Understanding HR Challenges: Attrition vs. Retention
It is no wonder HR professionals at workplaces everywhere devote much time to either taking proactive initiatives to retain their quality people or doing firefighting to maintain a lower attrition rate. What should be the point of concern for HR? Is it attrition figures or retention efforts? It looks the same but is not in reality. Trying to have a lower attrition rate would not necessarily increase the retention rate.
Many organizations do all they can to arrest the attrition of employees but hardly focus on retaining the people who matter most to the organization. There is a difference between the two. Attrition is sometimes good for the organization. Let mediocre or underperformers look for other opportunities and leave the organization. But it is the performers for whom there should be strategies in place to keep them continuing because the reasons employees leave the organization are very different from the reasons they stay.
When opportunities beckon, a high rate of attrition is not surprising. It also becomes difficult to retain employees even after having robust employee-related policies and practices. However, there are some common reasons that specifically cause employees to leave. The retention strategies of any organization should start from the selection point. It should not become a case of mismatch. Qualified should not be taken as qualitative. We also should not chase the best to retain. There is nothing like the best in the world. The best is one who has talent, values, and qualities that meet your requirements, gets embedded in your culture, understands your business, and delivers optimally by gaining competence and confidence in a short period.
Individuals differ in many respects. HR has to analyze to identify the non-monetary interests and preferences of those employees and meet such preferences in action for whom they want to retain. Strategies are not going to remain the same forever in organizations. At regular intervals, you need to dig for novel approaches to maintain effective manpower. Such strategies cannot be orchestrated in isolation but must form part of the overall organization’s HR policies. Also, retention strategies cannot bring desired results if they are copy-pasted. Every organization has its own set of hygiene and motivating factors.
It would not be appropriate for me to discuss retention strategies here because experts with resounding experience and wisdom have enough to tell you all about innovative retention strategies one can have and what’s happening currently in the corporate world in the cover story pages.
Regards
It is no wonder HR professionals at workplaces everywhere devote much time to either taking proactive initiatives to retain their quality people or doing firefighting to maintain a lower attrition rate. What should be the point of concern for HR? Is it attrition figures or retention efforts? It looks the same but is not in reality. Trying to have a lower attrition rate would not necessarily increase the retention rate.
Many organizations do all they can to arrest the attrition of employees but hardly focus on retaining the people who matter most to the organization. There is a difference between the two. Attrition is sometimes good for the organization. Let mediocre or underperformers look for other opportunities and leave the organization. But it is the performers for whom there should be strategies in place to keep them continuing because the reasons employees leave the organization are very different from the reasons they stay.
When opportunities beckon, a high rate of attrition is not surprising. It also becomes difficult to retain employees even after having robust employee-related policies and practices. However, there are some common reasons that specifically cause employees to leave. The retention strategies of any organization should start from the selection point. It should not become a case of mismatch. Qualified should not be taken as qualitative. We also should not chase the best to retain. There is nothing like the best in the world. The best is one who has talent, values, and qualities that meet your requirements, gets embedded in your culture, understands your business, and delivers optimally by gaining competence and confidence in a short period.
Individuals differ in many respects. HR has to analyze to identify the non-monetary interests and preferences of those employees and meet such preferences in action for whom they want to retain. Strategies are not going to remain the same forever in organizations. At regular intervals, you need to dig for novel approaches to maintain effective manpower. Such strategies cannot be orchestrated in isolation but must form part of the overall organization’s HR policies. Also, retention strategies cannot bring desired results if they are copy-pasted. Every organization has its own set of hygiene and motivating factors.
It would not be appropriate for me to discuss retention strategies here because experts with resounding experience and wisdom have enough to tell you all about innovative retention strategies one can have and what’s happening currently in the corporate world in the cover story pages.
Regards
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