Methods to control attrition and retain employees in an

organization.

Attrition is the rate of shrinkage in the size or a gradual, natural reduction in membership or personnel, as
through retirement, resignation, or death. It is Normal and uncontrollable reduction of a work force because
of retirement, death, sickness, and relocation. It is one method of reducing the size of a work force without
management taking any overt actions. The drawback to reduction by attrition is that reductions are often
unpredictable and can leave gaps in an organization.
Attrition causes huge loss to the company, not only in terms of manpower but also in monetary terms. The
cost of attrition would be explained in details later in this report. Moreover, this report will also cover the
reasons why the employees leave a company. Attrition is a universal phenomenon and no industry is devoid
of it, but the degree 10 fluctuates from industry to industry and at different levels. Attrition is a reduction in
the number of employees. Attrition arises with employees leave the company for one of the three reasons:
1. Death of employee

2. Retirement

3. Better opportunity in some other company.

Attrition Rate
The term 'attrition rate' can be defined as "A reduction in the number of employees through retirement,
resignation or death." It denotes the percentage change in the labour force of an organization. High
percentage of labour turnover is not desirable for the organization because new workers are engaged in place
of the workers who left the organization.
Why Attrition Happens:

Attrition happens in two ways, one is because of employer and other is because of employee
1. Higher pay
2. Work timings
3. Career Growth
4. Higher education

1. Workplace / Environmental Influences:

Working hours and toughness of work will play major role in employee satisfaction. Employee will see for
other opportunities if working hours won’t suitable to spend for his personal life and family.
2. Training:
Besides the induction and project training, not much investment has been done to evolve a "continuous
training program" for the agents. Motivational training is still to evolve in this industry
3. Vague Vision & Values:

4. Senior management must articulate a clear and compelling vision for the organization in order for it to
succeed. People join and stay with companies where they feel their job is important to organizations
growth.
5. Lack of Positive Direction:
 Poorly prepared management can potentially communicate an undesirable message of apathy and
frustration to employees, which can be detrimental the growth of the organization.
6. Limited or Lack-Luster Training:
Employees want to continually upgrade their skills and expect that employers will facilitate. In fact,
research shows that employees are three times more likely to leave a company that does not provide job-
related training.
7. Hiring that Misfires:
While hiring people have to check whether candidate fits for organizational culture and job environment.
Because best suited employee can be stick to organization for longer time.
8. Women in Workforce:
Most of women leave work after marriage or because of social pressure in working hours or working place.
It is true in most cases in BPO industry because of work timings.
9. Inadequate Managers:
The companies should have the foresight to invest in management teams that can grow faster than the
production staff. A lot of firms are losing people because their managers are too thinly staffed who are
always fighting fires rather than doing proactive work.
10. Employee Database Leakage:

Normally database leakage will happen because of the HR staff or database administrators or any other
employee when he joins another organization or through outsourced human resource vendors. It will lead to
attrition.

11. Overwork & Burnout:

Unrealistic expectations are de-motivators, not incentives. Irregular hours and meal-times, lack of rest
resulting in physical strain, high-stress environments, etc., cause employees to burn out and re-evaluate their
willingness to work in places like call centers.
HR managers have work on these aspects to get reduction in Attrition.

Why do Employees Leave the Organization?

There are a number of reasons for employees leaving the organization. Well, the most obvious reason for
employees leaving any organization is higher pay. The main problem here is that employees are moved from
one location to another location along with their family. But this problem is taken care of by a salary hike
which may be around 20%-35% per annum.

Another factor is work timings. In some organizations, work timings are such that they are making
employees leave the organization.

Another factor is career growth. In many organizations, only 20% of employees are able to go to senior
levels. This means that the remaining 80% of employees look for other organization where they can get
opportunities for growth.
 One more reason for leaving the organization is higher education. These days, in many organizations,
employees are joining at very young age because of lucrative salaries being offered. But with time, they
apply for higher education and try to move on to other organizations or sectors to occupy top management
positions.

The percentage of women workers is also responsible for higher attrition rate. These days, the percentage
of women workers is around 30%. Generally, women workers leave the organization after marriage to take
up their house-hold duties, irregular work hours

80% of employee turnover can also be attributed to the mistakes during hiring process (Harvard Business
Review).
Other factors include accident making the worker permanently incapable of doing work, dislike for the job
or place, unsatisfactory work conditions leading to strained work relationships with the employer; lack of
security of employment et al also contribute for higher attrition rate.

Role of HR Department

Attrition Rate is good for the organization as long as the rate is at normal level. This will help the
organization to get new blood into the organization and for the organization to develop. But it becomes a
problem when the attrition rate is abnormal. Therefore, HR Department has the most crucial role to play in
any organization. At the time of conducting interviews, the HR personnel try to bring right candidate to the
right job. Similar is true even when the attrition rate is abnormal, so they have a very crucial role to play.
Following are some of the tips to reduce attrition rate: -
Hiring individuals who are truly fit to succeed in the position for hire will dramatically increase the
chances of that employee being satisfied with his or her work, and remaining with the company for an
extended period of time. Employees should not only be selected on the basis of communication skills and
educational qualifications.
Communication of employee's roles, job description and the responsibilities within the organization, new
policies will help to retain employees.

Participative Decision Making - It is incredibly important to include employees in the decision making
process, especially when decisions are related to employees. This can help to generate new ideas and
perspectives that top management might never have thought of.

Sharing of Knowledge with Others - Allow the members to share their knowledge with others. This helps
in retention of information. This also lets a team member know that he is a valuable member of the
organization. Similarly, facilitating knowledge sharing through an employee mentoring program can be
equally beneficial.
Shorten the Feedback Loop - This helps the employees to know the feedback to their work within a short
period. This also helps to keep performance levels high and reinforce positive behavior among employees.

Pay Package - Any employee wants to be appropriately paid and fairly for the work he or she does. For
this, conduct a research to find out the pay package in other similar type of organizations at regional as well
as at national levels.

Balance Work & Personal Life - No doubt family is exceptionally important to employees. When work
begins to put pressure on one family, no pay package will keep an employee in the organization. Therefore,
there should be a balance between work and personal life. Small gestures like allowing an employee to take
an extended lunch once a week to watch his son's cricket game will result in loyalty and helps to retain the
employee.

Organizational Culture - Try to select the candidates who believe in the organization culture and adopt with
ease to organization culture.

Exit Interview with the employees who are leaving the organization will help the organization to find out
the reasons why the employees are leaving the organization. This will also help to find out any drawbacks in
the organization.

Another method to reduce attrition rate is that they should find out why employees are leaving the
organization from the employees who are working for the past so many years.
Motivational Training - It is sure that motivational training helps to retain the employees. One of the
crucial aspects to motivate employees is to ensure that they have ample growth opportunities which can be
provided through training.

Multi-Tasking - One of the ways to retain the employees in the organization is try to get people with
different qualities like smart, adaptable, and capable of multi-tasking.

Referrals - Another technique is to try to get the employees hired through referrals. This makes them stick
with the organization.

No Favoritism - One of the surest ways to create animosity and resentment in an organization is to allow
favoritism and preferential treatment towards an employee. Be sure to treat all employees equally and avoid
favoritism at all costs.
 80% of employee turnover can also be attributed to the mistakes during hiring process (Harvard Business
Review).
Other factors include accident making the worker permanently incapable of doing work, dislike for the job
or place, unsatisfactory work conditions leading to strained work relationships with the employer; lack of
security of employment et al also contribute for higher attrition rate.

While these HR interventions & initiatives certainly work in pockets, there are some limitations in their
approach:

1. Business Imperative: The current attrition management outlook assumes that the absolute attrition
percentages are of utmost importance. Logically however, the Clients would be more worried about
the organization’s ability to meet the SLAs (Service Level Agreement) consistently, and not the
absolute attrition percentagelevels.

2. Cost–Benefit: The cost–benefit of these HR initiatives are very difficult to calculate at the design
stage. (Usually the cost calculations do not capture the disproportionate amount of time the senior
management spends in creating, validating, implementing & troubleshooting these initiatives –
specially in terms of the opportunity cost due to time spent away from the business opportunity)

3. Effectiveness & Impact: The effectiveness of an initiative is very difficult to predict, and the actual
impact is usually out of whack with the originally estimated level. The choice of initiatives is usually
someone’s preference / gut feel – instead of a very rigorous business decision. (Since some of these
initiatives work, there is a sort of organizational legitimacy granted to this “deciding by gut feel”
when it comes to HR interventions related decision-making.

4. Monitoring & Control: These initiatives / interventions tend to get out of control quite quickly, and
it takes a Herculean effort for the organizational leadership to rein it in. The organizational leadership
also does not have very clear decision-making data to choose between similar / overlapping
interventions or to stop ineffective interventions. The ‘in-process’ monitoring of these initiatives /
interventions is quite difficult given the biases of the implementers & their varying levels of buy-in.

5. Implementation: The success of most of these HR interventions is driven by the passion of the
implementers, specially the first level managers. This does create a possibility of a less effective
initiative being continued without knowing clearly that there was a better one available, and would
have had a higher organizational impact, given the quality of involvement of the first level managers.

6. Focus: These initiatives / interventions are usually backward looking. They are typically driven by
the data from exit interviews of the preceding month / quarter. Also given the fact that the reasons
‘why people leave’ are known to be different from ‘why people stay’, organizations might be aiming
the interventions at the ‘wrong’population, if not also a significantly smaller one! Reliability of exit
interview data is another issue, as call-back validation is typically not a standard practice. One really
does not know how many employees actually joined the organization next door instead of that MBA
they said they wanted to join.

7. Linkage & Alignment: These HR interventions usually do not provide any linkages to other HR &
business processes in the organization & hence to that extent do not add value. Their alignment to the overall
HR framework is therefore tenuous at best, if not completely out of sync.
COST OF ATTRITION

There are a number of costs which are incurred by a BPO when they hire any new employee. These
costs can be in terms of monetary or can be in terms of time wasted or any other intangible things.
Some of these costs can be as stated below: -

I. Recruitment Costs:

1. The cost of advertisements; agency costs; employee referral costs; internet posting costs.
2. The cost of the internal recruiter's time to understand the position requirements, develop and
implement a sourcing strategy, review candidates backgrounds, prepare for interviews, conduct
interviews, prepare candidate assessments, conduct reference checks, make the employment offer
and notify unsuccessful candidates. This can range from a minimum of 30 hours to over 100 hours
per position.
3. Calculate the cost of the various candidate pre-employment tests to help assess candidates' skills,
abilities, aptitude, attitude, values and behaviours.

II. Training Costs

1. The cost of orientation in terms of the new person's salary and the cost of the person who
conducts the orientation. Also include the cost of orientation materials.
2. The cost of departmental training as the actual development and delivery cost plus the cost of the
salary of the new employee.
3. The cost of the person(s) who conduct the training.
4. The cost of various training materials needed including company or product manuals, computer or
other technology equipment used in the delivery of training.

III. Lost Productivity Costs

As the new employee is learning the new job, the company policies and practices, etc. they are not
fully productive. Use the following guidelines to calculate the cost of this lost productivity:
1. Upon completion of whatever training is provided, the employee is contributing at a 25%
productivity level for the first 2 – 4 weeks. The cost therefore is 75% of the new employee’s full
salary during that time period.
2. During weeks 5 - 12, the employee is contributing at a 50% productivity level. The cost is
therefore 50% of full salary during that time period.
3. During weeks 13 - 20, the employee is contributing at a 75% productivity level. The cost is
therefore 25% of full salary during that time period.
4. Calculate the cost of mistakes the new employee makes during this elongated indoctrination
period.

IV. New Hire Costs

1. The cost of bring the new person on board including the cost to put the person on the payroll,
establish computer and security passwords and identification cards, telephone hookups, cost of
establishing email accounts, or leasing other equipment such as cell phones, automobiles.
2. The cost of a manager's time spent developing trust and building confidence in the new
employee's work.
 V. Lost Sales Costs

1. Calculate the revenue per employee by dividing total company revenue by the average
number of employees in a given year. Whether an employee contributes directly or indirectly
to the generation of revenue, their purpose is to provide some defined set of responsibilities
that are necessary to the generation of revenue. Calculate the lost revenue by multiplying the
number of weeks the position is vacant by the average weekly revenue per employee.

Thus we can say that if a person leaves a job company has to suffer losses as it involves many costs.

TWENTY RETENTION TOOLS FOR CURBING ATTRITION

In today's scenario ATTRITION has become the most dangerous alarm to all HR
employees’ ears and Organization is facing troubles to fight it out. Suggested
Retention Tools for curbing attrition to a great extent are submitted herewith. These
need not be brainstormed and implementation strategy should be worked out
immediately.

1. OFFER COMPENSATION – ATTRACTIVE AND COMPETITIVE:

Fair compensation alone does not guarantee employee loyalty, but offering below-
market
salaries makes it much more likely that employees will look for greener pastures. Use
of Industry Surveys and other data tools to stay informed on wage trends. To benefit
both company and employees, tie increased one time performance pay to meeting
specific goals aligned with business objectives. Collect data from exit interviews to
document trends from your departing employees, and then use this data to make a
business case for increasing salaries across the board. Go for Employee Engagement
Surveys / ESS, to find out what perks, benefits and forms of
compensation other than money will help keep them motivated. Let employees decide
their own compensation package / reimbursements once the quantum is fixed. Pay
Exception is a procedure at FedEx, which allows managers to recommend and give
exceptional pay increases to their highly performing employees when it is not covered
by normal policy. Extensive performance measuring scheme and incentive policies by
Sasken Communications, Awards and recognition like "Best project" , "contribution",
"mentorship" by Aztec Software and Formal Individual / group recognition at
departmental / organization levels by Intel Technologies India Pvt Ltd are few
outstanding examples.
2. BENEFITS NEED TO BE QUANTIFIED AND QUALITATIVE.
Although benefits are not a key reason why employees stick with a company, the
benefits
you offer can't be markedly worse than those offered by your competitors and like
minded
industries. Group Medi-claim Insurance Scheme and Personal Health Care (Regular
medical checkups) Corporate Credit Cards and Discount Coupons Cellular Phone /
Laptop and other latest technology on-board Interest free loans for higher educations
Performance based quarterly incentives Flexi-time and Flexible Salary Benefits
Wedding Day and Birthday Gift NTPC Limited has social security systems for their
employees with high level of commitments and a unique culture of celebrating all
their achievements.

3. TRAIN YOUR FRONT-LINE, MANAGERS AND ADMINISTRATORS.

It can't be said repeatedly that people stay or leave because of their bosses and not
the
companies. Make sure your managers aren't driving technologists away. Harp upon
the
competencies and substantially invest in human capital irrespective of ROI.
 Improve managers’ leadership, communication and interpersonal skills through
coaching,
training and feedback. Rate these key skills in their evaluations, and tie
compensation to
performance.
Create a safe environment and process for employees to bring up concerns with their
managers.In Whirlpool Appliances, there are highly selective leadership development
mentor programs. Managers selected to participate as mentors go through a rigorous
selection process and are then monitored closely to ensure that only managers who
consistently produce results remain in the program.

4. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES NEEDS TO BE DOVETAILED.

Make sure your employees know what is expected of them every day, every month
and
every year, what types of decisions they are allowed to make on their own, and to
whom
they are supposed to report.
Provide clear vision, brawny and consistent communication, teamwork and respect for
human capital’ efforts. Share the company vision/mission clearly and regularly.
Collaborate, communicate and listen. Contented employees achieve amazing things.
Eli
Lilly & Co.(India) Pvt. Ltd has a Red Book on Code of Business Conduct which provides
standards for conducting business consistent with the company's legal obligations,
global
policies and core values. Employees are taken through the Corporate values, vision
and
mission and Red Book. There is a structured training program on the Red Book and
the
employees are required to sign the Responsibility Statement of the Red Book to certify
that
they agree to comply with the principles and values.

5. ENHANCEMENT, ADVANCEMENT AND PROGRESSION OPPORTUNITIES.

To foster employee loyalty, implement a career ladder and make sure employees
know
what they must do to earn and go in for progression. A clear professional development
plan
gives employees an incentive to stick around. Do away with you Performance
Management
System if it has turned to NOVA (Non Value Added Activity) and go in for instant
performance rewards. Think! Think out of the box! Assess employee’s performance
against the focus area’s set in their performance agreement for the appraisal year and
improves their proficiency. Provide an opportunity to the employees to express their
views or to seek further
clarification on their performance. Identify potential of employees and to develop
them for future roles. Reward them appropriately. Generate data for career planning
and succession planning.
Computer Sciences Corporation India (P) Ltd in the sabbatical policy, not only does the
Company pays for the fees of higher qualifications being acquired by any employee,
any
break in service for acquiring higher qualifications is treated as work experience for
the
purpose of determining seniority within the Organisation, and there is an assured job
for the
employees after completion of his/her course
 6. OFFER RETENTION BONUS:
Employee longevity typically is rewarded with an annual raise and mandatory vacation
time after three, five or ten years. But why not offer other seniority-based rewards
such as a
paid membership in the employee's professional association after one year, a paid
membership to a local gymnasium and clubs after two years, and full reimbursement
for the
cost of the employee's formal dress.
Build a high degree of recognition value into every reward you offer. Reduce
entitlements
and link as many rewards as possible to performance.
Troubleshoot your reward system to make sure that what it is rewarding is what you
really
want to happen.
Give employees a choice of rewards.
Increase the longevity of your rewards
Intel Technologies has cash bonus plans and performance based bonuses for
employees.

7. RETENTION STRATEGIES IMPLEMENTATION NEEDS TO HAVE A PROCESS

OWNER:
Measure your turnover rate and identify a process owner responsible for containing it.
If
customer returns, in-house rejections and non-confirming products can have a process
owner as a countermeasure why not a process owner for implementation of retention
strategies? Think better, think bigger, think brighter, think broader, think bolder, think
positive and set higher audacious goals.
The ability of the employee to speak his or her mind freely within the organization is
another key factor in employee retention. If so, employees offer ideas, feel free to
criticize
and commit to continuous improvement. If not, they bite their tongues or find
themselves
constantly "in trouble" - until they leave.

8. GO IN FOR EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT PRACTICES:

You won't know what's wrong... or what's right … unless you practice. To check the
pulse
of your organization, conduct employee satisfaction surveys on a regular basis. Go in
for its
analysis and implementation.
One idea:
Ask employees what they want more of and what they want less of – Capture Voice of
Employees
Value addition in terms of ASKPT (Attitude, Skills, Knowledge, Practices, and Trust) has
to be the end product.
Stay Interviews and its implementation, call back your employees and ensure
ombudsmen
concept.
From the very beginning, Mindtree Consulting has been active in its social
responsibilities.
Infact, MindTree has identified social responsibility as one of its core values and
therefore,
regularly encourages it in the organization. It has adopted an old age home and a
home for
children of Sri Lankan refugees in Bangalore. Every third Saturday, MindTree Minds
visit
these places and spend half a day with the inmates there

9. TEAMWORK AND CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAMS:

It takes effort to build an effective team, but the result is greater productivity, better
use of
resources, improved customer service and increased morale. Give great emphasis on
cross
functional approach as it endorses acceptance and accountability.
Make sure everyone understands the department's purpose, mission or goal.
Encourage discussion, participation and the sharing of ideas.
Rotate leadership responsibilities depending on your employees' abilities and the
needs of
the team.
Involve employees in decisions; ask them to help make decisions through consensus
and
collaboration.
Encourage team members to show appreciation to their colleagues for superior
performance or achievement.
Sapient Corporation has a practice known as “Team Storming”. When a team (project
team
or an internal team) has worked very hard, teams from across the office get together
and
storm the team with a 'goodies' basket to recognize the team and lift their morale.

10. PAPERLESS ORGANIZATION:

If your high performers and technologists spend nearly as much time filling out
paperwork,
it's time for a change. Convert paperwork to an electronic format; and hire non- tech
administrative staff to take over as much of the paperwork burden as is allowed under
legal
or regulatory restrictions Intranet facility Centralized servers for data storage.

11. FUN IS MUST.

Celebrate successes and recognize when milestones are reached. Buffet lunches,
birthday
parties, employee picnics and creative contests will help remind people why an
organization is a great place to work.
The companies organizes cultural program as and when possible but most of the
times,
once in a quarter, in which all the employees are given an opportunity to display their
talents in dramatics, singing, acting, dancing and sports programs such as Cricket,
football,
etc Fun elements at work like Parties, bashes, outings, picnics at Aztec Software &
Technology
Services Ltd and De-motivation to work on holidays by Phillips India are few good
Illustrations

12. MISSION STATEMENT FOR EACH FUNCTIONAL AREA.

Everyone wants to feel that they are working toward a meaningful, worthwhile goal.
Work
with your human capital to develop a departmental mission statement aligned with
company’s vision, Make sure employees understand how their contribution is
important.
A place where people work with a smile on their faces and dreams in their eyes
A place where your views can be freely voiced and are received with an open mind
A place where you know whenever you need help, there is a family of 2000 members
waiting to help you out

13. ASSIGNMENTS FOR JOB ENRICHMENT:

Identify your employees' talents and then encourage them to stretch their abilities
into new
areas. You have to have a great mentor or mentors. A variety of challenging
assignments
helps keep the organization stimulating. Lay emphasis on stretch Key Result Areas.
Employees today want more than just a job. They want to contribute to the big picture
and
help the company sustain it through the tough times. Provide challenging and
meaningful
work assignments that stimulate them.
When employees feel bored, their motivation declines and they lose focus on how
their
work fits into the big picture.
Delegate meaningful work whenever possible so employees can learn something new
and
feel challenged. Additionally, provide regular development and learning opportunities.
Johnson & Johnson conducts a Strategic Roadmap Meeting which is a large-scale
interactive process (LSIP) of communicating with employees and getting their buy-in
on
the strategic goals set by the company. This is a theme based motivational event.

14. TRANSPARENCY IN COMMUNICATION.

Employees are more loyal to a company when they believe management or those at
the
helm of affairs keep them informed about key issues
Communication is the first step toward creating the kind of environment that people
care
about, and if they care, they just may stay, keep your people in the loop about what's
happening with the company.
At any time, all of your employees should have a pretty good idea of how business has
been carried out.
They should be aware of what issues the company is attempting to address.
Everyone from new recruit to CEO is treated as same in Nokia. Everyone flies the
business
class and everyone stays in luxury hotels.

15. ENCOURAGE HIGHER LEARNING.

Create opportunities for your key performers and technologists to grow and learn.
Encourage every employee to learn at least one new thing every week, and you'll
create a
work force that is excited, motivated and committed.
To keep morale high, coach and facilitate every day.
The “I tell/you do” method of management simply does not work for motivating and
retaining people. Instead, become a coach to your people and encourage them to try
things
their own way.
Allow for mistakes to happen, as mistakes are often our greatest learning
opportunities.
Most people are grateful for constructive feedback. It shows that you’re paying
attention to
their progress
FedEx has Personality Development Systems, amount of 3000 $ annually as education
reimbursement and an Online training library with 600 courses.
 16. FLEXIBILITY AND PRAGMATISM:
Employees will be loyal to organizations that make their lives more convenient by
offering
on-site childcare centers, on-site hair styling and dry cleaning, flexible work hours,
parttime
positions, job-sharing or involving spouses in CSR activities and promote ownership
culture.
Employees of school-age children might appreciate the option to work nine months a
year
and have the summers off to be with their children.

17. DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE INDUCTION PROGRAM.

Implement a formal orientation program that's at least three weeks long and includes
a
thorough overview of every area of your department and an introduction to other
departments.
Infosys has a 23 days Induction Program with ISB Bangalore
Sona Group has tied up with MDI Gurgaon for one month Induction Program

18. WORKPLACE AMBIENCE.

No one wants to work with equipment that's old or constantly breaking down. Provide
employees with the highest quality supplies you can afford.
Cheap, leaky pens may seem like a small thing, but they can add to employees'
overall
stress level.
A career-oriented, valued employee must experience growth opportunities within your
organization.

19. NEVER, NEVER, EVER THREATEN AN EMPLOYEE'S JOB OR INCOME.

Even if you know layoffs loom if you fail to meet targets, it is a mistake to foreshadow
this
information with employees. It makes them nervous; no matter how you explain the
information, even if you're absolutely correct, your employees will update their
resumes
Demonstrate a vibrant workplace that retains and promotes talents and at the same
time
encourages development of non-performers to perform better and dissuade pink slips.

20. VALUE YOUR EMPLOYEES.

Recognize outstanding achievements promptly and publicly, but also take time to
commend
on the many small contributions your staff makes every day to the organization's
vision,
mission and growth.
DO NOT FORGET — THESE ARE THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE YOU LOOK
GOOD!
A commonplace complaint we hear during an exit interview is that the employee
never felt
senior managers knew he existed.
Take time to meet with new employees to learn about their talents, abilities and skills.
Meet
with each employee periodically.
 RETAINING THE EMPLOYEES

Employees today are different. They are not the ones who don’t have good
opportunities in hand. As soon as they feel dissatisfied with the current employer or
the job, they switch over to the next job. In prominent Indian metros, there is no
dearth of opportunities for the best in the business, or
even for the second or the third best. Importance of retaining employees remains the
same irrespective of the size of the organization, its nature of business or the country
of operation. The
only difference lies in realizing the fact that frequent employee attrition means there
is something, which needs immediate attention and cure. Employee Retention
involves taking measures to encourage employees to remain in the organization for
the maximum period of time. It involves being sensitive to people's needs and
demonstrating the various strategies in the five families detailed in Roger Herman's
classic book on employee retention, Keeping Good People.

• Compensation: It is said that money isn't a motivator, but it is an effective de-

motivator. The employees always have high expectations regarding their
compensation packages. So an attractive compensation package plays a critical role
in retaining the employees.

•Growth: No one joins an organization to just do the same work till the end of his
career. If an employee does not see growth in his own organization, there are high
chances that he might opt for leaving the organization. So such strategies must be
framed where an employee
can see his bright future in the company.

• Relationship: The management is sometimes not able to provide an employee a

supportive work culture and environment in terms of personal or professional
relationships. The organization culture should be such that encourages healthy
relationship between all the employees.

•Support: Sometimes not getting the right kind of support and cooperation also leads
an employee to be frustrated and provokes him to leave the organization. This should
be taken care of by providing healthy work relationships.

• Environmental: An organization needs to have an environment where individuals

learn and get support from colleagues and seniors along with the healthy mixture of
authority and responsibility.
Based on the above five points, a retention strategy can be framed after
understanding the reasons for attrition in a particular organization.