplied by the authors).
10
The ILO Decent Work Agenda has four dimensions, namely, (1) labor standards and
fundamental principles and rights at work; (2) employment opportunities; (3) social
protection; and (4) social dialogue. These four dimensions each carry indicators agreed
upon in the Tripartite Meeting of Experts organized by the ILO and are used to measure
the decent work status of countries.
11
8
Standing on Modes of Control: A Labor-Status Approach to Decent Work, p.2
9
The ILO mandate is found in the 1944 Declaration of Philadelphia adopted in the 26
th
session of the
International Labor Organization
10
This is contained in the report of the ILO Director General Juan Somavia during the 87
th
Session of the
International Labor Organization. Please see
<http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/rep-i.htm#The policy framework>
11
ILO describes the task of the tripartite meeting of experts as one that discusses and makes
recommendations on a methodology to measure progress toward decent work that involves the
identification of quantitative and qualitative indicators. The experts are nominated by three groups,
namely: government, employers, and workers. Independent experts and ILO experts also join in these
Labor Standards and Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. The first
dimension is a reaffirmation of ILOs commitment to the Declaration on Fundamental
Principles and Rights at Work in the June 1998 International Labor Conference. The
Declaration committed the signatories to respect, promote, and realize the principles and
rights relating to freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to
collective bargaining; the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor; the
effective abolition of child labor; and the elimination of discrimination in respect to
employment and occupation.
12
Employment Opportunities. The second dimension is productive employment
regardless of gender, color, and religion which is at the core of ILOs mandate.
Employment opportunities are known to abound in periods of economic growth although
it is possible that employable individuals may not be able to access work because of
public or private discriminatory policies. Aside from access to employment, the working
time is also important in realizing decent work. The greater diversity in working time
patterns due to economic and societal changes seen in new production systems, new
combinations of family, community and market work, new employment relationships
based on information and communication technologies, new needs for continuous
learning are all to be investigated in order to ensure that working time is not
lengthening.
13
Social Protection. The third dimension largely depends on societys capacity and
level of economic development. When the feasible is determined from the desirable, the
issue of coverage becomes crucial. In a company setting, there must be legal
determination of what social protection is provided across the board and which are
exclusive to tenured workers.
14
Social Dialogue. The fourth dimension calls for tripartite decision-making from
the national, regional, and up to the factory-level collective bargaining. The role of wage
boards with representations from government, employers, and workers in determining
minimum wages and their increases is critical.
15
In the Philippines, decent work initiatives have been elaborated in every Medium Term
Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP) since 2001. The National Tripartite Advisory
Committee (NTAC) was created in 2002 and the Philippine Labor Index (PLI)
Tenure requirements must not be
arbitrary to labor principles securing the most insecure groups in the society.
16
meetings. Please see <http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---integration/---
stat/documents/meetingdocument/wcms_099981.pdf>
12
http://www.ilo.org/declaration/lang--en/index.htm
13
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/rep-i.htm#Employment and incomes
14
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/rep-i.htm#Strengthening social protection
and social security
15
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/standards/relm/ilc/ilc87/rep-i.htm#Strengthening social dialogue
16
The PLI is expressed in index points similar to Human Development Index and progress is monitored
against the index values, where 100 is the highest
was
formulated in 2003 to measure and monitor progress made in achieving labor and
employment goals in the country. In 2007, the Institute for Labor Studies (ILS) released
a five-year study (2001-2005) on decent work status in the Philippines using the PLI.
17
IPS used a six-dimension Decent Work Framework based on ILO Decent Work Agenda.
The study showed positive indications for the average decent work status in the country
except for the representation at work indicator, which is at a very low point in five
years. This indicator is explained by the union density rate in private and public
establishments, collective bargaining coverage rate in private establishments, workdays
not worked due to strikes/lockouts per employee involved, and percentage of workers
association members to total employed. The composite PLI Index is shown in the table
below:
Figure 1
2001-2005 Decent Work Status in the Philippines
Source: Institute of Labor Studies, Department of Labor and Employment, 2007
Decent work agenda no doubt is a product of international consensus on how humans
may flourish through dignified work. Country signatories have been quick to adopt the
agenda and formulate their own national frameworks. The Philippine data above is an
aggregate of decent work status in the country. The task now is to examine how BPO
companies fare in providing decent work. The governments forecast that BPO
companies will be the largest provider of jobs today is enough reason to motivate the
researchers to study decent work status in the BPO industry. Results of the study are
expected to substantially impact on national data on decent work.
Investigating BPO Benefits Packages in Metro Cebu
The decent work analytical framework used in the study is in keeping with the ILO
Decent Work Agenda and the Philippine Labor Index. Decent work status was analyzed
by surveying the wide array of benefits packages offered by various BPO companies
17
http://www.nscb.gov.ph/ncs/10thNCS/papers/invited%20papers/ips-22/ips22-01.pdf
Indicator 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Ave
Opportunities for Work 72.46 71.89 73.04 74.1 73.75 73.05
Freedom of Choice of Employment 92.54 92.43 93.13 91.99 92.57 92.53
Productive Work 61.69 60.83 61.64 61.8 62.44 61.68
Equity in Work 75.33 75.33 74.83 73.83 77.67 76
Security at Work 72.25 72.09 71.55 72.67 72.72 72.26
Representation at Work 36.2 33.8 44.48 45.15 42.49 40.43
operating in Metro Cebu with reference to those mandated by the Labor Code of the
Philippines as well as provision of productivity-driven fringe benefits and empowerment
mechanisms. The workers levels of satisfaction of the available benefits packages were
then analyzed. The assumptions are that BPO companies in Metro Cebu are labor-
standard compliant, provide productivity-driven fringe benefits, and that workforce
satisfaction of BPO benefits packages vary depending on the workers appreciation of the
benefits. The study anticipated the results to guide policy advocacy and critically assess
the industry in terms of decent work standards.
The research design employed a triangulation of survey, key informant interview, and
secondary data collection. Survey forms were administered and key informant interviews
carried out with purposively-selected BPO management and their workforce, between
May and July 2009, for a total of 13 BPO companies. The survey questions constituted
the fifth block of the eleven-page instrument administered by each social science
component to a total of 118 participants as sample population. The key informant
interview instrument designed primarily by the labor market structure research
component was used to probe further on the responses in the survey.
The benefits packages were identified through a review of labor laws and initial
consultation with selected BPO supervisors, employees, and human resource officers as
well as through a series of workshops with other component researchers and technical
experts. The result is the clustering of benefits packages into three: labor standards,
fringe benefits, and empowerment mechanisms. The survey instrument instructed BPO
employees to identify whether or not the listed benefits in the three clusters are provided
for by their companies. The availability of benefits made it possible for them to rate their
level of satisfaction for each of the listed benefits in the cluster; otherwise, non-
availability meant no rating.
The study computed for the average compliance and satisfaction per individual and per
cluster of benefits. Using the Philippines labor standard requirements, it is the studys
intention to identify the most labor-standard compliant (including fringe and
empowerment mechanisms) BPO as well as the most compliant category of BPO in order
to directly recommend possible improvements in the identified companies or in a
subsector of BPO. However, the confidentiality agreement between the researchers and
the BPO companies proved difficult to overcome. Although data are available, the
researchers were careful in making conclusive statements about the most compliant BPO
company or BPO subsector/category since 38% of respondents came from call centers.
The average compliance and satisfaction per individual benefits were then re-clustered
into nine minor clusters, this time, approximating the ILO Decent Work Framework and
Philippine Labor Index. The three columns in Figure 2 show the first cluster of benefits
(labor standards, fringe, and empowerment mechanisms), the second cluster of benefits
according to substantive elements of decent work agenda, and the individual benefits
investigated in BPO companies serving as statistical indicators.
Figure 2
Framework for Decent Work Status of BPO Employees in Metro Cebu
* Indicators are distributed in the various substantive elements of decent work
Cluster 1:
Compen-
sation &
Benefit
Package
Cluster 2:
Substantive Elements
of Decent Work
Statistical Indicators
L
A
B
O
R

P
R
I
N
C
I
P
L
E
S

A
N
D

S
T
A
N
D
A
R
D
S
*Philippine Labor
Standards
Minimum Wage, Retirement Pay, Separation/Termination Pay, Vacation
Leave, Sick Leave, Emergency Leave, Bereavement Leave, Maternity Leave,
Paternity Leave, 13
th
Month Pay, SSS, PHILHEALTH, PAGIBIG, Overtime Pay,
Medical Insurance, Accident Insurance, Night-Shift Differential Pay, Service
Incentive Leave, Meal and Rest Periods
Adequate Earnings
and Productive Work
(1,3)
Minimum Wage, 13
th
Month Pay, Expense Account, Transportation
Allowance, Salary Scheme, Promotion Scheme, Signing Bonus, Performance
Incentives, Commissions, 14th Month Pay, Service Incentive Leave
Decent Hours (1,3) Overtime Pay, Meal and Rest Periods, Night-Shift Differential Pay
Combining Work and
Family Life (1,3)
Emergency Leave, Bereavement Leave, Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave,
Vacation Leave, Housing, Educational Assistance to employees/
dependents,
Equal opportunity
and treatment in
employment (1,2,3)
Pregnant women assigned to day shift and with longer bathroom privileges
and breaks
Safe Work
Environment (1,3)
Ergonomic facilities, anti-radiation filters, Hazard Pay
Stability and Security
of work (1,2,3)
Minimum Wage, Retirement Pay, Vacation Leave, Sick Leave, Emergency
Leave, Bereavement Leave, Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave,13
th
Month
Pay, SSS, PHILHEALTH, PAGIBIG, Medical Insurance, Accident Insurance,
Separation/Termination Pay (+ percentage of part-time workers to total
employed)
F
R
I
N
G
E

B
E
N
E
F
I
T
S
Fringe Benefits
Interest on loans less than market rate, Professional membership fees
shouldered by employer, Holiday and Vacation Expenses, study/exam leave,
assigned to preferred schedule, student loan, tuition assistance, lounge
area, spa and gym, Infant Milk Subsidy, Free meals for employees who will
render overtime and work on day off, Free coffee and ice tea in the pantry,
Free vaccines (for Hepa and flu), Lean Management training for middle
management employees, Uniform allowance, Rice allowance, Birthday
Leave
E
M
P
O
W
E
R
M
E
N
T

M
E
C
H
A
N
I
S
M
S
Social Dialogue and
Workers
Representation (1,4)
Provision of Workers Manual, Mechanisms for feedback, Existence and
Operation of workers organization (or Union), Participation in companys
decision- making processes, Information about rights and privileges as
employees, Transparent employment admission, Stress management
seminars, Gender Sensitivity Training, Interpersonal Relations Training,
Group Dynamics Training, Team-Building
Note: ILO Strategic Objectives: 1. Standards and fundamental principles and rights at work; 2.
Employment; 3. Social Protection; 4. Social dialogue.
Benefits Package Compliance and Satisfaction
The descriptive analysis of collected data showed the average compliance and
satisfaction level per benefit as well as the average compliance and satisfaction level per
cluster of benefits. The sample BPO companies have labor standard average compliance
of .82. The average compliance is relatively high yet negligible for the labor standard
cluster of benefits packages. It is likely that companies justify non-compliance in some
benefits because of the flexible labor arrangements in the BPO industry (e.g. shorter
contract periods and high attrition rate).
Individual responses on labor standard compliance indicate very low compliance in
retirement pay, service incentive leave, and accident insurance benefits with means .39,
.47, and .6, respectively. The relatively high average compliance is just satisfactorily
appreciated by the workers with the mean of 3.27 out of 5. The benefits that got low
scores on compliance did not necessarily have low employee satisfaction. The following
benefits registered low satisfaction among all the labor standard benefits but still belong
to the median satisfactory level: separation/termination pay with a mean of only 2.97,
followed by minimum wage with 3.0 and night shift differential as well as retirement pay
with a mean satisfaction of 3.11 out of 5.0.
Figure 3
Metro Cebu BPO Companies Benefit packages and Workers Level of Satisfaction (N=118)
On the other hand, the sample companies average compliance for productivity-driven
fringe benefits is only .36, which means that companies do not necessarily provide extra
benefits to their employees for productivity purposes. The satisfaction of their employees
in the provision of these fringe benefits is only satisfactory with a mean of 3.1. The
commonly provided fringe benefits include salary and promotion schemes, regular rice
allowance, and free coffee and ice tea in pantries. The not-so-common benefits include
student loan, housing, household personnel, and tuition assistance for student employees.
Individual responses show that the employees register lowest satisfaction for their
housing incentive, regular rice allowance, and hazard pay. On the other hand student
exam leave, birthday leave, and the company shouldering their membership dues in
professional organizations register the highest satisfaction. All the registered satisfaction
levels, except for the membership fee in professional organizations, come within the
satisfactory range from 2.58 to 3.40.
The companies have an empowerment mechanisms average compliance of .5, which
means that about 50% of the enumerated benefits are provided by the companies. The
level of satisfaction is satisfactory with 3.01 as mean. Among those enumerated, the
workers indicated that about 1.6 out of 10 companies encourage the existence or
operation of a workers organization. This is followed by the provision of gender
sensitivity training to their employees by 2 out of 10 companies. Both are considered the
least-provided empowerment mechanisms.
On the other hand, team building programs are frequently provided, followed by the
employees being informed about rights with the mean of .93. As far as satisfaction is
concerned, the workers expressed that their over-all satisfaction level for the
empowerment mechanisms included in the study is Satisfactory ranging from a mean of
2.76 to 3.27. Stress management seminars and taking part in the companys decision-
making activities had the lowest satisfaction levels while team-building programs and the
provision of a workers manual had the highest satisfaction rating.
The results for the three clusters of benefits packages show that BPO companies are
labor-standard compliant but with median satisfaction level; provide few productivity-
driven fringe benefits with average satisfaction level, and provide relatively many
empowering mechanisms for employees but only satisfactorily appreciated by the
employees. More importantly, results for both compliance and satisfaction level at both
individual/per benefit or cluster-level benefits packages demonstrate that BPO
compliance is not directly proportional to satisfaction level as rated by the respondents.
Finally, in the interest of aiding policy makers zero in on the labor-standard compliance,
including other benefits, of BPO categories or subsectors, the next sets of data show how
they fare. Figure 4 shows the call centers distinction in complying with the three major
clusters of benefits followed by the animation category. Interestingly, Figure 5 shows
that satisfaction level in the animation category proves much better compared to other
subsectors including the call centers. This data helps confirm public assumption that
employees in the animation category have more fringe benefits because of the highly
specialized nature of their work.
Figure 4
Average Compliance of Benefit Packages per BPO Category (N=118)
Figure 5
Average Satisfaction on Benefit Packages per BPO Category (N=118)
Decent Work Status in the BPO Industry
Decent work status in the Metro Cebu BPO industry was investigated through the studys
formulated eight substantive elements of decent work informed by the ILO decent work
framework and the Philippine Labor Index. The statistical indicators per element were
among the individual benefits identified by BPO human resource personnel and
employees during the testing of the survey instruments.
Adequate Earnings and Productive Work
The results of the study showed that most BPO companies provide benefits essential to
yield productive work, among them the provision of minimum wage, the payment of the
legally mandated 13
th
month pay as well as service incentive leave. Other benefits such as
expense account, transportation allowance, salary and promotion schemes, signing bonus,
and performance incentives are likewise considered essential in inducing productivity.
It is observed that the sample companies average compliance for this particular element
of decent work is only .68., which means that only a little over the majority of the studied
companies provide these benefits. More specifically, all sample companies give their
employees the labor standard mandatory benefits of minimum wage and 13
th
month pay
as proven by their respective mean compliance. Almost all offer performance incentive,
promotion, and salary schemes to their employees. This was confirmed by all of the
Human Resource Managers interviewed who strongly expressed that they dont fail to
provide the labor standard benefits to all their employees.
On the other hand, expense account and signing bonus - both categorized as fringe
benefits are not provided to most employees. Their provision varies across the six BPO
categories as well as on the employees position in the company. Most animation
companies provide expense account privileges to their employees while most contact
services or call centers offer signing bonuses to new entrants. The provision of these
additional benefits was corroborated by the interviewed HR officers. The companies
likewise expressed that their plan of providing additional benefits is already in the
pipeline.
As far as the workers level of satisfaction on the productivity benefits are concerned, the
mean satisfaction of 3.20 for all these benefits is just Satisfactory which is also similar to
individual satisfaction levels. Among the benefits grouped in this item, available
transportation allowances rank the lowest followed by salary scheme and signing bonus.
The mandated 13
th
month pay and the fringe benefit of expense account are rated high
within the satisfactory range. The provision of 13
th
month pay is not exclusive to the BPO
industry. It is given to all employed individuals as a legal mandate. Hence, it is
interesting to argue that BPO employees productive work cannot solely be attributed to
the provision of extra benefits as suggested by media advertisements. Rather, how
productive BPO employees are is still due to the legally provided benefits, which will be
confirmed in the item below on fringe benefits.
Decent Hours
BPO employees from all categories recognize the provision of decent hours yet their
average appreciation is just satisfactory. It can be understood that even if companies
subscribe to the labor standard requirement for humane length of working hours, the
same may not be similarly appreciated due to the variable nature and context of the work
and its environment.
Combining Work and Family Life
In this substantive element of decent work, data shows that employers have provided
standard benefits such as emergency leave, paternity and maternity leave, as well as
bereavement leave to support the family and other socio-cultural needs of their
employees. This is based on the assumption that the workplace is just one of the many
locations where the employee spends his/her time, and that working may actually be
driven by the need to support ones family and not solely for career development. The
same is further manifested in the recognition by the employees of the existence of some
benefits, though they vary across categories. The satisfactory rating for all these benefits
perceived to enhance the combined work and family life of employees allows us to
deduce that even if companies do provide these benefits, still their primary goal is
productivity and output whatever the employees motivation may be.
Equal Opportunity and Treatment in Employment
This particular element of decent work gives attention to the equal opportunities and
treatments for both men and women, especially pregnant women who have found
employment in any of the BPO categories. Unfortunately, data shows that almost all of
the sample BPO companies failed to provide the necessary privileges for pregnant
women. The average compliance for the three benefits is just .3, which means that these
privileges are not generally given. From the same data, we can however read that almost
half of the companies allow their pregnant employees to take on day shifts instead of
graveyard shifts. However, only one-fifth of the same count allows longer bathroom
privileges and longer breaks.
Safe Work Environment
This fifth element of decent work centers on the occupational safety and health
conditions of the workers. This is presumed to lead into the provision of particular
benefits that seek to ensure that employees maintain good health despite the pressure to
deliver expected outputs.
In the Decent Work Philippine Agenda 2008 to 2010, the Department of Labor and
Employment (DOLE) identified certain hazards for those working in the BPO industry
with specific attention given to those working in contact centers or call center companies.
DOLE showed that most workers experienced musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) due to
ergonomic risk factors; visual symptoms caused by computer use; and voice and ear
problems attributed to the inherent nature of their work where phone use is absolutely
inevitable.
Further, the workers prolonged and almost permanent night work poses equally
significant hazards to the workers activity-rest cycle, which ultimately affect their well-
being. Sleeping disorders, eating disturbances and gastrointestinal disorders, mental
problems, cardiovascular disturbances, and impact on womens reproductive health are
just some of the consequences that authorities want remedied and responded to as pro-
actively as possible to avoid detrimental effects that will in the end affect the productivity
of the industry.
As far as employee satisfaction is concerned, the mean satisfaction is only 2.95, which is
just Satisfactory. This could mean that even those who provide these benefits are not
highly appreciated by their workers. This can be due to the health hazards that workers
still experience despite the availability of the benefits. The data suggest that the issue of
safety in the work environment of the sample BPO companies is cause for alarm. Policy-
makers cannot continue to ignore the occupational and health risks of BPO employees.
Combining Work and Family Life
Security at work in the BPO industry is perceived to be insecure. The DOLE report cited
above also indicated that career development in the BPO industry is highly challenged. It
explicitly underlined the limited opportunities for personal and career growth of
employees as reason for high attrition.
Looking at the above assertion vis--vis the benefits provided by the companies to their
employees, almost all of the sample BPO companies provide stability and security-related
benefits. In fact, workers confirmed these available benefits by registering a mean of .88.
The commonly available benefits include the legally required 13
th
month pay, minimum
wage, sick leave, vacation leave, SSS contribution, emergency leave, medical insurance,
separation/termination pay, and paternity leave.
In contrasting the availability of the benefits to the ratings the employees gave per
benefit, it is observed that they are Satisfied. The highly rated benefits are the legally
mandated ones: PhilHEALTH contribution, 13
th
month pay, maternity leave,
bereavement leave, retirement pay, and minimum wage.
The data only shows that the BPO employees security is ensured by the provision of
legally-mandated benefits, which are also given to workers in other industries. There are
no benefits exclusively given to BPO employees ensuring work stability and promising
career development.
Fringe Benefits
The fringe benefits listed above which are presumed to improve employee productivity
were identified through a series of workshops. The actual fringe benefits offered in some
BPO companies were incorporated in order to see whether other companies offer the
same. The result is a long list of perks.
Data shows that there are only 8 out of the 32 fringe benefits provided by over one half of
the sample BPO companies. The other extra benefits are provided by less than the
majority of the companies studied. The mean compliance of the companies for all of the
benefits identified is only .37, which is way below than majority. Hence, despite general
perception of abundant privileges enjoyed in BPO employment, the only kind of benefits
provided are dependent on the nature of work demanded from the workers. In contrast,
the rating given by the employees for the provided fringe benefits is Satisfactory with a
mean of 3.11.
Social Dialogue and Workers Representation
The last element of decent work, social dialogue and workers representation, focuses on
the empowerment mechanisms identified by the researchers. The mean compliance is
only .58, which means that these mechanisms are provided by the sample BPO
companies although confirmed by only about half of the respondent-employees. The
benefit acknowledged to be provided by the sample BPO companies are (1) informing the
employees about their rights and privileges, (2) transparent employment admission, and
(3) availability of feedback mechanisms. The inadequate benefits include existence or
operation of a workers organization or a union and gender sensitivity training.
The rating given by the employees is only Satisfactory with a mean of 3.12. The benefit
rated highest is the companys provision of a workers manual followed by transparent
employment admission, available feedback mechanism and gender sensitivity training.
Those rated the least are participation in the companys decision-making processes and
stress management seminars.
Finally, decent work is becoming more difficult to achieve when we look into the
workers representation at work. Available data force us to reflect on the orientation
sessions attended by the employees where they are supposed to be informed of their
general and specific rights. Significantly, the reader is invited to take a closer look at the
gender sensitivity training compliance and satisfaction level. This data may explain why
treatment of pregnant women at work is not very decent and why overall satisfaction is
quite low.
Decent Work Status in the BPO Industry: Per Subsector
The requirement of policy advocacy demands us to investigate further those categories of
BPO companies which have contributed to the less promising results above. This is in
order to focus the attention to BPO subsectors which may need more critical assessment
in terms of decent work provision more than the others.
Figure 6
Decent Work Status in Metro Cebu BPO Industry: Average Compliance and Satisfaction
(N=118)
Figure 6 shows how the BPO industry fare in terms of average compliance and
satisfaction level of the substantive elements of decent work. The aggregate data indicate
that not all companies satisfactorily provide the basic benefits deserved by an employee
in any sector or industry. We are careful to conclude on the high rating for decent hours
because of the privileged number of call center agents who served as respondents and
rated this element of decent work very high. This will be explained in the next
paragraphs. The next section however will attempt to disaggregate the data in order to
better understand decent work status in various BPO subsectors.
Figures 7 and 8 respectively show the average compliance of BPO subsectors of the
substantive elements of decent work and the average satisfaction of BPO employees per
subsector. In general, of the six subsectors, call center, animation, and software
development subsectors rate high both in average compliance and satisfaction levels. The
back office subsector consistently rates lowest in both measurements.
For the compliance of the substantive elements of decent work, call center comes in first
followed by software development and animation. The software development and
animation subsectors rate highest in stability and security at work followed by adequate
earnings and productive work. Yet, when the three are compared, it is surprising that the
call center subsector still leads at an average of 0.96. However, when it came to adequate
earnings and productive work, call center only comes in third.
In the end, employees decide who among those who complied proved satisfactory. Data
shows that employees from animation subsector are far more satisfied followed in close
margins by software development and call center. The highly specialized work in the
non-voice subsectors could be the primary reason why their employees get better pay.
The higher productivity required in producing animated media and software also merits
various incentives than those in call centers.
The call center subsector rates highest in decent hours while here is where animation
rates lowest. This does not imply however that those animation employees are not
provided decent work, only that they may be less appreciative of night shift differential
and overtime pay because their working hour is based on number of outputs instead of
number of hours spent in the workstations as in the case of most call center employees.
In fact when viewed from the satisfaction rating by the employees, call center subsector
rates only at 3.56 while animation subsector rates at 4.56. Most importantly, animation
subsector has the highest average satisfaction levels for all substantive elements of decent
work compared to all five subsectors including the call center subsector.
On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that the employees of the medical transcription
subsector gave a very low satisfaction rating of 1.67. It is possible that strict internal
control mechanisms that accompany their work render the working hours more laborious
and inflexible compared to those working in animation. The same trends above follow
suit for the other equally substantive elements of decent work.
In sum, decent work status in the sample BPO companies is far from achieved. While
employees have identified the presence or availability of the benefits, it is possible that
they have not received them or if they had, were not satisfied. Based on the data alone,
there is basis to infer that employees do not feel very secure in their workplace and are
restless for decent work elsewhere.
Figure 7
Average Compliance of Substantive Elements of Decent Work per BPO Category (N=118)
Figure 8
Average Satisfaction of Substantive Elements of Decent Work per BPO Category (N=118)
Perspectives
Inasmuch as there is more work available in the BPO industry, there is also more work to
be done for the working men and women in that industry. Decent work status in the
sample BPO companies needs to be improved in all areas of adequate earnings and
productive work, decent hours, combining work and family life, equal opportunity and
treatment in employment, safe work and environment, stability and security at work,
fringe benefits, and social dialogue and representation at work.
Policy advocacy becomes even more crucial today when the graduates of 2010 rush for
employment opportunities in BPO companies. Their talents should not be wasted and
their creativity not stifled by the weak decent work framework in many BPO companies.
This must be done in order for society to optimize and dignify the productivity of the
young workers.
0
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Measurement of Decent Work. Discussion Paper for the Tripartite Meeting of Experts on
the Measurement of Decent Work. Geneva: International Labor Organization Office.
Retrieved September 8-10, 2008, from http://www.ilo.org
Decent Work Status Report: The Philippines. Presented in the 10
th
National Convention
on Statistics at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel. Retrieved October 1-2, 2007, from
http://www.nscb.gov.ph
ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. From
http://www.ilo.org
ILO Director General report for the 87
th
Session of the International Labor Organization.
from http://www.ilo.org
World of Work Report 2009: The Global Jobs Crisis and Beyond. International Labor
Organization. From http://www.ilo.org
CHAPTER 5
I Id de en nt ti if fy yi in ng g a an nd d A Ad dd dr re es ss si in ng g G Ge en nd de er r a an nd d
R Re ep pr ro od du uc ct ti iv ve e H He ea al lt th h I Is ss su ue es s i in n t th he e
B Bu us si in ne es ss s P Pr ro oc ce es ss s O Ou ut ts so ou ur rc ci in ng g C Co om mp pa an ni ie es s
Elmira Judy T. Aguilar
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Abstract
survey was done among 118 employees of different Business Process
Outsourcing companies in Metro Cebu to examine gender-based practices in
the workplace, to identify gender and reproductive health issues and to
discover strategies and activities employed by management to respond to gender- and
RH-related issues. At the onset, the study assumes that there are no adequate gender and
reproductive health programs offered that will answer the current needs of employees
and that the current health care services given to employees can be expanded to include
those that cover the areas of gender and reproductive health. The study found out that
men and women face reproductive health concerns that can be addressed by the presence
of on-site clinics staffed with trained and competent health providers. This is aside from
providing other benefits like health insurance that can be availed through private health
practitioners. Moreover, gender issues like equal work opportunities embodied in the
companys principles and objectives are vital in enhancing work conditions and
improving productivity.
Keywords: business process outsourcing, gender, reproductive health, Metro Cebu,
Philippines
Introduction
The Philippine government is aggressively luring international companies to invest in the
Philippines. In the speech of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo published in the of
Office of the Presidents website (2006), she mentioned in an international conference of
Business Process Outsourcing held in the United Kingdom last September 2006, that her
government is turning the Philippines into one of the premier global outsourcing
locations in the world. She stated further that the Philippines is recognized for its well-
educated, English-speaking labor force. And this is a reputation we intend to maintain as
our stronger fiscal position is making it possible to invest heavily in education and
training for our young men and women.
Through education, the government is also looking into its economic reform program to
generate more revenues for investment in infrastructure that will reduce costs and
increase productivity for businesses. It has also stepped up its efforts to offer international
Gender and Reproductive Health Aguilar l 63
connectivity and strengthen multimedia infrastructure to support daily operations for
twenty-four hours. The Philippines also passed laws favorable to these companies such as
the e-Commerce Law and an Intellectual Property Code.
The entry of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the Philippines also
brought significant changes in the choices of courses at the tertiary level and the careers
that Filipinos pursue. The Blas F. Ople Policy Center, in a report published by the
Philippine Daily Inquirer (2008), noted that the BPO sector, spearheaded by call centers,
declared somewhere around $4.8 to $5 billion in revenues in 2007, compared to the $3.4
billion of 2006. It also created 320,000 full-time jobs in 2007 versus 237, 000 in the
previous year.
Given the above figures, a study conducted by TESDA in 2007 indicates that gender is a
strong determinant of employment in call centers. Being female assures an applicant of
having a higher chance than males in landing a call center job--44 percent absorption rate
for females versus 33 percent for males. However, it is worth mentioning that in a
research conducted by Strebler, Thompson, and Heron (2007) on gender differences in
managerial work, they found out that female and male managers do not differ much in the
competencies they possess. Then again, gender role stereotyping is persistent. For
example, women are less likely than men to be perceived by both male and female
managers as displaying the characteristics of an effective manager. Women were
consistently rated lower on leadership ability by managers. This has vital implications
since leadership is a common aptitude for managers. Standards for leadership positions
may be gender-biased if the more transformational leadership style of women is not
valued as equal to the more transactional style of men. Thus, it was recommended that
line managers and staff should be trained to understand competency headings and be
aware of the potential biases in interpretation, particularly in the purview of leadership
(Strebler et al., 2007).
Amidst the efforts already mentioned, there are areas that still need to be improved on to
enhance the conditions of workers. In an Inquirer (2008) article, former labor
undersecretary Susan Ople pushed for the call center industry to abide by the guidelines
set by the Occupational Safety and Health Center (OSHC) of the labor department to
promote the health and well-being of thousands of call center agents in the country.
Companies must craft policies that will point to managements commitment to a safe and
healthful workplace. Employees reported to have suffered work-related musculoskeletal
illnesses, eye fatigue, and physical stress due to long and irregular hours at work. It is
noteworthy to mention that employees may be unaware of their rights as stipulated under
the Department of Labor and Employments Circular Number 1 that mandates employers
to organize Safety and Health committees in their workplace, pursuant to Rule 1040 of
the Occupational Safety and Health Standards. Moreover, in the same article in the
Inquirer (2008), Ople stated that the countrys successful business processing and
outsourcing industry must lead the way in providing non-wage benefits to its employees.
This is to lessen the high turn-over rate of the industry brought about by physical and
emotional problems faced by its workers.
The Business Process Outsourcing companies have also changed the lifestyles of people
and have therefore affected their health conditions. For instance, in a study conducted by
Vaid (2009) in India among young men and women employed in Business Process
Outsourcing companies, gender differences were evident for all peer behaviours probed.
Majority of the young men reported that they had at least one friend who smoked or
consumed alcohol while fewer young women reported friends who smoked or consumed
alcohol. Both young men and women reported friends who had a romantic partner. But
more young men than young women stated that at least one friend had engaged in
premarital sex. Given their sexual activity, the same study noted that substantial
proportions of young people were not confident or comfortable accessing reproductive
health services or approaching health care providers. For instance, only half of young
men and 21 percent of young women felt comfortable buying contraceptives from a
medical store. Fewer young men than young women reported being comfortable
discussing contraceptives with an adult or health provider.
Health Concerns and Experiences of Men and Women
This section tackles reproductive health concerns experienced by men and women and
the availability of health services including measures employed to resolve the health
concerns experienced. The primary data presented in Table 1 shows that out of 56 study
participants, only 11 reported having experienced reproductive health concerns. Of the 11
study participants, six had painful urination; two had erectile dysfunction; and only one
each reported urethral discharge, sores or ulcers in the penile area and hernia. Majority of
them experienced these while they were still not connected with their current company.
These were also experienced by those in ages 21-30 years old who are working in call
centers.
Table 1
Reproductive Health Concerns of Males (N=56)
Reproductive Health Concerns No. of Mentions
Painful urination 6
Erectile dysfunction 2
Urethral discharge 1
Sores/ulcers penile area 1
Hernia 1
multiple response
The females on the other hand, experienced a number of reproductive health problems
with a total of 84 mentions. Of the 84 mentions, it is shown in Table 2 that the top three
answers included: dysmenorrhea or painful menstruation (41); hormonal imbalance (12)
and painful urination (9). These were usually suffered by those working in call centers
and medical transcription. However, many experienced these prior to their current
employment.
Table 2
Reproductive Health Concerns Experienced by Women (N=62)
Reproductive Health Concerns No. of Mentions
Dysmenorrhea 41
Hormonal imbalance 12
Painful urination 9
Unplanned pregnancy 7
Endometriosis 6
Vaginal discharge 4
Sores/ulcers in the vaginal area 2
Breast masses 2
Ovarian cysts 1
multiple response
Among those who had health concerns, Table 3 shows that a fourth (25%) did nothing
about their experience while 22% consulted a family member. Consulting a private
doctor came third (18%) and company doctor came fourth (15%). Self-medication (12%)
was also being resorted to by the study participants. It is noteworthy to mention that
more than half (62%) mentioned that there is a clinic in their workplace and these are
staffed by nurses (99%) and doctors (93%).
Table 3
Person Consulted During First Experience of Health Concern (N=118)
Person Consulted Percentage
Did nothing/consulted no one 24
Family member or relative 22
Private doctor 18
Company doctor 15
Self-medication 12
Pharmacist 5
Company nurse 2
Co-worker 2
These clinics ordinarily provide testicular exam (18%) and family planning services
(13%) for males while breast exam (48%), pap smear (36%) and family planning (16%)
are offered to females. Other health-related services given include annual health
examination (96%) and wellness activities and services (85%). With the health services
provided, 58% are satisfied with the health benefits. To improve health benefits the study
participants mentioned that the top three other measures that should be offered are higher
health benefits, higher insurance benefits and additional sick leave.
Addressing Gender and Reproductive Health Concerns in the Workplace
This portion looks at gender and reproductive health statements that study participants
were made to choose. The statements chosen were those that may affect the work
environment and whether or not these are being addressed by the companies. The most
familiar statements that are gender-related and in line with the companys principles and
objectives include: men and women have equal employment opportunities (98%); men
have the right to be given certain privileges by their employer to participate in child care
(96%); gender preference is not an issue in the hiring and firing of employees (96%); and
men and women receive equal pay for equal work (91%).
Table 4
Gender-related Statements in line with the Companys Principles and Objectives (N=118)
Gender-related Statements N Percentage
Men and women have equal employment opportunities 116 98
Men have the right to be given certain privileges by their employers to
participate in child care (as in the case of paternity leave)
113 96
Gender preference is not an issue in the hiring and firing of employees 113 96
Men and women receive equal pay for equal work 108 91
There is no bias in the promotion criteria for men and women 106 90
Women are equally capable of holding top management positions 106 90
A womans pregnancy is not seen as a liability 104 88
multiple response
However, there are gender and reproductive health issues that need to be tackled by
management to further improve work relationships or environment. These are the rights
of single parents (67%); paternity leave (63%) and day care provision (53%).
The data above reveal that employees experience reproductive health concerns with
women facing more reproductive health issues compared to men. These experiences
include painful urination for men and dysmenorrhea, hormonal imbalance and painful
urination for women. Most importantly, these were experienced prior to their
employment which in most cases were not paid attention to since they did not submit
themselves to thorough medical examinations. Further neglect on their part to pay
attention to these prior health concerns may lead to more health problems in the future
that may affect their work productivity. However, these health concerns can generally be
prevented and addressed by the presence of an on-site clinic staffed by nurses and doctors
whose basic background on health care can, at the onset, address basic reproductive
health concerns without further training on this area. Nevertheless, this does not decrease
the need for further training on sexual and reproductive health care that do not only
purely focus on medical training but must also include other social factors in the
prevention and management of sexual and reproductive health.
These health staff can assist employees from resorting to self-medication which is
commonly done and may lead to further medical complications thereby aggravating their
already compromised state of health. It should be noted that Business Process
Outsourcing companies employ many young employees, which should signal clinic staff
to exert more efforts to reach out to them especially that the young are more carefree
because of the belief that they will not easily get sick. However, a study in India revealed
that employees in Business Process Outsourcing companies are not confident or
comfortable in approaching health care providers to seek reproductive health services
(Vaid, 2009). This should guide health care givers in strategizing their plan to reach-out
to these people to make their services user-friendly and accessible. But reaching out to
young employees also means abiding by the guidelines set by the Department of Labor
and Employment on the Occupational Safety and Health Standards to promote the health
and well-being of call center agents in the country as contained in an Inquirer article
(2008). Companies are required to make policies pointing to managements obligation to
provide a safe and healthful workplace.
Although Business Process Outsourcing companies extend health benefits to their
employees, it is still imperative to increase workers satisfaction by increasing health and
insurance benefits. This will improve the physical condition of its workforce and enhance
productivity. Thus, this may result in retaining their employees given that many
companies face the constant challenge of addressing high turnover of employees.
Employees satisfaction and the decision to stay in ones job will mean significant
savings on the part for the company as they will be able to cut costs related to entry level
training which they will often resort to if faced with continuous turnover of employees.
Gender issues such as equal employment opportunities (hiring, promoting, and increasing
salaries) and paternity leave are being considered by Business Process Outsourcing
companies according to the study participants. These efforts can very well be integrated
in the governments economic reform agenda which should not only focus on creating
more revenues for investment in infrastructure to lessen costs and increase productivity
for businesses as mentioned in the Office of the Presidents website (2006). The positive
efforts related to improvement on the areas affecting gender and equal opportunities
being done by Business Process Outsourcing companies can serve as models by other
employment agencies to enhance workers satisfaction. But, there are other issues that
need to be tackled like rights of single parents and day care provision which are areas that
matter much to employees since their work schedule takes much of their time away from
home when children are still awake and care provision can be maximized. It should be
noted that there are existing laws that companies can examine and learn from to enable
them to craft better programs and services for their employees. Addressing these
concerns can help enhance work conditions since many of the employees are single and
who may have children to take care of.
In view of the conclusions made, the following are recommended:
(i) The current health care on-site services extended by business process outsourcing
companies can be expanded to include other reproductive health services such as
prevention of sexually transmitted infections since there are qualified medical staff like
doctors and nurses who can be trained to offer more services. However, the training
design must be gender and age appropriate and responsive which looks at social and
cultural factors related to sexual and reproductive health in the context of the Philippine
society and the lifestyle changes brought about by the influx of Business Processs
Oursourcing companies to young employees.
(ii) The presence of qualified and trained medical staff is not a guarantee that employees
will avail of services offered. Efforts should be made to reach-out and popularize them to
encourage employees to seek prompt treatment rather than resorting to self-medication
which may lead to adverse consequences. Particular focus should also be done among
young employees who may have reservations in availing of reproductive health services.
There is the need to look into the nuances of young employees in the Philippines who are
working in Business Process Outsourcing companies to ensure that services answer their
felt needs and not just fully adopting approaches being done by similar companies in
other countries.
(iii) The inclusion of gender and reproductive health concerns and issues in the
workplace is vital in improving workers satisfaction and enhancement of the work
environment. Where some of these concerns are already tackled, there is still a necessity
to look at other areas identified by its employees such as rights of single parents to
address their felt needs.
(iv) Beyond pure economic reforms embraced by the government, issues on gender and
reproductive health must be integrated in its overall plan to provide a good investment
climate not only for businesses but for its workforce as well. This could mean increasing
workers satisfaction by meeting other needs such as in the area of health resulting in
high rates of retention among its employees. This means not only enhancing the well-
being of workers but also improve cost-benefit tactics of companies which will later on
result in more savings for better services given to clients.
References
Monisha Vaid, (2009). Exploring the Lives of Youth in the BPO Sector: Findings from a
Study in Gurgaon, Health and Innovation Population Fellowship Programme
Working Paper, No.10. New Delhi: Population Council.
Technical Education & Skills Development Authority, (2007). A survey of the
graduates of the PGMA-TWSP 100-hour finishing course for call center agents
(2005-2007) in Region VII. Philippine-Australia Human Resources Development
Facility (PAHRDF).
Strebler M, Thompson M, Heron, (1997). Skills, Competencies and Gender: Issues for
Pay and Training, P. Report 333, Institute for Employment Studies. ISBN: 978-1-
85184-262-9. In http://www.employment-
studies.co.uk/pubs/summary.php?id=333&style=print
______________. Call centers urged to follow occupational safety guidelines. In
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view/20080510-135759/Call-
centers-urged-to-follow-occupational-safety-guidelines
_______________. PGMA's Speech during the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
Conference. Thursday, September 14, 2006. Ballroom, Sheraton Park Lane,
Piccadilly London, United Kingdom. In http://www.op.gov.ph
CHAPTER 6
P Ps sy yc ch ho ol lo og gi ic ca al l C Co or rr re el la at te es s o of f S St tr re es ss s
A Am mo on ng g B BP PO O I In nd du us st tr ry y W Wo or rk ke er rs s
Leah C. Auman, Cholen T. Osorio, Reuel C. Yap and Tyler C. Ong
Department of Psychology
Abstract
his component explored the factors that may be related to occupational stress
among BPO workers were explored in this component, stress being assumed to
play a role in work productivity and general well-being or health of individuals.
It examined the relationship of psychological well-being (PWB), social support, coping
style, and demographic characteristics with occupational stress. Greenbergs (2008)
Occupational Stress Inventory, an adaptation of Ryffs (1989) PWB Scale, and a survey
questionnaire that identifies social support and coping style, were administered to 118
BPO workers in Metro Cebu selected through convenience sampling. Results show that
participants have a generally low level of occupational stress and majority employed
problem-focused coping. PWB has a moderate negative correlation with occupational
stress. Generally, those who have more types of social support available experienced
greater occupational stress. This unexpected finding was explained in connection to
nature of support received and coping style employed. Finally, women reported higher
occupational stress than men, although the difference is quite small. All analyses were
set at .05 alpha level.
Introduction
Psychological Well-Being
Psychological well-being (PWB) is a dynamic and multidimensional construct. One of
the most widely-accepted conceptualizations is that of Carol Ryff. Ryff had identified six
components of psychological well-being: autonomy, environmental mastery, personal
growth, positive relations, purpose in life, and self-acceptance (Seifert, 2005; Ryff, n.d.).
Autonomy is defined as independence in thinking and decision-making. Environmental
mastery is the ability to manipulate and control ones environment to get things done.
Being open to new experiences to achieve ones potential points to personal growth.
while being capable of establishing deep satisfying relationship with others is reflective
of positive relations. Purpose in life involves having goals that one works for and that
which give meaning to his or her existence. Self-acceptance is feeling positive about who
one is and about ones past.
There is a need to understand employees well-being because psychological well-being
can be considered an important aspect of an employees overall health. Business Process
Outsourcing (BPO) companies need to look into the welfare of their employees as part of
their moral and legal obligations to their workers as well as to boost productivity and
Psychological Correlates of Stress Auman, Osorio, Yap and Ong l 71
profit. The value of psychological well-being is also prevalent in different areas in life.
This study intends to examine psychological well-beings relation with stress in work.
For example, one source of stress could be the inability to handle multiple stimuli from
the work environment. An adequate sense of environmental mastery enables one to
become resourceful in dealing with such stimuli, whereas low environmental mastery
may lead to being overwhelmed by them. Therefore, it seems that the more
psychologically well a person is, the more optimal the functioning and the lesser the
vulnerability to stressful stimuli would be.
Stress
Stress has controversial and ambiguous definitions in the field of psychology (Woolfolk,
Lehrer, & Allen, 2007). Basically, stress as a psychological concept implies a stimulus
and/or a context of discomfort, which evolves into a perceived threat. Stress is naturally
resisted as a human instinct, but if chronic, leads to exhaustion of mental and physical
resources (McGrady, 2007). This is best exemplified by Hans Selyes (as cited in
Woolfolk, Lehrer, & Allen, 2007) work in which three stages of stress response were
outlined: the alarm, adaptive-resistance, and exhaustion stages. Stress therefore cannot
merely be seen as that which causes discomfort or even as merely the gestalt experience
of discomfort and threat. Stress cannot be separated from the individuals response to said
factor or context of discomfort/threat, which is why works related to the study of stress
also address stress management or strategies for coping (e.g., Lehrer, Woolfolk, & Sime,
2007).
Because of the broad nature of this concept, stress can be seen and studied in almost all
aspects of life. One such fertile area is stress as manifested in organizations.
Organizational stress or work stress is a response to stimuli present on the job that leads
to negative consequences, physical or psychological, to the people exposed to them
(Manchinsky, as cited in Osorio, 2008, p. 1). The key factor in the definition is the fact
that negative consequences can affect performance, and therefore productivity. The basic
concepts of a general definition are still present here, with all the alarm and resistance
and later exhaustion components experienced, but the point here is that work output
suffers. Various stimuli on the job that can cause stress may stem from interoffice
conflict, work overload, wrong motivation in entering the job (Ivancevich, Konopaske, &
Matteson, 2005).
The work itself may lead to the stress experience rather than any single peripheral factors
present in that job. For instance, performing the job duties and responsibilities
themselves can be stressful rather than the work shift schedule. The totality or gestalt of
the work itself may be more important, rather than the sum of individual stressful
components at work. However, relational factors such as a workers belief about what
they give to their employer and what they can expect in return can also be a source of
stress (Rousseau, as cited in Briner, 2000). The importance of studying stress in
organizational settings comes from Osorios (2008) contention that stress has a powerful
impact on work performance. Competitive environments may induce psychological
perception of threat and physiological arousal caused by negative emotions. These
negative emotions in turn are caused by thoughts of possible failure (Davis, Sime, &
Robertson, 2007). Thus this would result to poorer outcome or performance than would
be expected.
Coping is as complicated a term as the strenuous effort to define stress (Judge, 2009).
Stress may not have a direct relationship with well-being, but may be moderated by how
people cope with stress. Essentially, coping in psychology refers to how people approach
and handle stressful events. There are three acknowledged general coping styles verified
by numerous efforts (e.g., Folkman & Lazarus, as cited in Judge, 2009; Frydenberg &
Lewis, as cited in Judge, 2009). The first coping style is problem-focused coping,
referring to behaviors done to directly deal with the source of stress (Ivancevich,
Konopaske, & Matteson, 2005). For instance an employee who failed to meet
performance quota may work extra shift to accomplish it. However, Filipinos as a group
tend not to employ individual behaviors in problem-resolution. One must also realize that
Filipino identity is familial rather than individual (Enriquez, 1998). Therefore, problem-
focused coping may manifest as an employee seeking the help of relatives in solving a
problem related to work.
Emotion-focused coping is another coping style employed to deal with stressful
feelings/emotions (Ivancevich, Konopaske, & Matteson, 2005). With this coping style,
the person approaches a stressful situation by looking for activities to alleviate the
unwanted emotions. Thus, the person does not deal with the problem head-on, but with
the emotions accompanying the problem. Thus, applied to the Filipino setting, the main
assumption relies once again on the familial identity of the Filipino. An employee may
pour out his/her emotions regarding occupational stressors to the family or close friends.
Emotions attached to problems then are experienced in a type of shared group empathy.
The last coping style is avoidance (Ciccarelli, 2008). Avoidance as a coping style points
to the use of ignoring or evasion of the perceived problem. A worker utilizing avoidance
would probably procrastinate doing the work to delay facing the issues surrounding it or
be absent to shun problems found in the work setting. Support networks (i.e., family and
friends) can also provide company and opportunity for the employee to exercise
avoidance as coping mechanism. The person may adopt more than one coping style at
any given time for a single problem. For instance, a person may choose both emotion-
focused and avoidance styles of coping to deal with one problem. For a more culturally-
sensitive example, the Filipino employee is most likely to ventilate feelings in the
presence of sympathetic colleagues and family members, and go out to carouse.
Method
Participants
Participants are 118 BPO workers consisting of 56 males and 62 females, selected
through purposive sampling from different BPO companies in Metro Cebu. Participants
ranged in age from 19 to 46 years old with mean age of 26.86 (SD=4.99). Majority (75)
of them hails from Cebu province and the rest hail from other provinces in the Visayas
and Mindanao. Around 74 percent reported that they are single, 21 percent are married, 3
percent are living-in with their partners and 2 percent reported that they are separated
from their spouse. Out of the 118 participants, majority worked in call center companies.
The rest came from companies that provide multiple services, medical transcription, back
office jobs, software development, animation, and digital content.
Instruments
There were three questionnaires used in this component: the psychological well-being
scale (PWB scale; Ryff, 1989), occupational stress inventory (OSI; Greenberg, 2008),
and a researcher-made questionnaire measuring social support, impact of BPO work to
their family, and coping styles.
To measure the psychological well-being of the participants, the researchers developed an
adaptation of the PWB scale by Carol Ryff (1989). The PWB is a self-report scale that
measures psychological well-being along the six dimensions of autonomy, environmental
mastery, personal growth, positive relations, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. The
scale includes items which are worded both positively (e.g., I have been able to create a
lifestyle for myself that is much to my liking.) and negatively (e.g., It's difficult for me
to voice my opinions on controversial matters.) in every dimension. Participants are to
rate statements from 1 to 6 with 1 being strongly disagree and 6 as strongly agree.
Validity of the foreign scale for local use was established by pre-testing it with a sample
of 86 BPO workers. As a result of the inter-item correlational analysis of the data, ten
items from the original scale were dropped due to their weak correlation and conceptual
connection with the other items in light of the Cebuano, or perhaps, the larger Filipino
context. These items are also among the items found by Ryff (1989) to have weak
correlation with the other items in cross-cultural validation studies. The new 32-item
scale yielded an acceptable Cronbachs alpha of .845.
For occupational stress, the occupational stress inventory by Jerrold S. Greenberg (2008)
was used. It is a scale designed to measure general occupational stress. It contains items
such as I feel unclear about just what the scope and responsibilities of my job are. Each
item is rated by the participants according to the frequency of occurrence of each
statement given in the test from 1 = never to 5 = nearly all the time.
The third questionnaire was meant to measure social support, impact of BPO work to
their family, and coping styles. It contains a combination of checklist type questions
(e.g., As an employee of a BPO industry what social support, if any, is available to you?
Please mark the appropriate box.) and open-ended questions (e.g., What is your biggest
difficulty in the workplace?).
Results
Of the 118 participants, only 108 answered the Occupational Stress scale completely, and
they are found to have a relatively low level of occupational stress (M=32.44, SD=7.06).
For psychological well-being (PWB), only 114 participants answered the scale
completely, and they obtained a mean score of 149.87 (SD=15.15), which indicates a
relatively high PWB. Those who did not answer the PWB scale completely were not
included in the analysis.
On the average, participants have three sources of social support available to them. Most
of these were co-employees, friends, and family. Figure 1 shows the distribution of the
participants in terms of the social support they have.
Figure 1. Sources of social support available to participants.
Results show that participants use different coping styles in dealing with occupational
stress. It can be seen in Figure 2 that majority (n=46) employ problem-focused coping
(solve problem) while quite a large number (n=25) use a combination of two or three
different coping styles when dealing with problems. Only a handful (n=5) employ
avoidance coping while there are eight who cope with stress in other unspecified ways.
Figure 2. Coping styles of participants.
Other than psychological well-being and coping style, the researchers also explored other
factors that may be related to stress (i.e. gender on stress and psychological well-being).
Comparison of means reveals that occupational stress is significantly higher among
women (M=33.67, SD=6.86) than among men (M=31, SD=7.09), t(106)= -1.99, two-
tailed, p=.049. Meanwhile, no significant difference in PWB was found between women
(M=149.61, 13.85) and men (M=150.15, SD=16.57), t(112)=.188, two-tailed, p=.851.
Table 1 below presents the mean comparison for occupational stress and PWB by
relationship status of the participants. Non-single participants include those who currently
have a partner or are married; otherwise, they are categorized as single. The result of the
analysis below shows that there is no significant difference between single and non-single
participants in occupational stress and PWB with p>.05 in both analyses.
Table 1
Comparison of Mean PWB and Occupational Stress by Relationship Status
Single Non-Single Comparing Means
Variable M SD n M SD N T df p
Stress 32.75 6.11 80 31.54 9.35 28 .782 106 .436
PWB 149.22 14.75 83 151.62 16.31 31 -.750 112 .455
To analyze for the difference in PWB and occupational stress among the different BPO
categories, a one-way analysis of variance was done. Results of the analysis are presented
in Tables 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Presented in Table 2 are the mean stress levels of BPO workers by category. To note, the
non-call center category is a combination of all other BPO companies (namely, Back
Office, Medical Transcription, Legal Transcription, Animation, Software Development,
Engineering Design, and Digital Content) from where only few participants came, so
grouped together to enable valid statistical analysis of data. It appears from Table 2 that
non-call center workers have the highest occupational stress (M=32.89, SD=7.81) among
the three categories of employees. However, analysis of variance (see Table 3) shows
that the difference among the three is not significant, F(3, 105)=.362, p=.687. This
implies that BPO workers are generally experiencing the same level of occupational
stress regardless of the nature of the BPO company they are in.
Table 2
Descriptive Statistics for Occupational Stress of Participants by BPO Category
BPO category n M SD
Call center 43 32.63 5.91
Non-call center 39 32.89 7.81
Multiple services 26 31.42 7.06
Table 3
Summary of ANOVA for Occupational Stress by BPO Category
Source of variation SS df MS F P
Between groups 36.56 3 18.28 .362 .687
Within groups 5299.98 105 50.48
Total 5336.55 107
The results presented in Tables 4 and 5 are the comparisons of mean PWB among the
BPO categories. As can be seen in Table 4, it initially appears that non-call center
workers have the lowest PWB compared to the other two categories. However, as with
occupational stress, analysis of variance shows no significant difference among the three
categories in PWB, F(2, 111) = .935, p = .399. This implies that the participants from the
different BPO categories have generally the same level of PWB.
Table 4
Descriptive Statistics for PWB of Participants by BPO Category
BPO category n M SD
Call center 42 151.55 16.45
Non-call center 43 147.39 14.30
Multiple services 29 151.10 14.43
Table 5
Summary of ANOVA for PWB by BPO Category
Source of variation SS df MS F P
Between groups 425.65 2 212.83 .935 .399
Within groups 25527.37 111 229.98
Total 25953.06 113
The possible role of age in susceptibility to occupational stress or the ability to deal with
stressors was examined. Correlational analysis indicated that there is no significant
relationship between age and occupational stress, r = -105, p>.05. Likewise, age was
found to have no significant relationship with PWB, r = .119, p>.05.
Another aim of this research is to investigate whether the number of social support
options available to BPO workers is a factor that could influence their PWB and
occupational stress. Social support options include co-employees, romantic partner,
friends, family, external organizations (e.g., civic, religious), among others. Tables 6 and
7 show the results of the analysis concerning PWB while Tables 8 and 9 show the results
related to stress.
Table 6 shows that participants with varying number of social support options differed as
well in their level of PWB. However, analysis of variance as shown in Table 7 indicates
that the difference in PWB is not significant, which implies that number of social support
options has no relationship with PWB, F(4, 107) = .653, p = .626.
Table 6
Descriptive Statistics for PWB of Participants by Number of Available Social Support
Number of available
social support
N M SD
One 20 146.50 15.79
Two 14 146.71 13.62
Three 32 150.97 13.17
Four 34 150.94 17.07
Five 12 153.67 16.86
Table 7
Summary of ANOVA for PWB by Number of Available Social Support
Source of
variation
SS df MS F P
Between groups 616.90 4 154.23 .653 .626
Within groups 25269.38 107 236.16
Total 25886.28 111
As mentioned previously, Tables 8 and 9 present the results for the differences in the
level of occupational stress experienced by the participants based on their available
number of social support systems. Table 8 shows the mean scores of occupational stress
experienced by the respondents. It shows that those who have at least four available
social support options have the highest level of occupational stress while those who have
two social support options have the least.
Table 8
Descriptive Statistics for Occupational Stress by Number of Available Social Support
Number of available
social support
n M SD
One 18 31.89 7.47
Two 13 29.23 6.75
Three 30 30.80 7.15
Four 33 35.36 5.95
Five 12 31.83 7.54
To analyze if there is a significant difference among the means (presented in table 10), a
one-way analysis of variance was done. As presented in the result below the f ratio is
2.69 (p < .05), which means the there is significant difference among the means presented
in Table 9. To analyze further, a post hoc test was done to identify which of the means
significantly differs.
Table 9
Summary of ANOVA for Occupational Stress by Number of Available Social Support
Source of
variation
SS Df MS F p
Between groups 505.26 4 126.31 2.69 .035
Within groups 4736.19 101 46.89
Total 5241.44 105
Post hoc analysis, using LSD test shows that occupational stress experienced by
respondents who gave two available social support systems (M = 29.23) and those who
gave three social supports available (M = 30.80), have significantly lower occupational
stress compared to those who answered that they have four different social supports
available (M = 35.36).
As already mentioned previously, the next table compares PWB and occupational stress
based on coping styles. The means presented in Table 10 are the PWB scores of the
participants. The four participants who used avoidance coping were excluded in the
analysis of variance because of their small number, which would render the analysis
invalid.
Table 10
Descriptive Statistics for PWB by Coping Style
Coping style n M SD
Problem-focused 45 149.13 14.37
Emotion-focused 19 150.05 12.51
Avoidance 4 155.50 16.18
Multiple styles 24 148.13 14.60
Others 8 149.66 15.23
Table 11 shows the analysis for significant difference among the mean PWB scores. With
p<.05 and the F ratio of .394, this implies that there is no significant difference in PWB
among participants using different coping styles. Coping style is, therefore, not a factor
that influences PWB scores.
Table 11
Summary of ANOVA for PWB by Coping Style
Source of
variation
SS Df MS F p
Between groups 318.79 4 79.70 .394 .812
Within groups 19211.65 95 202.23
Total 19530.44 99
Table 12 presents the descriptive statistics for occupational stress based on the
participants responses in coping styles. Again, the results of two of the categories cannot
be included in this interpretation, since very few respondents opted for those choices. It
appears that those who opted for the multiple coping styles have the highest
occupational stress (M = 34.00), followed by those who have chosen problem solving
coping style (M=33.28). Those who opted for feel better or emotional focused coping
have the least (M = 30.74) occupational stress.
Table 12
Descriptive Statistics for Occupational Stress by Coping Style
Coping style n M SD
Problem-focused 43 33.28 6.54
Emotion-focused 19 30.74 6.06
Avoidance 5 32.20 6.14
Multiple styles 19 34.00 8.34
Others 8 30.25 7.63
The analysis of variance presented below for occupational stress and coping styles
obtained an F = .876 and p > .05, which means that there is no significant difference
among the rates of occupational stress based on coping styles.
The analysis of variance below for occupational stress and coping styles produced a
negative result. With F = .876 and p>.05 it is suitable to say that there is no significant
difference among the rates of occupational stress based on coping styles.
Table 13
Summary of ANOVA for Occupational Stress by Coping Style
Source of variation SS df MS F p
Between groups 168.00 4 42.00 .876 .482
Within groups 4266.64 89 47.94
Total 4434.64 93
Aside from analyzing for significant differences based on the different coping styles, the
main problem for this research is to look for the relationship between PWB and
occupational stress. Table 14 shows the simple bivariate correlations.
Table 14
Bivariate Correlation between PWB Dimensions and Occupational Stress
Variable Total
PWB
(1)
Autonomy
(2)
Environmental
mastery
(3)
Personal
growth
(4)
Positive
relations
(5)
Purpose
in life
(6)
Self-
acceptance
(7)
Occupational
stress
(8)
1 --- .660** .644** .754** .487** .772** .735** -.460**
2 --- .430** .377** .146 .337** .335** -.250**
3 --- .328** .217* .392** .353** -.312**
4 --- .476** .531** .460** -.285**
5 --- .268** .253** -.203*
6 --- .595** -.373**
7 --- -.501**
8 ---
Note: *p<.05; **p<.01
The result of the bivariate correlation analysis, shows that occupational stress is
significantly (p<.05) correlated with total PWB. Occupational stress is negatively
correlated to PWB having a Pearson correlation coefficient of -.460 significant at .01.
Specifically, all of the dimensions of PWB are significantly correlated with occupational
stress as well. The self-acceptance dimension has the highest intensity (r = -.501,
signiIicant at .01), Iollowed by purpose in liIe (r -.373, signiIicant at .01).
Environmental mastery comes in next (r = -.312, signiIicant at .01) and then personal
growth (r = -.285, signiIicant at .01), autonomy (r -.250, signiIicant at .01) and
positive relations (r = -.203, signiIicant at .05) dimensions wrap the entire analysis
up. Based on this result, it appears that the lower ones PWB rating is, the higher the
occupational stress will be.
An exploratory analysis was done on whether the relationship of occupational stress and
PWB is moderated by social support using a Moderation probe script (Hayes and
Matthes, 2009). The results showed an R
2
of .2748 with p<.05 in the regression model.
But further analysis indicates that social support does not moderate the relationship of
PWB and occupational stress significantly. Table 17 shows the summary for the
moderation effect analysis. It can be likened to the coefficients table in a regression
analysis, but it has the additional output of interaction. The interaction indicates if there is
a significant connection between the focal predictor (PWB) used and the moderating
variable (social support).
Table 15
Moderating Effect Analysis for Social Support, PWB, and Occupational Stress
b Se t p
Constant 79.79 16.15 4.94 .0000
PWB -.35 .11 -3.18 .0020
Social support -3.87 4.74 -.82 .4160
Interaction .04 .03 1.11 .2690
As shown in Table 15 above, the p value for the interaction between the two independent
variables (having PWB as focal predictor and social support as moderator) is greater than
.05 and therefore is not significant. This means that PWB and social support have no
combined effect on occupational stress.
Implications
The low level of stress among BPO workers is in contrast to that found by Marquez
(2006) in her work among call center workers in India. Marquez (2006) discovered that
call center workers suffer high levels of stress. She cited poor working conditions and the
high pressure to produce excellent work output. Lin, Chen, and Lu (2009) even found
that operators at Taiwan telecommunication call centers suffer physical discomfort due to
job stress. There may be a cultural factor involved that may be uniquely Filipino. In a
local study by Hechanova (2009), she found that 50 percent of call center workers are
thinking of leaving their job within the year. She suggested that this mentality may be due
to age, career commitment, burnout, satisfaction with pay, boss, promotions, job
responsibilities, firm management and promotion. However, this could also be one
reason why BPO workers here in the Philippines experience less stress. The thought that
they can easily find another BPO company to work for may give them some peace of
mind despite difficulty in their current job and thus enables them to tolerate stress. In
another study, on stress and teaching performance among Filipino (specifically Cebuano)
teachers, Osorio (2008) found low level of stress among these professionals. Her
findings, along with the current studys results, may be a manifestation of threat appraisal
idiosyncracies unique to the Filipino psyche.
The Filipinos appraisal of stressful situations may be influenced by bahala na view of
life. Enriquez (1994) views this as a readiness for whatever consequence may come his or
her way after having done everything that he or she perceivably can. While others tend
to view bahala na negatively, such as equating it to fatalism, the present study appears to
support Enriquezs confrontational perspective of the construct. In this vein, the Filipino
worker, despite the stressful job environment, may exert his or her best effort for as long
as he or she is able to. Thereafter, he or she may adopt a come-what-may attitude and
become less vulnerable to stress-inducing stimuli.
However, this study found that women tend to be more stressed out than men. This is in
line with findings by Matud (2004) and Lin et al. (2009). Matud (2004) stated that even
though men and women experienced the same types and number of life events, women
tend to perceive these events as more negative and that they have less control over these
events as opposed to men. Women may have a different cognitive schema compared to
men regarding locus of control. This may stem from the heteropatriarchal nature of
modern society, whereby female workers are relatively new to the field and must wrestle
with the tension between success as defined as a homemaker and success as defined in
the previously all-male field of business.
Another possible reason for why women experienced more stress is through the
phenomena such as the mommy track is quite observable, in which dual roles as
mothers and office employees are considered as a difficult juggling act by modern
women. Lin et al. (2009) provided another layer to female work stress, stating that
women tend to complain about higher prevalence of physical discomfort all over the
body compared to their male colleagues. This could indicate that the significantly
heightened level of stress experienced by women in the workplace may have
physiological consequences which may not be given attention even by women
themselves.
According to Keyes, Shmotkin, and Ryff (2002), PWB is the perceived thriving of an
individual in relation to lifes existential challenges. With this definition, the respondents
moderate level of PWB indicates a relatively healthy manner of approaching lifes
problems.
As psychological well-being increases, stress appears to decrease. This is in line with
studies regarding PWB (e.g., Keyes, Shmotkin, & Ryff, 2002). PWB appears to indicate
that an individual is able to negotiate and manage challenges, both external and internal.
Thus, it is understandable that a person with high PWB would logically possess lower
levels of stress. Further analysis (not presented in the result section) showed that among
the dimensions of PWB, self-acceptance appears to be the only significant predictor for
stress. According to Ryff (n.d.), self-acceptance refers to the individuals ability to accept
his or her strengths and weaknesses. In relation to the BPO workers job, the employee
would not be affected should his or her supervisor or client criticize his or her work due
to the employees high level of self-knowledge. In effect, the employee says in response
to disparagement, I know my strengths and my weaknesses. I accept that I was wrong or
incompetent in the performance of this aspect of my job. Thus, the situation is no longer
perceived to be stressful.
However, an interesting finding of this study is that as social support increases, stress also
appears to increase. This finding is actually understandable given the cultural context of
this study. While social support in a collectivist culture may seem to be an all-positive
phenomenon, this also opens up opportunities wherein boundaries between individuals
and even between families and clans get blurred. In the family systems theory, these said
boundaries are invisible barriers that allow an individual privacy and space to develop his
or her own person instead of constantly being molded through incessant interference and
influences from outside forces (Nichols & Schwartz, 2007).
In collectivist cultures, the so-called familism prevalent in society blurs the boundary
between family members and results in an undifferentiated ego mass (Nichols &
Schwartz, 2007). This means that the family as an entity takes on a life of its own while
its members become unable to act independently from that ego mass directives. Thus,
the social support a family provides can also stifle at the same time. In many respondents
cases, the social system that provides the support is also dependent on the finances that
the BPO worker brings in. Thus, the BPO worker feels pressured to do well in his or her
job either for simple job security or for promotion (and therefore higher pay). Social
support systems also provide informational support, giving advice or providing
suggestions and directions (Ivancevich, Konopaske, & Matteson, 2005). This
informational support may not actually be perceived as supportive and may perhaps be
seen as pressure or expectations by the BPO worker, adding to whatever existing job
stress in his or her workplace. Its is also worthy to note the researches reviewed by
Eckenrode and Wethington (1990) as cited by Zarit, H., Pearlin, L., & Schaie, K. (2003)
that instead of immediately turning to significant others for support, an individual may
try to resolve problems on their own. When personal initiatives and resources proved to
be ineffective, the individual will eventually turn to significant others for support. Hence,
anticipating or receiving support from others may be viewed by researchers as a marker
of futile individual coping efforts. It appears in this light that when social support
increases, the individual may be confronted with his or her own inability to resolve
problems and that this may add to the stress experience. In another perspective, an
alternative explanation for the relationship between stress and social support is simply
that when people experience more stress, they may tend to seek out various support from
more people around them.
Thoits (1986) offered a more general perspective on the complex relationship between
social support and coping, not merely limited to the family situation. She stated that there
are various levels of social support, not all of which are useful for employment as coping
strategies. The most efficacious social support comes from those who can empathize with
the aggrieved. In other words, people who view a situation similarly with each other and
who feel the same way about the said situation tend to provide the most welcome social
support to each other.
In light of the above, it may be important therefore to look into the type of social support
networks and the nature of support they provide to the BPO workers to better understand
the relation between social support and stress. In line with Thoits perspective,
colleagues, for instance, may be better able to empathize with a BPO workers stressful
situation than family members or friends outside the industry. Also, the nature of support
given by the social support group may be more oriented towards emotion-focused coping
or avoidance rather than problem-focused coping, which is the coping style
predominantly used by the participants to deal with occupational stress. For example, an
available social support may offer a listening ear to a stressed BPO worker; while this
provides the worker with an emotional buffer, what may be more important to get the
worker out of the stressful situation is to get to the source of stress and find solutions to
eradicate it. Quantity of social support then may not be as important as who provides the
support and the kind of support given that is congruent with the individuals coping style.
Recommendations
1. BPO companies may consider enhancement of psychological well-being and
stress management in their programs for human resource development. Trainings
and seminars could be given to enhance PWB and subsequent evaluations of their
effectiveness be conducted to ensure that employees are psychologically well
enough to handle with stress at work.
2. BPO companies need to address concerns of women that may contribute to
greater stress. Further studies have to be conducted to identify the sources of
stress of women working in BPO companies. Development of programs
addressing these factors may be based on such studies.
3. Further studies are needed to explore other variables. Among them are stress
tolerance and socioeconomic status. It might also be interesting to look into the
differences among BPO categories in terms of psychological well-being and
occupational stress to determine if the nature of BPO work is related to these
variables.
4. It may also be interesting to examine the characteristic features of BPO
companies and determine if they have unique potential stressors that might not
have been represented in the occupational stress inventory used in the present
study.
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SPECIAL PAPER
U US SC C E En ng gl li is sh h a an nd d I IC CT T C Cu ur rr ri ic cu ul la a
Charity A. Tecson
Department of Languages and Literature
Introduction
his paper attempts to look into the English and ICT Curricula in the
University of San Carlos as a response to what has been stated in the chapter
on Academe and BPO Linkage: Matching Workforce Competencies, i.e. that
the BPO companies emphasized the need for a strong command of the
English language and an adequate knowledge of technology-based and ICT-related
activities in order to meet the demands of the highly dynamic BPO environment. This
section of the monograph looks into the curriculum of English and ICT offered in the
University of San Carlos as a preliminary step in addressing the general issues on English
and ICT skills pointed out by the respondents of the study. As a limitation, however, this
paper does not include a discussion on specific English and ICT needs and how these
needs might be addressed accordingly in the academic setting.
The USC English Curriculum
As revealed in the general thrusts in the objectives of the courses, the English curriculum
of the Department of Languages and Literature addresses the necessary English skills
needed by its clientele. The thrusts include: enhancement of the learners verbal and
written expression of the English language; development of students comprehension and
critical thinking skills through the use of selected stories and other materials; and
reinforcement of learners English language competence through various grammar
exercises. Grammar is given more emphasis in both English 1 and 2, writing in English
4/23 and 21, while speaking in English 3 and Speech 61.
The course content for English 1 and 2 includes topics that address reading, speaking,
writing and grammar needs. Stories which are mostly classics are the main materials
utilized to address reading needs. These selected stories are thoroughly explored through
comprehension exercises, vocabulary and other dynamics. A number of grammar
activities are also provided to the language learners. These grammar activities are allotted
longer hours in the discussions and classroom activities. Writing though is not given so
much emphasis in English 1 and 2.
English 3 which is Oral-Aural Communication Arts focuses on lessons in phonetics and
listening. The production of sounds through various oral exercises is given the most
emphasis in this course, and listening comes next. In this manner, language learners are
expected to enhance their oral communication skills especially on delivery which
includes not only pronunciation but also confidence in speaking.
USC English and ICT Curricula Tecson l 89
Speech 61, a course in Public Speaking highlights on building language learners speech
delivery skills through the discussions on the concepts in Public Speaking and the
application of theories through various speech activities.
English 4/23, a course on College Composition and Research Paper/Technical Writing in
the undergraduate level teaches students the principles involved in conducting research.
The learners are trained to conduct their own research and produce a research paper at the
end of the course. The language skill in focus is writing. Thus, students writing at the
end of the semester is expected to improve.
English 21 or Business Correspondence aims to teach students how to function
effectively in the world of business communication. This course enables students to
communicate in writing and speaking. Writing business documents specifically business
letters is given more emphasis in this course, thus trains students to write effective
business papers.
The mentioned English courses are the service courses taken by the students of the
University of San Carlos. The different colleges vary in the number of English units they
require from the students. Most of these colleges include 9-12 units of English in the
four-year degree programs.
In general, the English curriculum in the University of San Carlos is designed in such a
manner that the four macro skills in language are addressed.
The USC ICT Curriculum
The ICT curriculum in the university addresses the basic and advance computer skills
needed by the clientele. The general thrusts of the course objectives are: Computer
Operations, Advanced Computer Programming, Creating Application Programs,
Database Analysis, Presentation Skills, Management Skills, Data Communication and
Networking, Systems Analysis, Web Application and Multimedia Skills.
IT 11:Computer Operations enables students to learn the basic computer devices, and
acquire the necessary skills in operating a computer through the study of Windows
Operating Systems, MS-DOS, Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint. This is the course
taken by all students from the different colleges in the university.
IT 16: Advanced Programming teaches learners the advance programming concepts and
algorithms. This course is designed to develop students analytical and logical thinking
through advanced methods of algorithms and programming techniques.
IT 21 & 26: Data Structures and Algorithms 1 and 2 intend for students to understand the
concept of Abstract Data Type (ADT) as a powerful tool in designing programs, and to
acquire skills in formulating correct and reliable programs using the best data
representation and algorithms for a given problem. Furthermore, these courses help
students to develop a simple database application with Insert, Delete and Retrieve
operations, wherein the different concepts of aggregating related data objects and
efficient algorithms are applied.
IT 27: File Organization and Processing introduces to students the necessary background
in creating application programs and primary designs. The students through the topics
discussed will also know the different tools used in organizing files, and at the same time
learn to develop correct and reliable programs using the best data representation in
external memory. In addition, skills in presentation are enhanced.
IT 31: Database management Systems 1 and 2 emphasize on contexts in which databases
are developed, showing the role of database analysis and design in the total development
process. It specifically addresses information systems (IS) planning and the development
of enterprise data models from planning matrices and other outputs of IS planning.
Students will also note modelling organizational data with emphasis given to the widely
used entity-relationship (ERD) notation. Students will at the same time experience
writing and executing Oracle SQL statements.
IT 32: Switching Theory and Logic Design is a course in digital logic. This course
provides the students with the basic knowledge of the concepts of Boolean Algebra, a
mathematical tool used in the analysis and design of digital logic. This course also trains
students to design simple interface and their corresponding device drivers. Furthermore,
learners are able to analyze and troubleshoot simple digital systems common in the
industries.
IT 33: Presentation Skills in Information Technology is a course geared towards
developing the capabilities of students in presentation, graphics, and multimedia
software, and technical writing. Students are trained to analyze and prepare reference
guide, manuals, equipment, and systems specifications, technical proposals and other
technical documents.
IT 41: Systems Analysis/ IT 51: Software Engineering focus on the initial phases of the
systems development life cycle (SDLC) - planning and analysis. The courses aim to
internalize and practice the concepts through actual cases and actual projects for IT 41
and preparation for actual work in systems analysis for IT 51.
IT 47: Management Information System highlights on creating and disseminating
information. It presents clear descriptions of procedures, approaches, techniques, expert
systems, connectivity, MIS planning development and implementation.
CS 54: Oracle Database Administration teaches students the proper administration of
databases. Furthermore, the learners also gain knowledge on Oracle 8 database software
architecture.
IT 57: Web Applications Development is a course designed to give students ample
background of the internet, and client and server scripting. In addition, students gain
confidence in learning new HTML, Java Script, VB Script, and ASP Script specifications
and related developments.
IT 64: Basic Multimedia is an introductory course on the basic tools used in multimedia
production. Learners are taught lay-outing and storyboarding, Adobe Photoshop, sound-
editing and video-editing.
The courses above are the offerings of the Math and Computer Science Department in the
university to its IT majors. The students from the other colleges take 3 or 6 units in
computer, depending on the requirements of the college for the different fields of studies.
The descriptions of the ICT courses clearly show an extensive approach of ICT learning
in the university.
Discussion
Despite the comprehensive curriculum in both English and ICT, the researcher still
acknowledges the demands of the research participants in terms of English Language
Proficiency and ICT skills. Perhaps, the next step should involve looking into other
factors that may contribute to students learning such as the length of time or number of
hours spent in the study of English and ICT; the number of English and ICT courses that
should be included in the general education curriculum; specific topics that should be
included in the English and ICT curriculum; teaching methodologies and strategies; and
other relevant features that affect learning.
Recommendations
On Curriculum Revision
x Enrich course contents by reinforcing communication dynamics that further
augment English Language Proficiency, and comprehension and analytical skills.
x Constantly update course contents in both English and ICT courses.
x Use more authentic and relevant learning materials as springboard for discussions
thus promote higher interest in language learning.
x Apply more innovative teaching strategies and methodologies in the teaching of
the English language and ICT.
x Create enhancement programs for both English and ICT skills.
For Administrators
x Require a 5-unit English Plus (before enrolling in English 1) to students who do
not reach 65% in their English Proficiency Entrance Exam.
x Augment number of units in the English requirements in all colleges.
x Lessen number of students in English classes for a more individualized teaching
and learning.
For Further Research
x Conduct an assessment of the English Language Proficiency and ICT skills of the
USC graduates in the BPO industries, and determine what specific language areas
and ICT skills they still need to improve on.
x Conduct a further study in collaboration with the BPO companies to address
specific language needs and hone ICT skills.
Other Recommendations
It is also recommended that a representative from the BPO Industry also go over
the English and ICT Curriculum and come up with his/her assessment on the courses
offered in the University of San Carlos, thus validate further or perhaps invalidate the
claims of the assessment of the insider.
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