Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1 About Attrition 2
4. Curbing Attrition 12
5. Achieving Retention 17
16. Bibliography 43
But then there's the real world. And in the real world, employees, do leave, either because they want
more money, hate the working conditions, hate their coworkers, want a change, or because their spouse
gets a dream job in another state. So, what does all that turnover cost? And which employees are likely
to have the highest turnover? Who is likely to stay the longest?
Defining Attrition: "A reduction in the number of employees through retirement, resignation or death"
Attrition is beginning to significantly affect offshore ROI. Just as businesses faced a scarcity of talented
IT resources during the dotcom era, organizations in offshore countries such as India are experiencing
similar pains. Skilled employees are hopping from job to job and taking with them the customer
knowledge and technical expertise that any company needs. Their salaries are increasing, along with
their perks, benefits, and bonuses.
Global outsourcing and the astounding amount of foreign direct investment pouring into China, Russia,
and India have created tremendous opportunities and competition for talented IT professionals in those
countries. The downside of this increased competition is a rising rate of attrition, particularly in India.
If a company has 100 programmers and an attrition rate of 25%, then 25 of its IT staff will leave each
year. Think about the time and money it took to find, interview, hire, train, and coach those 25 people.
Now think about losing them and starting the hiring and training processes anew.
How do the hiring and training processes break down in terms of total costs in India? The typical time
for advertising, interviewing, screening, negotiating, and hiring a new employee is about two weeks.
Companies usually allot one week for programmers to become familiar with the new business, two more
weeks for technical training, and one last week for customer training. Now imagine a 25% attrition rate
N.L. DALMIA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES AND RESEARCH Page 2
and replacing 25 of these programmers each year. Based on a yearly salary of $6, 00,000 for the human
resource person and Rs. 10, 00,000 for the programmer, it would cost an additional Rs. 25, 00,000
annually in acquisition and employee training costs. After considering these figures, it quickly becomes
apparent why companies are investing in strategies to prevent attrition.
Diagnosing the key drivers of turnover is crucial if you are to reduce employee turnover. An
incorrect diagnosis and your intervention is highly unlikely to succeed.
Having analyzed the available data on retention and turnover, you should have a good idea on
those specific groups you wish to investigate, to see if you can establish the key drivers of
turnover, and put in place appropriate solutions.
There are several different approaches to information gathering. It is usually best to use a
combination, providing both qualitative and quantitative data.
Interviews
A good way of discovering relevant information is through one to one interviews. For an
interview to be effective it should be conducted by a neutral third party.
There are advantages and disadvantages with this method of information gathering. Its major
drawback is that it can be very time consuming and hence expensive. The other disadvantage is
the lack of anonymity.
The main advantage is the ability to provide much greater detail than you would get from a
quantitative approach such as a survey or questionnaire.
The key to interviewing is in being able to ask well targeted questions. Remember you don't
want to know why employees in general leave; you want to know the main reasons why
employees in this specific group leave.
Interviewers need to have well developed listening skills to take on board relevant information;
otherwise conducting interviews will be largely pointless.
Focus Groups
Using a focus group can be an appropriate way of discovering some of the key drivers of
turnover.
It is a good way to acquire qualitative information, rather the quantitative data that a survey
produces. Focus groups are inexpensive when compared to say interviews and take less time to
prepare.
A focus group provides an opportunity for a small number of people to discuss issues relating to
employee turnover and retention. An added benefit of focus groups is that they can be used to
generate new ideas, discussing possible solutions as well as diagnosing causes.
For larger companies you will need to conduct a series of focus groups in order to get a
reasonable sample.
Key Points
• Requires a facilitator to pose the questions
• Restrict size of each group to between 6 - 10
• Ensure focus group is representative of targeted group
• Plan broad topics though leave room to explore ideas
• Explain the reason for the focus group
• Avoid letting one person dominate
• Ask why colleagues left
• Ask why colleagues stay
• Ask why colleagues would leave
• Ask what would keep them from leaving
One particular type of focus group process is the nominal group technique. This is especially
useful in determining the key drivers of employee turnover.
Key Points
Procedure
1. Explain the ground rules
2. Each member of the group is asked to write down reasons why colleagues have left
3. The facilitator goes round the group asking each person in turn for their first reason
4. The facilitator uses a flip chart to document the reasons
5. They then repeat for each person's second reason and so on
6. These lists are then clearly displayed for everyone to see
7. Group members are then asked to choose the most important reasons after careful
consideration of all those listed
8. They rank these in order of importance
9. Scores calculated by awarding a set number of points for no1, no2 etc, then totally the number
of points for each reason.
Questionnaires
Questionnaires are commonly used as part of the information gathering process. They are a
reasonable way of obtaining relevant information, though response rates are often disappointing.
Questionnaires need to be designed carefully to be effective.
They should be:
- easy to use
- anonymous
- fairly brief
Questions can be open or closed, multiple choice answers, ranking of items or checklist format.
Steps:
1. Determine the information needed
2. Choose the type of questions
3. Create the precise questions
4. Check readability
5. Design for analysis
6. Test
7. Adjust if necessary
8. Prepare data summary
9. Distribute
To improve response rates you should ensure confidentiality, provide advance warning, explain
the purpose of the questionnaire and explain who will see the data.
The research suggests commitment is a reasonable predictor of turnover if considered across a large
enough group. Unfortunately surveys are not always reliable and response rates are sometimes
disappointing.
One difficulty with attitude surveys is knowing which areas to focus upon. It is usually sensible to
conduct some form of qualitative information gathering beforehand, in order to get an idea of which
issues you should be asking about.
Surveys tend to ask the importance of each issue, in addition to rating how the company is performing
on that issue.
Exit interviews are used by the majority of companies. They tend to be conducted just before an
employee leaves, though some firms wait until after the departure.
Exit interviews will normally to be done in the form of a questionnaire, though one to one interviews are
also used. Recent years have seen the appearance of internet based exit interview questionnaires.
Unfortunately, research shows exit interviews to be unreliable, as departing employees opt to give
socially acceptable reasons rather than genuine ones.
It is rarely in the employee's best interests to give any negative reason for leaving at this stage. The need
for references is often paramount, and not worth putting at risk, by giving the real reasons.
In addition, departing employees may be unwilling to devote much time to completing detailed
questionnaires, resulting in incomplete answers.
The end result will often be a large number of departures apparently due to an offer they simply could
not refuse, or in the wider context, career advancement.
To improve the reliability of exit interviews, it is best if they are anonymous. An unfortunate side effect
of anonymity is that response rates drop.
If you are to conduct one to one interviews, it is far better to get a neutral third party to conduct them, or
if that is not practical, to use HR or a trusted figure, than to let their manager or supervisor take
responsibility.
• Some firms opt to conduct exit interviews six months after departure. This way they have a
better chance of determining the destination. This information is more difficult to obtain but
may be more reliable as the references factor is less significant.
In all honesty, exit interview data needs to be treated with a large degree of skepticism. It is
certainly unwise to make exit interviews your only source of information.
Creative Thinking
Sometimes the use of creative thinking techniques can help uncover the key drivers of turnover.
The following techniques are worthy of consideration if your information gathering has proved to be
unhelpful:
1. Force field analysis
2. Mind mapping
3. Brainstorming
4. Cause and effect diagram
For a moment if we look back, did we plan for the growth of this industry and answer will be no. The
readiness in all aspects will ease the problems to some extent. In our country we start the industry and
then develop the infrastructure. All the major IT companies have faced these realities. If you look
within, the specific reasons for attrition are varied in nature and it is interesting to know why the people
change jobs so quickly. Even today, the main reason for changing jobs is for higher salary and better
benefits. But in call centers the reasons are many and it is also true that for funny reasons people change
jobs. At the same time the attrition cannot be attributed to employees alone.
Organizational Matters:
The employees always assess the management values, work culture, work practices and
credibility of the organization. The Indian companies do have difficulties in getting the
businesses and retain it for a long time. There are always ups and downs in the business. When
there is no focus and in the absence of business plans, non-availability of the campaigns makes
people to quickly move out of the organization.
Working Environment :
Working environment is the most important cause of attrition. Employees expect very
professional approach and international working environment. They expect very friendly and
learning environment. It means bossism; rigid rules and stick approach will not suit the call
center. Employees look for freedom, good treatment from the superiors, good encouragement
and friendly approach from one and all.
Job Matters :
No doubt the jobs today bring lots of pressure and stress is high. The employees leave the job if
there is too much pressure on performance or any work related pressure. It is quite common that
employees are moved from one process to another. They take time to get adjusted with the new
campaigns and few employees even find it difficult and they leave immediately. Monotony sets
in very quickly and this is one of the main reasons for attrition. Youngsters look jobs as being
temporary and they quickly change the job once they get into their own field. The other option is
to move to work where there is no pressure of sales and meeting service level agreements (SLA).
Salary And Other Benefits :
Personal Reasons :
The personal reasons are many and only few are visible to us. The foremost personal reasons are
getting married or falling in love or change of place. The next important personal reason is going
for higher education. Most of the BE, MCA and others appear for GATE examination or other
examinations and once they get cleared they quickly move out.
Health is another aspect, which contributes for attrition. Employees do get affected with health
problems like sleep disturbances, indigestion, headache, throat infection and gynecological
dysfunction for lady employees. Employees who have allergic problems and unable to cope with
the AC hall etc. will tend to get various other health problems and loose interest to work.
Poaching :
The demand for trained and competent manpower is very high. Poaching has become very
common. The big companies target employees of small companies. The placement agencies
have good days for doing more business.
The employees with 4-6 months experience have very good confidence and dare to walk out and
get a better job in a week's time. Most of the organizations have employee referral schemes and
this makes people to spread message and refer the know candidates from the previous companies
and earn too.
Employee’s Advocate :
One of the main reasons why employees leave companies is because of problems with their
managers. An HR professional can be termed an employee’s advocate and a bridge between top
management and employees at all levels. There is a huge gap between HR professionals and
employees in terms of understanding challenges and delivering requirements. HR has not really
understood the problems associated with employees’ careers and jobs. The company’s overall
plans and strategies also depend on HR professionals as they voice employees’ problems and
requirements. The HR department should have genuine interest in the employees’ welfare…it is
responsible for making sure that their expectations are met. By doing this it is easier to meet the
company’s business targets.
Although the importance of higher packages is slowly diminishing, among fresher or laterals
with less than three years of work experience, money is still considered to be the highest priority.
Employees want not only work recognition, but also extra perks." A number of professionals are
looking at more challenging jobs. "In several cases, faced with a choice between more money
and a challenging job, employees have opted for the latter as it allows them to learn new
technology and increase domain expertise." People analyze the training programmes of
prospective companies with those of their current organization, which means that how an
organization grooms an employee is weighed to a greater extent. This is because they know that
developing next-level skills will keep them ahead in the job market, and finally result in better
compensation. They also look for a job with higher levels of responsibility, better learning
opportunities.
The next level of communication, a crucial part of retention, starts with acquainting employees
with the company’s vision and objectives. Organizations successful in retaining employees
clearly pass on their goals and achievements. Conducting regular meetings and updating
employees, especially new entrants, about the company’s status and achievements is a must.”
They should concentrate on leadership and brand building as people prefer to be associated with
a brand. Respect for the job should be created by BPOs. The youth should feel proud to be a part
of the billion-dollar industry.
Mentoring and handholding new recruits from day one to four months are important tasks;
during this period, they should be familiarized with the culture of the company. It is at this time
that new entrants experiment with different options. Hence they should be exposed to the best
values the company has.” If they are informed about regular happenings in the company,
employees will be confident about the future and not try to look for better options.
Even while companies strive to understand which organizational, job, and reward factors will
contribute to holding back employees, industry experts have found several loopholes at the top
Since software professionals have different priorities at different points of time, organizations
need to structure their offer-mix while recruiting new hires, as well as promoting potential ones.
Communication is the foundation for the entire process of managing attrition. This
communication begins right from recruitment. In cases of peer pressure, an employee aims to
join a well-known company. This could be achieved by brand building, which attracts the right
talent and helps in retention as well.
Firing
Sometimes, firing can look like attrition. Looking at firing and attrition together in a different
light, firing can be an excellent tool to contain attrition. Attrition can simply be defined as
employee leaving his current job due to reasons like, job pressure, health problems, personal
reasons, inefficient boss, etc. All the above reasons are interlinked and can be the reasons for
good workers to quit. If the team has under-performers who despite given sufficient support and
training are unable to perform, but they continue to be part of the team damage the morale of the
team. A performer will not want to be part of the team, which has non-performers because he
will have to compensate for the non-performer, thereby increasing his job output/pressure. A
continuous job pressure results in health problems. Having frequent health problems not only
reduces his performance, but also affects him financially. At this juncture, the performer realizes
that he is working with an inefficient manager who is not capable of “cleaning up” the team by
firing non-performers. With the above, the performer employee feels insecure and resigns. Firing
non-performers can be an efficient tool to contain attrition.
Consider Feedback
It is important to take feedback from employees through different means and work with the HR
department to iron out differences. As industry experts point out, feedback can be got in two
ways—during the employee’s tenure, and through exit interviews. The Wipro Listens and
Responds initiative at Wipro aims to capture the concerns and grievances of its employees. “The
feedback we get through this tool will be analyzed, and action will be taken on it. Our employees
are very excited that their feedback is being taken seriously,” says Sahoo. Based on their
revelations, the organization can address the problems of existing employees, thereby curb
attrition.
Whenever the demand for a professional in a particular field heats up, the perks associated with
the job start to pile up. Standard perks for an India-based "fresher" (a new entrant in the IT
services industry with little work experience) typically include free transportation, educational
assistance, healthcare benefits, performance-based bonuses, onsite cafeteria, stock options, and
interest-free loans to absorb the cost of relocation or maybe to finance the purchase of a two-
wheeler. According to Wipro's web site, its employees even have access to an agency that will
handle such "domestic chores" as paying bills, thereby giving IT workers more free time.
An important part of designing incentives is aligning them with market benchmarks. As far as
salaries, HR firm Hewitt Associates reports that India showed the largest overall salary increase
in the Asia-Pacific region in 2006. Salaries in India grew by 11.6% overall, while China trailed
with a 6.4%–8.4% hike, the Philippines showed a 7.4%–7.7% increase, and Korea saw wages
jump by 6.4%–6.8%. Salary increases for middle managers in India were even more dramatic:
Nasscom, India's software association found that salaries for middle managers rose by as much
as 30% in the last two years. These salaries are often paired with expansive benefit packages that
include standard entry-level benefits as well as special services such as help finding and buying a
home or enrolling children in school.
Captive centers and IT service providers have to offer innovative compensation and benefits—or
risk losing valued employees to competitors. Nonstop evaluation and benchmarking are "need to
do" activities for IT managers.
In the United States, many companies reimburse employees for advanced degrees or
certifications that relate to their area of expertise. Until recently, the opposite was true in India,
but that trend has begun to change as businesses have discovered that a significant portion of
their attrition problems stem from employees leaving to pursue a master's degree. Several
offshore service providers have teamed with universities to offer their workers management-
level master's courses at a subsidized rate, and watched attrition rates drop as a result.
For example, Cognizant Technology Solutions, an IT service firm with 17,000 employees,
partially reimburses Indian staff that pursues master's degrees at BITS, a higher-education
institution located in Pilani, India. Business process outsourcing (BPO) player 24/7 Customer, in
association with the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, launched a management-
education seminar series called "Beyond Knowledge," through which 24/7 aims to educate
In several offshore countries, advanced degrees are considered crucial to social standing. It's
important for U.S. firms with little international experience to recognize this desire among
employees and design programs accordingly.
Change Locations
The high prices and resource crunch in top-tier Indian cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai have
led many companies to execute alternative location strategies. Many vendors are sending work
to tier-two cities (Hyderabad or Chennai) or even tier-three cities (Noida or Chandigarh), where
labor and real estate costs as well as attrition may be cut in half. Such benefits come at a price:
The infrastructure quality lags that of more advanced cities, and the search to find qualified
people may take longer.
Another option to combat the rising attrition rates in India is to locate in other countries. Sykes
Enterprises, for example, disclosed that it is relocating the customer contact management work at
its Bangalore, India, facility because the center delivered an inadequate return and a limited
competitive advantage. The Tampa-based company thinks the work is better suited for the other
Asia-Pacific offshore centers in its portfolio, such as China. Sykes expected to incur total
charges of approximately $0.8–$1.5 million for its plan to relocate work.
Rotate Employees
Employees who don't feel challenged by their work often leave. In response, companies such as
TCS have programs that rotate employees into different disciplines about every two years and
expose them to new locations, projects, and technologies. L&T InfoTech, a software solutions
provider with 4,000 employees and six development centers in India, has implemented a similar
program.
Offshore employees are asking for a clear career path with increased responsibility and frequent
recognition of achievement. Established U.S. and European multinational companies have long
had learning programs that set expectations for performance goals such as learning a particular
tool or proprietary software. Companies practicing off shoring need to provide new challenges
and opportunities for skills development through training or job rotation. It may become the only
reason your best employees stay with you.
Rather than going through a prolonged posting process and screening a deluge of résumés, some
companies poach employees directly from their competitors and offer to double salaries or buy
out contracts on the spot to scale up quickly. Poaching is generally a bad idea, as it drives up
salaries and discourages employee loyalty.
An employee referral program can serve as an alternative and effective recruiting strategy.
Satisfied employees can be a company's best sales tool and add a personal touch that a print or
radio campaign lacks. A Voice & Data survey of the top 15 Indian outsourcing companies with
1,000-plus employees found that referrals constituted 23% of new hires. For some companies,
the number was even higher, at 40%. The study also observed that recruits hired through
employee referral programs are "stickier"; that is, they stay with companies longer than non-
referrals.
In today’s fast paced business environments where employees are constantly striving to achieve
business goals under time restrictions; open minded and transparent work culture plays a vital role in
employee retention.
Companies invest very many hours and monies in training and educating employees. These companies
are severely affected when employees check out, especially in the middle of some big company project
or venture. Although employees most often prefer to stay with the same company and use their time and
experience for personal growth and development, they leave mainly because of work related stress and
dissatisfactions.
More and more companies have now realized the importance of a healthy work culture and have a
gamut of people management good practices for employees to have that ideal fresh work-life. Closed
doors work culture can serve as a deterrent to communication and trust within employees which are
potential causes for work-related apathy and frenzy.
A transparent work environment can serve as one of the primary triggers to facilitate accountability,
trust, communication, responsibility, pride and so on. It is believed that in a transparent work culture
employees rigorously communicate with their peers and exchange ideas and thoughts before they are
finally matured in to full-blown concepts. It induces responsibility among employees and accountability
towards other peers, which gradually builds up trust and pride. More importantly, transparency in work
environment discourages work-politics which often hinders company goals as employees start to
advance their personal objectives at the expense of development of the company as a single entity.
Employees comprise the most vital assets of the company. In a work place where employees are not
able to use their full potential and not heard and valued, they are likely to leave because of stress and
frustration. In a transparent environment while employees get a sense of achievement and belongingness
from a healthy work environment, the company is benefited with a stronger, reliable work-force
harboring bright new ideas for its growth.
Quality of Work
The success of any organization depends on how it attracts, recruits, motivates, and retains its
workforce. Organizations need to be more flexible so that they develop their talented workforce
and gain their commitment. Thus, organizations are required to retain employees by addressing
their work life issues.
The basic objectives of a QWL program are improved working conditions for the employee and
increase organizational effectiveness.
Supporting Employees
Organizations these days want to protect their biggest and most valuable asset and they want to do this
in a way that best suits their organizational culture. Retaining employees is a difficult task. Providing
support to the employees acts as a mantra for retraining them. Employers can also support their
employees by creating an environment of trust and inculcating the organizational values into employees.
The management can support employees directly or indirectly. Directly, they provide support in terms
of personal crises, managing stress and personal development. Management can support employees,
indirectly, in a number of ways as follows:
o Employee turnover affects the whole organization in terms of productivity. Managing the
turnover, hence, becomes an important task. A proactive approach can be adopted to reduce
attrition. Strategies should be framed in advance and implemented when the times arrives.
Turnover costs should also be taken into consideration while framing these strategies.
Engage the new recruits: The newly hired employees are said to be least engaged in the
organization. Keeping them engaged is an important task. The fresh talent should be utilized to
maximum before they start feeling bored in the organization.
Coaching and mentoring: Employees whose work performance suffers due to poor
interpersonal relationships or because of lack of interpersonal skills should be provided proper
coaching by their superiors. Planed coaching sessions help an individual to work through issues,
maximize his potential and return to peak performance.
Feedback
Managers can provide either positive feedback or negative feedback to employees. This
feedback helps the employee assess his performance and identify the improvement areas.
Some managers do not provide any kind of feedback to their employees. Due to no feedback,
employees may assume that they are performing productively or they may feel that the manager
is satisfied with their performance. Studies reveal the performance tends be same or even
decreases if no feedback is provided.
It gives managers and employees a way to identify and discuss skills and strengths.
It helps in identifying performance areas that need improvement and specific ways to
improve them.
It is an opportunity for managers and employees to assess and identify career and
advancement opportunities.
Managers have tendency to ignore good performances of their employees. Providing no feedback may
demotivate employees and may lead to employee absenteeism. Input from manager’s side is necessary
as it help employees to improve their performance and increase productivity
• Turnover always happens: Companies who believe in zero attrition rates only fool
themselves. This happens because employees keep on moving due to reasons like
marriage or further education. Nothing can top these employees from moving on. So,
rather than achieving zero attrition companies should focus on identifying whom they
want to keep so that they have healthy attrition rate.
• Some Turnover is Desirable: Zero attrition is not desirable mainly because of two
reasons. Firstly, if all employees continue to stay in the same organization, most of them
will be at the top of their pay scale which will result in excessive manpower costs.
Secondly, new employees bring new ideas, approaches, abilities & attitudes which can
keep the organization from becoming stagnant.
• Turnover includes costs: Turnover always includes some costs. Consider the costs of
replacing the key employee who falls in to the category of high performers. This includes
the costs of recruitment advertisement, referral bonuses, selection testing, training costs,
etc. Moreover, turnover results in loss of time and efforts, low productivity, loss of
morale, loss of knowledge and so on.
• High salary doesn’t work: Most managers assume that a high salary package is enough
to keep employees loyal to their organization. Employees may face other problems like
low job satisfaction, low engagement levels, no recognition, poor working conditions,
less support from superiors and so on. Salaries are not always the solution to attrition.
Managers should try to identify the roots of the problem and then find a feasible solution.
• Welcome new employees. Customize your induction program for new employees
according to the requirements. Same induction program can not be applied to all
the candidates. Make them feel welcomed.
• Provide employees with work schedules that are flexible enough to suit their
needs.
• Don’t be too demanding. You re hiring human beings who have their own life
and family commitments. Respect them.
• Discuss your future plans regarding the candidate with the candidate. Let them
know that the management is interested in retaining them and cares for them.
Attrition Costs
A. Recruitment cost
The cost to the business when hiring new employees includes the following six factors plus 10
percent for incidentals such as background screening:
1. Time spent on sourcing replacement
2. Time spent on recruitment and selection
3. Travel expenses, if any
4. Re-location costs, if any n Training/ramp-up time
5. Background/reference screening
C. Administration cost
They include:
1. Set up communication systems
2. Add employees to the HR system
3. Set up the new hire’s workspace
4. Set up ID-cards, access cards, etc.
HR professionals should not drive their own formulas to calculate attrition rate. In terms of numbers,
attrition rate means:
Total Number of Resigns per month (Whether voluntary or forced) divided by (Total Number of
employees at the beginning of the month plus total number of new joiners minus total number of
resignations) multiplied by 100.
1. Calculate the cost of the person(s) who fills in while the position is vacant. Calculate the cost of
lost productivity at a minimum of 50% of the person's compensation and benefits cost for each
week the position is vacant, even if there are people performing the work. Calculate the lost
productivity at 100% if the position is completely vacant for any period of time.
2. Calculate the cost of conducting an exit interview to include the time of the person conducting
the interview, the time of the person leaving; the administrative costs of stopping payroll, benefit
deductions, benefit enrollments.
3. Calculate the cost of the manager who has to understand what work remains, and how to cover
that work until a replacement is found.
4. Calculate the cost of training your company has invested in this employee who is leaving.
5. Calculate the impact on departmental productivity because the person is leaving. Who will pick
up the work, whose work will suffer, what departmental deadlines will not be met or delivered
late.
6. Calculate the cost of lost knowledge, skills and contacts that the person who is leaving is taking
with them out of your door. Use a formula of 50% of the person's annual salary for one year of
service, increasing each year of service by 10%.
7. Subtract the cost of the person who is leaving for the amount of time the position is vacant.
Conclusion:
It is clear that there are massive costs associated with attrition or turnover and, while some of these are
not visible to the management reporting or budget system, they are none the less real. The 'rule of
thumb' appears to be very inaccurate indeed and, while it depends upon the category of staff, it is
probably better to estimate around 80% of salary as a truer rule of thumb - and this will be on the
conservative side.
What does this mean? Well it means that if a company has 100 people doing a certain job paid 25,000
and that turnover or attrition is running at 10%, the cost of attrition is:
• 100 staff at 10% attrition means 10 people leave and are replaced each year.
• A replacement cost of 80% of a salary of 25,000 means the cost of each replacement is 20,000.
• The cost of turnover is therefore 10 x 20,000 or 200,000 a year.
• The on cost to the overall salary bill is 8%.
According to Hewitt’s Attrition and Retention Study Asia Pacific 2006, the no.1 reason for this growing
attrition rate is compensation unfairness. 21% of the organizations who took part in the survey said that
their employee left the organization because they got offers from other organizations offering better pay
packages. The 2nd reason was less growth opportunities and no. 3rd reason was role stagnation the
study also revealed that the top retention strategy being used by the organizations in Asia was to pay
above the industry standards, providing opportunities to employees to learn new skills, and provide
work life balance.
The Following graph describes the Attrition Rates in Different Sectors in India.
• Loss of Company Knowledge: When an employee leaves, he takes with him valuable
knowledge about the company, customers, current projects and past history (sometimes
to competitors). Often much time and money has been spent on the employee in
expectation of a future return. When the employee leaves, the investment is not
realized.
• Turnover leads to more turnovers: When an employee terminates, the effect is felt
throughout the organization. Co-workers are often required to pick up the slack. The
unspoken negativity often intensifies for the remaining staff.
Four basic factors that play an important role in increasing employee retention include salary and
remuneration, providing recognition, benefits and opportunities for individual growth. But are they
really positively contributing to the retention rates of a company? Basic salary, these days, hardly
reduces turnover. Today, employees look beyond the money factor.
3. Career Development Program: Every individual is worried about his/her career. He is always
keen to know his career path in the company. Organizations can offer various technical
certification courses which will help employee in enhancing his knowledge.
4. Performance Based Bonus: A provision of performance linked bonus can be made wherein an
employee is able to relate his performance with the company profits and hence will work hard.
This bonus should strictly be productivity based.
5. Recreation facilities: Recreational facilities help in keeping employees away from stress
factors. Various recreational programs should be arranged. They may include taking employees
to trips annually or bi-annually, celebrating anniversaries, sports activities, et al.
6. Gifts at Some Occasions: Giving out some gifts at the time of one or two festivals to the
employees making them feel good and understand that the management is concerned about
them.
The organizations should start with identifying the employee turnover rates within a particular time
period and benchmark it with the competitor organizations. This will help in assessing the whether the
retention rates are healthy in the company. Secondly, the cost of employee turnover can be calculated.
According to a survey, on an average, attrition costs companies 18 months’ salary for each manager or
professional who leaves, and 6 months’ pay for each hourly employee who leaves. This amounts to
major organizational and financial stress, considering that one out of every three employees plans to
leave his or her job in the next two years.
Why employees leave often puzzles top management. Exit interviews are an ideal way of recording and
analyzing the factors that have led employees to leave the organization. They allow an organization to
understand the reasons for leaving and underlying issues. However employees never provide appropriate
response to the asked questions. So an impartial person should be appointed with whom the employees
feel comfortable in expressing their opinions.
Once the causes of attrition are found, a strategy is to be implemented so as to reduce employee
turnover. The most effective strategy is to adopt a holistic approach to dealing with attrition. An
effective retention strategy will seek to ensure:
• Appropriate development opportunities are available to employees, and that they are kept aware
of their likely career path with the organization
The following table describes the key points in Attracting and Retaining Talent
o Performance Recognition
o Strong global brand
o Value-based environment
American Express (India)
o Pioneer in many people practices
o Learning and growth opportunities
o Competitive rewards
o Opportunity to grow, learn and implement
NTPC
o Strong social security and employee welfare performance-
oriented culture
Johnson & Johnson o Strong values of trust, caring fairness, and respect within the
organization
o Freedom to operate at work
o Early responsibility in career
o Training and learning opportunities
o Growing organization
TCS o The group brand equity
o Strong corporate governance and citizenship
o Commitment to learning and development
o Best in people practices
Although retention bonuses are becoming more common everywhere, some industries are more
likely than others to offer them. Retail/wholesale companies are the most appropriate to
implement stay-pay bonuses, followed by financial service providers and manufacturing firms.
Companies of all sizes use retention bonus plans to keep knowledge employees retained in the
company. To retain its key senior employees post merger with EDS Corporation.
When asked about why employees leave, low salary comes out to be a common excuse.
However, research has shown that people join companies, but leave because of what their
managers’ do or don’t do. It is seen that managers who respect and value employees’
competency, pay attention to their aspirations, assure challenging work, value the quality of
work life and provided chances for learning have loyal and engaged employees. Therefore,
managers and team leaders play an active and vital role in employee retention.
Managers and team leaders can reduce the attrition levels considerably by creating a motivating
team culture and improving the relationships with team members. This can be done in a
following way:
• Creating a Motivating Environment: Team leaders who create motivating environments are
likely to keep their team members together for a longer period of time. Motivation does not
necessarily have to come through fun events such as parties, celebrations, team outings etc. They
can also come through serious events e.g. arranging a talk by the VP of Quality on career
opportunities in the field of quality. Employees who look forward to these events and are likely
to remain more engaged.
• Standing up for the Team: Team leaders are closest to their team members. While they need to
ensure smooth functioning of their teams by implementing management decisions, they also
need to educate their managers about the realities on the ground. When agents see the team
leader standing up for them, they will have one more reason to stay in the team.
• Providing coaching: Everyone wants to be successful in his or her current job. However, not
everyone knows how. Therefore, one of the key responsibilities will be providing coaching that
is intended to improve the performance of employees. Managers often tend to escape this role by
• Delegation: Many team leaders and managers feel that they are the only people who can do a
particular task or job. Therefore, they do not delegate their jobs as much as they should.
Delegation is a great way to develop competencies.
• Extra Responsibility: Giving extra responsibility to employees is another way to get them
engaged with the company. However, just giving the extra responsibility does not help. The
manager must spend good time teaching the employees of how to manage responsibilities given
to them so that they don’t feel over burdened.
• Focus on future career: Employees are always concerned about their future career. A manager
should focus on showing employees his career ladder. If an employee sees that his current job
offers a path towards their future career aspirations, then they are likely to stay longer in the
company. Therefore, managers should play the role of career counselors as well.
The process of retention is not as easy at it seems. There are so many tactics and strategies used in
retention of employees by the organizations. The basic purpose of these strategies should be to increase
employee satisfaction, boost employee morale hence achieve retention. But some times these strategies
are not used properly or even worse, wrong strategies are used. Because of which these strategies fail to
achieve the desired results. There are many myths related to the retention process. These myths exist
because the strategies being used are either wrong or are being used from a long time. These myths
prevent the employer from successfully implementing the retention strategies. Let us learn about some
of these myths.
1. Employees leave an organization for more pay: Money may be the motivating factor for some
but for many people it is not the most important factor. Money matters more to the low-income-
employees for whom it’s a survival issue. Money can make an employee stay in an organization
but not for long. The factors more important than money are job satisfaction, job responsibilities,
and individual’s skill development. The employers should understand this and work out some
other ways to make employees feel satisfied. When employees leave, management tries to retain
them by offering more money. But instead they should try to figure out the main reason behind
it. Issues that are mainly the cause of dissatisfaction are organization’s policies and procedures,
working conditions, relationship with the supervisor and salary, etc. For such employees,
achievement, growth, respect, recognition, is the main concern.
2. Incentives can increase productivity: Incentives can surely increase productivity but not for
long term. Cash incentives, volume work targets and speed awards are old management beliefs.
They can generate work speedily and in volumes but can’t boost employee commitment. Rather
speed can hamper the quality of work produced. What really glues employees to their work and
3. Employees run away from responsibilities: It is a myth that employees run from
responsibilities. In-fact employees feel more responsible if they are given extra responsibilities
apart from their regular job. Employees look for variety, greater control on the processes and
authority to take decisions in their present job. They want opportunities to learn and grow.
Management can assign extra responsibilities to their employees and appreciate them on the
completion of these tasks. This will induce a sense of pride in the employee and will improve the
relationship between the management and the employee.
4. Loyalty is a thing of the past: Employees can be loyal but what they need is an employer for
whom they can be loyal. There is no reason for the employee to hop jobs if he’s satisfied with
the employer.
Taking measures to increase employee satisfaction will be expensive for the organizations: The things
actually required to improve employee satisfaction like respect, career growth and development,
appreciation, etc. can’t be bought. They are free of cost. An employer or management that reacts well to
the employee’s ideas and suggestions is enough for the employees to be retained.
Books:
Attrition Management – Concept and Cases by Sushama Marathe
Why Do People leave Jobs? By TV Rao
Websites:
www.google.com
www.timesascent.in
www.naukrihub.com
http://www.igate.com/
http://www.hewittassociates.com
http://www.citehr.com/