Employee Retention

Retaining Employee Programs have never been kept in place traditionally. However, things have changed in the job scenario in recent years and now, especially in the prominent metros, employees are basking in new found market value. There is no dearth of employment opportunities and when it comes to keeping and holding back the best, employers are stretching way beyond in the effort. It is very important for small, medium and large scale employers to retain key employees and treat attrition troubles. The current job scenario has major HR Department hawks, intensely competitive and poaching from each other, if need be. The entrepreneur can choose to either hold on to productive employees or lose them to competition. Now, with their worth well known and bargained, employees too refuse to stick to an employer for years, if there is a better choice beckoning out there.

The amount of opportunities that abound for every sphere of excellence is amazing. The management gurus and extensive organizational study reveals the fact that retention of key employees is very essential and critical to the realizing of long-term company goals, company health and success. The direct link between the performances of employees and the quality of work submitted is undeniable. This again ripples out within the industry and enhances business growth via higher customer satisfaction and increased product sales and company image. The employee performance level also indirectly has an effect on a congenial work space, satisfied reporting staff and efficient succession planning. The thus enhanced and deeply embedded organizational knowledge helps the whole effort towards employee retention.

Employee retention plays a very vital role in any organization. Issues such as training duration and time and money investment and effective candidate search are factors that directly affect the output of the exercise. Research reveals that in event of the absence of an employee retention program, the inability of an organization to retain key employees proves a costly proposition eventually. Organizational statistics and various estimates suggest that losing a middle hand results in a loss as much as five times his salary, in the long run! Imagine this kind of a loss in the case of a BPO company, where fresh talent is consistently and intensively trained and inducted, only to be groomed yet again to progress further!

In any organization, where the work tends to get routine and monotonous and there is little or no opportunity for career growth, the result is a very high rate of attrition. Research also reveals the various reasons cited by employees during surveys for wanting to leave an organization. They include extensive night shifts and an unmonitored rote, poor pay packet, inability to handle the stress involved within the work force and even erratic company policies. The more common ones include a monotonous work schedule, distinct lack of career growth and nepotism, issues with seniors etc.

It is very important for an entrepreneur to be sensitive to employee needs and maintain an effective employee retention program. An innovative way of tapping into the cause for attrition is by organizing ‘exit interviews’. The exit interviews offer the entrepreneur to get a good idea about the reasons for the resignations. It is very important for the senior management to meet a key employee resigning and discuss the reasons for leaving and evaluate whether or not the raised issues can be resolved. This provides the board with ample of scope to prepare a rostrum, to avoid the similar reason coming up again.

In order to work on employee retention from the very beginning, the employer should focus on selecting the right people. To achieve this sifting of candidates there are many competency screening methods that can be put in place. The management could implement psychometric tests to identify those who can effectively take on monotonous work. It is also important to ensure that the initial offer is not only attractive, but also competitive and accompanied by a ‘benefits package’.