A booming job market and new opportunities have only intensified this problem from an organisation perspective. Knowledge capital is what differentiates one organisation from the other and this is a well-recognised fact. Further to this objective, companies are trying their best to retain talent within their organisation. DH Avenues checks out what some organisations are doing.

Work ethos

Says Tim Huiting, Vice President of Human Resources for Convergys in Asia, “Our team members find our organisation to be a fun place to work. Convergys promotes diversity and celebrates all festivals from Holi to Christmas and important days like Women’s Day, Valentines Day and Family Day, etc.”

Having fun at work induces a culture of oneness among employees and allows them to develop a sense of pride and passion for working with WebEx. In fact this is a concept that almost all organisations have implemented so that employees look at the work place beyond the confines of what it is meant to be. So whether it is providing facilities like a fully equipped gym or a multi cuisine cafeteria to holistic development programmes like Yoga, Art of living courses and music classes, it is all part of the work ethos nowadays. One of Tesco’s key values, “treat people like how we like to be treated” is a testament to the employee centric culture at Tesco. “We believe that selection of the right person for the right job is one of the key factors to curb dissatisfaction and therefore reduce attrition. Through our robust recruitment processes, we make sure that the employee truly fits into the organisation and develops a sense of belonging,” says Tesco Hindustan Service Centre HR Head Sudheesh Venkatesh.

Learn while you earn

Another aspect where organisations invest heavily is on training and development. Training encompasses personality development, career development and personal development. Employees leave an organisation due to lack of opportunities, issues with the working environment and compensation.

“Fight attrition with smart training, taking a longer term perspective. We use training & development as key retention tools,” says Guru Prasad, Director, V3 Engineers. To help employees continue their education even while working, Convergys has a special education assistance programme that allows one to get up to Rs 24,000 of the course fee reimbursed. Prudent organisations would be those that work on composite retention programmes.

Unlike retention strategies that tackle the problems in bits and pieces, a composite retention programme would serve to create a more engaged employee leading to higher retention levels. “At AppLabs, our retention programme has evolved with this underlying philosophy. Providing visibility to a career is becoming more and more important for organisations today. We have put together definitive career tracks for employees and have introduced the concept of individual development plans, which set quarterly milestones for employees from a development perspective,” says Arun Rao,Vice President, HR, AppLabs.

Talent management

Investing in talent management to upgrade employee skills has a huge payoff. At Convergys University, employees are provided developmental courses that enhance work related skills and inform them about different career opportunities available within Convergys. Corroborates Charu Mohan, Director, Human Resources, FCG Software Services (India) Pvt Ltd, “We at FCG, strongly believe that employees leave managers and not the organisation.

“Employees who leave within first one year are those who would not have had good experience in the first three months in the organisation. For the new employees, we have a robust three-month programme, which is made up of various touch points during the first quarter of their joining.

These programmes aim at making sure that they know they are important to the organisation and the organisation has made efforts to make sure that right people have been assigned to take care of them. Managers at FCG are moulded to become the “True Leader of People” through the initiatives like ‘Coach the Coach Programme’, ‘New Leader’s Assimilation Programme’ and the ‘Skip Level Programmes’.” Says Ramana Reddy, VP - Corporate HR, Rangsons Electronics that the Company has a bigger challenge to attract, select and retain the right talent in recent days compared to the past due to globalisation, war for talent, managing the employee expectations etc.

Feedback

Having an open communication at all time is another vital aspect. Says Vivek Govilkar, Senior Vice President, HR and Training, i-flex Solutions, “We do an analysis of people’s reason for joining, staying and leaving the company. Regular communication on company plans and performance and making people understand the opportunities and challenges, continuous feedback, career counselling and training and development opportunities are working better than the industry average attrition.”

In fact most organisations employ surveys that seek employee feedback on all aspects of their workplace environment as well as serve as a great toll to be heard. “Our company is a captive centre, which by itself speaks about the stability of our organisation. Besides paying a competitive salary, the company is built on employee feedback and transparency across all levels. We take formal and informal feedback from all our employees at regular intervals. This gives us an idea of what needs to be implemented,” adds Tarun Jauhari, Director, First Advantage Offshore Services.

Another practice is to have exit interviews done across organisations to ensure that the person who is leaving is given an opportunity to give his or her feedback on what did not work. When employees see the good that a company wants to create through a culture of openness and trust, continual learning, fairness in practices and policies, it creates a strong sense of belonging. These help nurture and build relationships with employees. It also helps develop an understanding of how the organisation provides a long-term career,” explains Raghavan Rajagopalan, HR Leader - John F Welch Technology Centre.

Pat on the back

Rewards can be very effective if they are designed and implemented correctly. In all organisations there are some corners that escape appreciation by management not because they are not doing good work but because their work does not translate into visible organisational impact or customer delight.

Recognition is not compensation. So there is a need to be first competitive at the market level on compensation before banking on the effectiveness of recognition programmes. “Here in Xora we formalise this through ‘Friday Good News’ in an open forum.This is a platform where our MD not only says ‘well done’ to persons who are known star performers but also to those who are literally the cornerstones but are never heralded. He talks to all about the good work the stars are doing and what good work the silent workers are doing. This exercise is terrific for retention. Costs little but the payoffs are huge,” says Ashis Roy, Director of Operations, Xora Software Systems.

Retention benefits

Convergys has ACE - Awards For Convergys Excellence to felicitate good performers that add excitement to the work atmosphere. “Employee attrition is something that cannot be avoided and hence efforts must be made to ensure that we have suitable retention benefits.

“Our retention benefits like bonus payment, loyalty pay, reimbursement of interest subsidy for housing loans are linked with longevity of service,” says Y Krishnamohan, Senior Director HR, Philips Electronics India Ltd.

WebEx incidentally has instituted an attrition bonus. This is an assured sum of money, paid on a quarterly or half yearly basis. It gives employees something to look forward to and has been proven to reduce attrition. “Similarly, we have a stock options plan, which is available to all employees.

“This gives them a sense of ownership of the company they work for and reduces attrition levels too,” says Kiran Datar, MD, WebEx Communications. Adds Pavan Ranga, CEO Rangsons Electronics, “The company has mapped the key positions and decided to give separate strategy to retain them by offering flexi-compensation options, performance pay, fast career growth opportunities etc. We have decided to introduce long service awards as recognition for their loyal services.” One of Convergys Corporation’s key tools in fighting attrition and increasing retention is its ‘Early Warning System’ that allows to identify employees likely to attrite, understand the reasons for their attrition and address those attrition reasons head on at an individual level. Convergys’ early warning system has been rolled out to all our 79 sites globally and it is having an impact on reducing attrition.

One programme alone in India has seen a 16 per cent decrease in attrition rates. Says Biju S Nair, Vice President (Finance & HR), Four Soft Limited, “We believe that retaining employees or curtailing attrition requires assembling various components such as better pay structure, ESOP, career modelling, variable components such as performance based incentive, opportunities in the company. This should be done with frequent reviews and flexible enough to customise based on situations.”

Perot Systems takes a holistic approach into employee engagement. “Our umbrella initiative called WOOOW (We will overcome, Overtake, Overachieve, and Win) is a full lifecycle employee engagement and rewards programme. We perform compensation-benchmarkings exercises semi-annually and take compensation stances combining experience and market realities.

“Besides, we provide associates several different types of bonuses such as instant bonuses, monthly rewards, project completion bonuses, annual bonuses and business units goals based Global Value programme,” says Anurag Jain- President, Consulting & Applications Solutions, Insurance and Business Process Solutions.

Personal issues

First Advantage Offshore Services provides employees with various services through a third party named Les Concierges. This helps employees to save times and energy and is of great help as they would otherwise need to run around to finish their daily chores. “Assisting individuals on personal issues like this person who met with an accident and had a fractured leg we allowed her to work from home without taking leave.

“Change of roles as per liking even the qualification is not related to that domain is also encouraged. This has helped retain the core team from inception and some of who have rejoined, which has been an eye opener for new employees. This is a big achievement considering the high industry attrition even among large brands in the domain,” says Anil Francis Rego, Founder and CEO, Right Horizons Financial Services Pvt Ltd.

Attrition is the manifestation of some kind of disengagement and disconnect with the organisation. Each day is an opportunity for the employee and  organisation to reassess their relationship.