The Hindu Business Line : Cool, man? IT is the woman...

IN the tough and demanding call centre and IT-enabled services, who'd you think fared better — women or men? If you thought it was men, you're 100 per cent off target.

According to a recent research study conducted by Bangalore-based Eduquity Career Technologies, the fairer sex has emerged as more efficient under stressful conditions and has, in fact, shown greater resilience and fared better than its male counterparts in several other parameters as well.

The study, which covered a sample from about 35,000 employees working in various call centres and IT-enabled services companies in Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mangalore and Belgaum, found that there is not much to choose between the genders while at work. One differentiating factor is the women's ability to keep cool under stress.

The survey indicated that female candidates performed better than male candidates on handling difficult calls and interpersonal skills. They also fared marginally better in stress tolerance and active listening skills, according to Mr Suri Menon, Vice-President of Eduquity.

Detailing the survey findings here on Wednesday, Mr Menon said those with work experience scored significantly and consistently above those with no experience on behavioural competencies such as active listening, interpersonal skills and handling difficult calls.

Narrating a scenario in which an individual has to handle about 15-20 tough or difficult calls, Mr Menon said those with work experience had shown greater application in understanding customer needs than those without work experience.

However, the study also noted that work experience or lack of it made no significant impact on test performance. There were no differences in behavioural competencies.

While it is true that gender makes no difference at work in the case of IT-ES space in comparison to say a manufacturing sector, Mr Menon said gender differences did not make any impact on assessment and both genders fare equally well on test.

Therefore, this makes the IT-ES sector a prime candidate for equal opportunity employment.

Further, an inter-city analysis had showed that candidates from Chennai were the most successful, having registered 42 per cent success, followed by Bangalore at 39 per cent and Hyderabad at 29 per cent. This is based on the performance analysis of candidates from these three cities.

However, when it came to analytical skill, candidates from Hyderabad had topped the list, he said.

Highlighting the potential of the IT-ES segment based on Nasscom projections of about $ 2.4 billion in 2003 for 2003, Mr Menon said the country that generates about 2.1 million graduates per year could leverage this great opportunity by providing the necessary training skills.

The survey also found that while engineering graduates outperformed candidates with other educational backgrounds, it was noted that the type of educational qualification makes negligible impact on English language proficiency, aural comprehension or analytical abilities.

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