Philippines is presently among the top outsourcing locations in the world, second only to India as of the year 2020. The Philippines has surpassed Malaysia in terms of the EF English Competence Index, according to the most recent studies on English proficiency (EF EPI). The EF EPI aims to rank nations according to the equality of English language proficiency among adults who took the EF test.
The Philippines comes in at number 18 in the Asian EF EPI, but we are still behind Singapore, which is ranked at 4th. Although the pool of qualified workers the country has access to gives it a competitive edge over its neighbors, it is nonetheless necessary and expected that all employees have a working knowledge of English. In order to move away from regional standards and adopt worldwide standards when it comes to English proficiency, Mercer | Mettl, a global leader in talent assessment and remote proctoring solutions, strives to give an adequate solution. And that will be used to benchmark the population against the available global benchmarks for English communication, which reflect global norms.
Business process outsourcing companies are finding it difficult to fill roles, with high attrition rates of between 30 to 40% this year. To help BPO firms make data-backed hiring decisions quickly and reliably, Mercer | Mettl launched SpeechX – a new communication assessment tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
In our conversation with Anirban Barman Roy, CRO, Mercer Mettl during the launch, he states, "We are attempting to construct a tool around essentials for communications skills in an automated approach where there will be no people at the back and evaluating so it sounds like subjective bias."
“We are excited to announce the launch of SpeechX that combines the best of human and AI assessment abilities. Philippines is one of the largest English-speaking nations in the world with 70% of the population being able to converse in English. In the age of digital economies, this will be a great asset for companies that want to assess the communication skills of all candidates, allowing recruitment managers to speed up the hiring process. We offer a whole staff tool, which is an assessment tool to be used for both recruitment and learning and development. We bank heavily on technology to create new types of assessments. A lot of the assessments that you see Mercer Mettl offering are actually based on simulations. So, which means you can go to what you are doing on your daily job rather than attempting to plagiarize base questions. If you are actually looking at a face-to-face role, for example even sales and customer service roles in many cases, customer support and BPO you know all these happening behind the computer thing. Where your verbal communication is actually getting more and more important by the day. So, it's very important that you have a tool to objectively measure those communications skills,” Roy added as he explained why the product launch of SpeechX is very important in the Philippines market.
SpeechX is an AI-powered English Proficiency Test software tool that is fully machine-administered and auto-graded to assess a non-native speaker's ability to speak and understand English.
The introduction of SpeechX in the Philippines plugs a critical gap for evaluators to swiftly assess the quality and clarity of a candidate’s speech to map the entire evaluation journey, using insights from seasoned BPO practitioners, voice and accent trainers and the industry’s subject matter experts. The tool also uses AI-based remote proctoring to calculate an integrity score for each candidate which ensures control against cheating and misconduct during the evaluation process.
There are currently a number of BPOs that have begun to use the AI-powered English Proficiency Test software tool. And some of the biggest are based in India. However, it is being used by their entire global workforce. So, they are already using it for their population, as well as Latin America and the Philippines, among other countries, and the initial feedback has been really positive from at least the top 5 to 6 BPOs, the largest of which have started with this tool, and adoption will be accelerated in the future.
The Philippines is one of the biggest BPO markets globally, particularly in the voice business process management (BPM) segment. The country’s IT-BPM and BPO sectors that employ more than 1.35 million employees, are significant contributors to its economy. As many as 50,000 employees were hired last year, proving the industry’s resilience despite cost-cutting measures taken during the pandemic.
“The first challenge that needs to be addressed is the challenge of standardizing our benchmarking and baselining the skills to a particular standard. The second challenge will definitely address the one with scale and turnaround times. So, for example the BPO industry and its 1.4 million employees. Now, giving the rate of hiring, people have to interview each one of the candidates manually. The entire process is going to take a huge amount of time. So that technology that we will bring in will solve this issue. That turnaround time for recruitment will also reduce drastically because of this. These are at least the two most important challenges that we can get to finish. The third aspect also is this does not only give you a score but also points out your developmental ideas. It also talks about what are the ideas that you can improve in your communication and they are classified by trainable and non-trainable layers. Some of these you are getting and making communication can be trained, others cannot be and that also gives companies a lot of insights to identify the right areas where they would want to invest in learning in the Philippines for the candidates,” said Roy.
SpeechX is not limited to BPO; it is also available in industries where customer-facing communication is essential. These roles will all be appropriate for taking these assessments. Consider customer support, customer service, or roles that require extensive internal communication and coordination. This test is open to anyone in the industry.
SpeechX includes a video-proctored assessment that evaluates a candidate's proficiency in two key areas: listening and speaking clearly. It examines linguistics to detect errors in reading sentences and extempore speech and identifies correct and incorrect information in the candidate's speech. It also uses para-linguistic voice analytics to assess a candidate's statement quality and clarity.
SpeechX also addresses market pain points such as impersonation and cheating, accuracy, and a lack of usability. SpeechX is powered by Carnegie Speech's world-class speech evaluation and recognition technology. This patented and dependable technology ensures high accuracy in English test results.
“English has evolved into the global language of communication. You know, for information and business purposes. It would undoubtedly aid organizations in preparing their workforce for the future. As your business process becomes more efficient, you are able to communicate more effectively with customers, and your overall competitiveness index rises in the long run. I believe it addresses one of the shortcomings that will help the Philippines rise in the rankings,” added Roy.
SpeechX recently launched in the Philippines, and according to the company, adoption in India has increased by 100 percent year on year.
As employers move permanently into a hybrid state of work, SpeechX provides them with both the flexibility and the advantages of remote hiring, enabling quick and credible hiring decisions backed by more than 20 years of communication and language research.
Teng Alday, Mercer’s CEO in the Philippines, said, “By leveraging the power of machine learning and data, SpeechX is an example of how technology can be used to cater to the specific hiring needs of the industry. We are delighted to offer this solution to clients to make their recruiting faster and more effective, and to ensure that they hire the right talent consistently.”
Mettl have increased the adoption of digital tools and digital ways of doing business for getting efficient during the COVID-19 pandemic and according to Roy, the hybrid or remote way of customer service or even sales or even the outsourcing is going to continue. He added that a lot of that is going to be a much bigger scale than we see through.
In terms of investment, Mettl will continue to invest in R&D and will continue to get more feedback from the local market to then make adjustments in the product if required. The investments have not slowed down in the slightest, in fact the adoption of SpeechX over the last couple of years saw the highest fraction.
“We hope to see the same in the Philippines. Because we have just about launched the product. There is a huge opportunity available in the market and we want to first roll it out in some BPO and some organizations see feedback and we are really hopeful that we will be able to scale very rapidly. you know in this bucket. We don't want to tie ourselves to a specific target for this right now because we adjust very normally to this part. So right now, we will conduct a pilot and release how the market responds well. But if benchmarks are really to go by at least in India we have seen an option rise at more than hundred year-on-year,” Roy concluded.