My Viewpoints on Attrition in an Organization

These are some of my own viewpoints on the Issues of "Attrition in an organization" that was accepted & published in Business Manager Magazine

1) What do you identify as major reasons for attrition ?

Most of the times, it is the work culture & the environment. Money is also an important factor, but there are people who would like to be loyal to the company & are emotionally attached to their workplace. But if the work culture is not conducive or promotive, then the feeling of resentment creeps in, it is like within the family & thus people leave.

Another one of the reasons could be internal politics by senior members who do not want their juniors to grow. By creating stumbling blocks for the juniors, they make them want to leave & this way their objective of not letting the company grow is achieved. Seniors often do not want the juniors to grow. People also look at the benefits they are getting back from the company in lieu of the efforts put in by them. If that is found to be not satisfactory, then they leave. Unfriendly HR policies is also another reason like refusal of leave, salary - cutting for no logical reason delay in reimbursements, etc... I guess that that in today's scenario, the old adage of Boss - Worker concept is gone. People should no longer be treated as workers who are being paid for the work they do. Everyone wants to feel to be a part of the company, I am talking of ownership, Salary is something which one gets in return for the services rendered by the person to the organization. The labour concept is outdated today. Hence, if some company is still following that culture, then that could be another one of the reasons why people leave. People also leave for lack of career - growth opportunities.

Another reason could also be the the attitude of the top management towards not taking any action or showing some worry for the employee's leaving the organization. They only look at the top - line, they only look at how much money / business is coming in & hence till the time it is not affected, they feel that people may come & people may go, but i will go on forever. This is not valid in today's scenario. In such cases, also a person will leave where he feels that his contribution is not valued. People want to be felt as a part of the contributing team, one person alone must take all the credit.

2) What can be the possible strategies to combat attrition ?

I would highly recommend a strong HR Friendly Policies. Apart from that there should be regular increments of wages. It should be totally unbiased & based strongly on performance only. There must be rewards & recognition schemes to boost employee morale & productivity. Employees need to be kept motivated & engaged all the times. No work is impossible when the employee is motivated & highly enthusiastic. Internal HR Branding, that is of promoting the organization as an avenue for growth & reasons to stick around is another strategy that can be adopted.

3) Any HR practice you adopted in your organization which really helped you to reduce attrition rate?

The company has introduced Performance Linked Incentives Policies as a strategy to combat the high rate of attrition & to be able to retain employees from joining the competition. There is also a regular Performance Appraisal System in place with annual increments.

4) Any long term solution to increase stability of employee in the organization?

Employees must feel that they are a part of the company & the people must also grow alongwith the company, otherwise nobody will stick around.