To solve the shortage of human resources with BPO! Proposal to review the business process and utilize teleworkers.

Due to the decrease of working population recently, many companies are running short of human resources. The clue to solve this problem is to review the business process and to introduce BPO to take advantage of teleworkers.

Let’s take a look at the current situation, the causes and the measures of the shortage of human resources, the way of reviewing the business process, the utilization of BPO, teleworkers’ activities and recommended BPO company in details.

The current situation and the causes of the shortage of human resources.

Firstly we will look at the current situation and the reasons why the shortage of human resources has not been resolved.

The shortage of human resources due to declining working population caused by low birth rate and aging population

The babies who were born in the period when the declining birth rate began to be a social problem have reached the age that one can work. Additionally, talented employees retire because of aging and they are excluded from the working population. As a result of these, the problem of labor shortage has came to the surface in many companies.

Unable to secure human resources even if we provide a job offer

According to the survey by Teikoku Databank, Ltd. published in 2018 (*1), 52.5% of companies have the shortage of full-time employees, it marks highest record ever at this point.

The turnover rate of new graduates is also high. 39.3% of high school graduates and 31.8% of university graduates leave their job within three years after their graduation (*2).

Many companies are experiencing dramatic changes of their duties that people used to have done by utilizing system development and technology. So, this current situation, the companies cannot secure the human resources they want, has been revealed.

(*1) The survey of corporate attitudes toward the labor shortage by Teikoku Databank, Ltd. October 2018.

(*2) The transition of turnover rate within 3 years after the employment sorted by educational background, published by Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.

Solution for the labor shortage

Each company always work on to find the solution of the shortage of human resources as an constant issue because many companies are suffering from this problem.

Let’s see the details of which specific measures have been taken.

Utilization of IT to increase work efficiency

Utilizing IT makes it possible to simplify duties and eliminate unnecessary processes such as holding the meeting for another meeting repeatedly.

Moreover, utilizing SNS or cloud services it is expected to visualize each other’s tasks and employees can cope with the work smoothly.

Expanding employment of women and seniores

There may be situations where regular employees have to stop working. For example, certain number of women tend to take care of children or elderly.

In addition, there are potential human resources in the senior generation who still want to make use of their long career, although they have already retired their job.

The recruitment to utilize such talents is being expanding.

The review of business process

When we seek for the working style to solve the shortage of human resources, “reviewing the business process” is indispensable.

You connect the works like a chain as one flow, then you add various assumptions there. It transforms the work into that of anyone can operate in the same way.

Let’s see the specific contents.

Visualization of work process

Visualizing business by utilizing IT or SNS allows people who involved in this work to have common understanding of it.

Since various tasks can be checked, it is possible to aim at extracting useless operations, checking and improvement, and reducing wasteful cost.

Manual preparation

If you want to improve work efficiency, it is important to have a “manual” of the task so that everyone can deal with in the same way.

Once the business process is organized and improved, it must be incorporated into the manual each time and create an working environment to share it. It effectively realizes efficiency of the work.

Utilization of BPO

Now, let’s check for what kind of business you can adopt BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) in case when you want to use it, including its advantages and disadvantages.

Outline of BPO

BPO means that a company outsources part of the business to an outside professional company.

The business contents are different depends on companies. The scope of outsourcing can vary likewise; outsourcing all the task from business planning, operation to management, or outsourcing only one part of the process. In addition, using BPO enables not only cost reduction but also to focus on the task that can only be done by the company itself so that it becomes possible to enhance business quality.

The work that can be outsourced to BPO

The work that can be outsourced to BPO is different depending on companies.

To give an example, back office task for general affairs and human resources, call centers, information system operations, engineering, delivery, distribution, and website management and so on.

The advantages of introducing BPO

By outsourcing to highly specialized BPO, you can not only boosting cost efficiency but also solving the shortage of human resources and reducing the costs of new employment. It will realize the cost management without wasteful expenses.

As a result, you will be able to focus on your own unique core business and to maintain the superior quality of the business. It shall contribute to commercial success.

The disadvantages to be assumed at the time of introduction

When you utilize BPO system, it is necessary to carefully consider outsourcing costs. Because if you introduce BPO system with unclear outsourcing expenses, there is a risk that you have to pay the cost in unexpected points.

Each company determines the price for their outsourcing service. So before its introduction, it is important to clarify specific figures such as which duties are outsourced to BPO, how much is the budget.

The current situation of increasing number of teleworker

Recently, the way of work as teleworkers and remote workers are attracting public attention, and the number of companies which adopt the “telework system” has increased.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has established the “Guidelines for the Proper Implementation of Work at Home” and it is positioned as one of the essential elements of work style reform.

Let’s see the circumstances that number of teleworkers are growing and its background.

The change of lifestyle by parenting

One of the factors attributes to the increasing female teleworkers is the problem of how to keep a balance of parenting and work. As is represented by the issue of “children on the waiting-list of preschool” in Japan, there are a certain number of women who have to give up on their careers because they are not able to find a place in any preschool for their children by the end of their parental leave.

Therefore, as one of the options for working while raising children, they choose telework which provides a style of “continue working at home”.

The balancing of work and nursing care

The nursing care is a familiar matter in Japanese aging society, there are a lot of workers trying to manage their careers while doing the continuous nursery care at home. In this kind of case, it is effective to choose telework that is unnecessary to go to the office everyday and they do not need to give up on their career.

It can support various way of life flexibly

 Telework often allows you to manage time and place of work at your own discretion.

In some cases, you can even work for a company which is based in the impossible area for you to commute until now.

This kind of the way of working can support the various lifestyle of workers flexibly.

Summary

The shortage of human resources that many companies are suffering from is likely to be led to solve by the visualization of the business process and considering the use of the teleworker through BPO as one choice. “Telework” is the way of working which enables to make use of potential careers of “the person who wants to work”. Moreover, introducing BPO that utilize many teleworkers can improve your own core business.