The thin supply of talented workforce remains a crucial issue especially for a fast growing industry. The Philippine business process outsourcing industry is said to have a shortage when it comes to the supply of savvy and eligible manpower. For instance, call centers are maximizing efforts in order to retain talent as turnover becomes a growing problem in this service-oriented industry. It has always been reiterated in various researches that there is a shallow talent pool for Philippine BPOs. Worse, the increasing attrition rate aggravates such condition. Statistics would show that the industry has a relatively high attrition rate of 20 percent annually compared to other industries which experience turn-over in a low single digit. Fifty-one percent of those who leave call centers eventually leave the industry for good.

The high level of attrition rate can be attributed to employee dissatisfaction. This issue lies on the fact that business firms like BPOs are naturally inclined to cut costs. A back clash happens when employees' compensation and overall working conditions are the ones hit by cost-cutting. Hence, as a reasonable reaction, it would be understandable that talented employees leave after a considerable time of working due to dissatisfaction and their dire need for better opportunities. For this reason, it won't be difficult to address such problem.

RP call centers were told to go beyond cost saving by the Call Center Association of the Philippines. Asia-Pacific Research also reminds them to convert themselves from doing cost-saving options into a primary avenue for revenue generation. In this case, it would just be a matter of strengthening company services like sales and consultancy particularly their customer care team.

Other suggestions are the following: the industry needs a culture that people would want to be a part of; call center offices need to have gyms, spas, rest areas and the like to take care of employees; and company policies may adopt more flexible working conditions like having home-based agents.

Those are just some of the suggestions that may benefit the industry and curb the issue on attrition. Perhaps, if these are properly practiced and applied, I don't think companies will still lose grip of their talented employees. After all, these are not meant to merely benefit the employees alone. Rather, they are ultimately meant to boost the outsourcing industry in the end.