Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004 |
||
|
|
||
|
Home Page
-
Human Resources Info-Tech - IT-enabled Services Work-from-home trend in transcription catching up Anjali Prayag
Bangalore , June 21 GLOBALLY, the transcription industry has a large population of work-from-home employees. However, this trend is yet to catch up in India, though some companies are attempting to tap this section of the talent pool as well. HealthScribe India, the country's first transcription company, offered this option in April 2002 and now has about 100 employees working from their work stations at home. According to Mr Prasenjit Ganguly, Vice-President, Human Resources, HealthScribe India Pvt Ltd, "Home option for transcription work is on the rise now. But there are certain criteria that these people have to fulfil before we recruit them." People working from home, in the absence of any help from peer group or a medical thesaurus or any kind of physical help from the company, have to necessarily be very independent. HealthScribe does install the necessary software and gives the tech support and training required for the job. Currently, HealthScribe's home employees are working from Chennai, Coimbatore, Chandigarh, Meerut, Mumbai, some towns in Kerala and even Cyprus. The company first experimented with this idea when an employee moved to Auckland for personal reasons. Mr Ganguly said that most people who prefer the home option are either new mothers or people with ailing parents, or women with husbands in transferable jobs. Explaining how the concept works, Mr Ganguly said, "These are full-time employees of HealthScribe, they get the same salary and perks as those who work on the campus, in addition to which they get a generous telephone allowance." They have a `distant team leader' supervising their work. But unlike on-campus transcriptionists, the off-campus workers do not have to do the night shift. "They work either from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. or from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.," he said. They generally spend about six-12 months getting trained on the campus after which they are put on the job. Talking about the company's HR policies, Mr Ganguly said that HealthScribe has attempted to initiate some innovative polices such as having a Chief Fun Officer on the campus. "As our employees are young and have a lot of energy, we have tried to create a college-like atmosphere to relieve them of the work pressure." Out of its 1,300 employees in India, HealthScribe has about 75 doctors on its rolls. "And they are allowed to practise medicine during their off-hours," he said.
More Stories on : Human Resources | IT-enabled Services
Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page
|
Stories in this Section |
|
The Hindu Group: Home | About Us | Copyright | Archives | Contacts | Subscription Group Sites: The Hindu | Business Line | Sportstar | Frontline | The Hindu eBooks | The Hindu Images | Home |
Copyright © 2004, The
Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of
this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of
The Hindu Business Line
|