Twenty Retention Tools For Curbing Attrition
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TWENTY RETENTION TOOLS FOR CURBING ATTRITION
In today's scenario, attrition has become the most dangerous alarm to all HR employees' ears, and organizations are 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.
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 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 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 schemes 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 a few outstanding examples.
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 check-ups)
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 a high level of commitments and a unique culture of celebrating all their achievements.
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.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES NEED 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 a clear vision, brawny and consistent communication, teamwork, and respect for human capital's 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 that 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.
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 your 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 employees' performance against the focus areas set in their performance agreement for the appraisal year and improve their proficiency.
Provide an opportunity for the employees to express their views or to seek further clarification on their performance.
Identify the potential of employees and 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 Organization, and there is an assured job for the employees after completion of his/her course.
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.
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 the 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.
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. In fact, 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.
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 a 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.
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.
FUN IS A 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 organize cultural programs as and when possible but most of the time, 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 a few good illustrations.
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 the 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