Of course, if cornered, employers usually skirt around the issues and indulge in escapist statements like ‘the market situation is responsible for poor employee retention’, or ‘multiple job offers are making people move around.’ Candidates’ are not much better.
      Their reasons vary from ‘I have been offered a better opportunity’ to ‘the new job offers me a chance to learn.’  In fact, candidates are ‘learning’ and getting ‘opportunities’ so much, that their shelf life is fast becoming around 12 months in a company. Our job market is fast developing into a twin of our tinned food market, with most candidates having an expiry date of 24 months.
     But, in spite of all these issues, when it comes to employee retention, no blame is apportioned anywhere. Though at the first glance it does not seem so, we are treading on a very dangerous path for the future and it is time we addressed this problem by blaming, blaming and blaming! Sounds a bit melodramatic?
Unfortunately, unless we start blaming our way around, we will not reduce the problem of employee retention.
It is blame, which will fix responsibility on different parties, and it is blame, which is the first step towards understanding where the problems lie.
Many companies today offer a number of sops and goodies to ensure that their employees stay in the company.  The larger the companies, the more benefits offered.
Corporates at fault
As the Indian economy grows further, the pressures to fill positions are getting higher, so not only the benefits, but also the increases in salaries to retain employees and hire new staff is growing. And there is no logic to this growth. To look at an example, in the USA, if you change your job, you can expect a salary increase of around 3-5 per cent prior to joining your new job.
In India, even a minimum 20 per cent expectation is accepted, and in many cases increases go up to 50 per cent. If someone changes his job two times in two years, he will almost double his salary. The question to ask here is; is he worth this kind of money. The companies are paying it, but how sustainable are these salaries in the long run? And more importantly, are we going to end up with a huge disconnect between what a person is worth and what he is getting paid?  So, when the economy shrinks, are we going to get a huge pool of unemployable people, people who in a normal job scenario are huge contributors to the countries GDP.
This is where we have to start by blaming the companies. In the mad rush to fill vacant positions in a company, one of the major causalities of hiring has been the stability of a candidate in a job. It is slowly becoming acceptable to hire candidates with an average experience of two years in a company.
People who have shown stability in their jobs are looked upon with surprise, rather than treated as stars! Companies have to get rid of short-term objectives, and look seriously at incorporating common criteria for hiring and penalties for dropouts, or at candidates who are serial job hoppers.
This initiative cannot come from industry associations who follow the lead of their members. It has to come from industry itself.
Job hoppers
Twenty years ago, candidates were willing to invest in a career even if it meant less rewards either financially or in job satisfaction. Today the country has changed beyond recognition and employment opportunities are easily available  which is a positive development. The worrying part is that attitudes of candidates have changed, and not in a positive direction.
The direction is more towards ‘live for today and let tomorrow worry about itself.’ Which is why we are getting people shifting jobs more. Peer pressure is also becoming negative, where seeing friends and colleagues shifting to higher paid jobs is enticing even stable employees. The number of candidates willing to look at the larger picture and invest in a career with a company, is dwindling at the speed of a formula one car. 
The trickle down effect of candidates’ regular job-hopping is starting to make an impact on fresh graduates attitudes to their jobs, and this is the worrying part for our job market. In a recent survey, it was found that 40 per cent of the new job entrants change their jobs in the first year of employment. This is the worst way to start a career, and the fact that the numbers are so high indicates that we have an underlying problem.
At grassroot levels
The blame has to be extended to colleges and society as well. There is no instruction in colleges on how to plan and map your career, except as a small seminar before placements.
If the job market is going to continue with this trend, we will have to address the problem from its grassroots  i.e., the colleges. We all learnt moral science in school, but with an increasing mercenary attitude that is creeping into our professional lives, perhaps a collegiate version of moral science is necessary. 
Society is also encouraging this trend. In a country like India where a majority of the population have been starved of the consumerism that the West has had for half a century, this is understandable, but not good for the job market in particular and the country in general. 
We hear a lot of hype on India in the world today. Indians are willing to work long hours at a lesser rate, while the population in affluent countries are expensive and want to go home early.  As long as we are providing this advantage, we can expect enormous growth in our economy. 
But no country can offer a stable business and investment atmosphere if their labour market is unreliable. The way the job market is progressing, it is only a matter of time that India gets the reputation of an unreliable job market, which is not something we can afford.

Joseph Rasquinha & Mohammed Zaheer Hussain are in HR Consulting. To contact them visit www.truemenblog.com.