Cincinnati ? After nearly three years of technical-support work in a call center, Saureshwar Banerjee was feeling restless.

Days spent patiently talking people a world away through problems with their personal computers or an entire business’ information system – a single call often lasting more than an hour – were wearing on him. Not so much the work, he said, but what the future held.

“I was disillusioned by my growth prospects,” Banerjee said by telephone from New Delhi. “I did not understand what my motivation was; I was not taking the initiative I had earlier.”

Banerjee, 25, had plenty of other options in India’s hot market for skilled workers. But an alert manager who literally saw red intercepted him before he could get out the door.

They discussed employer Convergys Corp.’s growth plans and Banerjee’s own likely opportunities if he stayed at the world’s largest call center outsourcing company. The heart-to-heart sitdown was part of a retention program begun in India that pushes managers to watch for signs of dissatisfaction and rewards them for retaining staff.

Red, yellow or green

As part of the program, workers are on a weekly basis rated “red, yellow, green” with red likely to leave, based on 50 indicators such as increased tardiness or declining performance. A yellow rating results in regular meetings to gauge the employee’s outlook and a red one triggers an immediate intervention. Managers’ bonuses are now tied to retention.

Convergys said turnover has dropped significantly – by double-digit percentages in some areas using the system – in a business in which attrition typically ranges from 35 percent to 70 percent. The Cincinnati-based company, which has about 74,000 employees in 33 countries, is adopting the “early warning system” throughout its operations.

While many businesses facing tight labor markets have added incentives for workers, Convergys officials say they decided to be aggressive on turnover by making employee retention part of everyday operations and tying managers’ pay to it.

Sharad Talwar, background center, director of operations for Convergys Corp., a global leader in call-center outsourcing, speaks with an employee in the company cafeteria in Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi, India. Convergys, a Cincinnati-based company that has about 74,000 employees in 33 countries, has made an effort to reduce turnover in its call centers, a particular problem in the highly competitive India market, by using what it calls an early

Convergys began its system in India two years ago.

“Smoke is a symptom of fire, and we found there are little symptoms that let us know when someone was happy or unhappy,” said Anthony Joseph, Convergys’ director of human resources for India. “It could be someone cheerful and talkative becoming quiet; someone had missed their transport a couple of times. These give us signals.”

Joseph stresses that managers are trained not to be intrusive into personal lives or privacy and to avoid an atmosphere of surveillance that would defeat the purpose of the effort. Banerjee and George Varghese, 25, another service agent in India, said the system fostered dialogue that let them know their managers wanted to keep them and help them move up.

Improving communication

Sharad Talwar, Convergys director of operations for New Delhi, said it’s basically about managers getting to know their employees better and improving communication.

Many turnover catalysts, such as a need for different hours or some time off, “are highly controllable in nature. It could be something that is extremely simple.”

Such concepts as regular communication with employees sound like common sense, but often aren’t practiced.

Convergys officials say they also focus on benefits that improve retention, including tuition reimbursement, training and advancement opportunities. Streit said the company promotes from within, and protects its training investment – $5,000 to $10,000 per worker – while seeing increased productivity from longer-term employees.

Banerjee, meanwhile, has gone from a bored customer agent to a team leader who takes pride in warding off competitors’ efforts to lure employees.

“I’m pretty excited,” he said. “I look at those factors I could identify from what I did myself. In my team recently, someone actually had a job offer from a competitor. He opened up to me, we discussed his future prospects, and then we moved him to green.”