India has been one of the top destinations for business process outsourcing (BPO) and knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) jobs. While the number of jobs has increased over time, there has been a shift in the kind of jobs that are being offshored. With increasing technological automation, some jobs are being eliminated through technology.

For Omega Healthcare, an offshore medical billing company that works on US health care related services, the last decade has been a boon. While the company had about 450 employees in 2006, it now has over 10,000 employees, working out of 5 facilities, 3 locations, and 2 countries. While the percentage of jobs has grown, competition has also grown. Omega healthcare is focused on revenue cycle managements for the doctors and hospitals. There are three primary job types – one has to do with submitting claims to the insurance company, the second is a knowledge process that involves medical coding for the services offered by the doctors, the third is to make calls to the insurance companies. 

 

 

Collaboration within the industry and industry-wide mapping and benchmarking should be the next frontier of transformation.

While there has been tremendous growth, the company has had to face steep challenges as well. One of the key challenges in the BPO sector has to do with attrition. The average attrition in the industry stands at 3 -5 % percent per month. For a company that is operating at a scale that Omega healthcare is at, that means relieving 300-400 people from the organization and replacing them with fresh talent. The sheer amount of paperwork is difficult to keep up with. This is where digital technology has been instrumental in supporting HR, business intelligence, and data management. The focus of the transformation efforts at the company has been multi-fold.

End-to-end talent management: The move to an HRIS system from a set of disparate standalone technologies has been a change the company took in 2008. Instead of multiple systems of record across the employee lifecycle, an integrated talent management suite enabled the company to not just track attendance and keep records; it also helps employees identify gaps in performance. 

Move to social: While the company is at a stage where it is reviewing partners to integrate mobile and social tools to engage with the workforce, the focus is not entirely on the millennial employee. Since different people use engagement tools differently, the goal is to create an environment that caters to their needs. 

Tackling redundancies: One of the key areas that the company’s software engineers are working towards is to reduce repeat transactions. Since different clients use different kinds of technologies to process data, the company has to be agile in aligning its people strategy accordingly. With increased automation, a number of repeat jobs are going to become redundant.

Since Omega Healthcare’s business is rooted in compliance. Any legislation change in US healthcare sector is bound to have an impact on the company -whether that is reduced paperwork or added procedures. This is why technology-enabled workforce planning plays a crucial role in the company. 

Performance management is another area that the company is focused on – one that is able to accommodate personalized career management and map competencies to create an individual development plan. Even as technology continues to enable businesses to grow, collaboration within the industry and industry-wide mapping and benchmarking should be the next frontier of transformation.