Soft-skills Training and Cultural Sensitization of Indian BPO workers: A Qualitative Study

This paper describes a study of soft-skills training at a large Business Process Outsourcing Firm located in Bangalore, India. Soft-skills training pertains to social and customer handling skills in addition to cultural sensitization of Indians to other cultures. Soft-skills are very important for the success of BPO firms, yet there is not much in the literature that addresses soft-skills training of BPO workers. This study attempts to bridge the gap. It adopts a qualitative approach using a combination of methods such as the long interview, secondary sources research and actual observation. The results are used to develop a framework for future studies in this area.