The contents of this article will be divided into four parts;
- Why there is a need to focus on talent sustenance?
- Why employees quit?
- How to sustain talent?
- Parting thought
One must remember while reading the paper that all the points are based on observation and analyzing the behavioral dynamics of office colleagues. This paper is not based on facts and data but observation which I believe plays an equally important role in any analysis if not bigger than data. Upon reading there is every possibility to find the points aspirational and that is exactly what I wish to achieve through this paper, an aspiration for success in making workplaces equitable and free from boredom.
The article should be used as applicable. The factors are based on Indian outsourcing firms and may or may not be applicable as reasoned.
I define a new term, Employee Happiness Index (EHI). The applicability of it depends on the firm’s willingness to experiment and test it. As mentioned before this is an observational paper and not a practical one.
Why there is a need to focus on talent sustenance?
The hiring of every new employee has an economic value to the organization. Each new hire has to be hired, on-boarded, trained and eventually a new assignment is offered. Until an employee is hired and on-boarded, an organization is investing in him or her. The moment s/he twitches training and moves on an assignment, the organization starts gaining returns from the employee. At this point, it is not desirable an employee leaves the organization. Particularly in the IT industry where People are assets other being Processes and Technology. People empowerment should be one of the major goals as every replacement has to go through a learning curve which is a cost to the company, sometimes, as high as 50-60% of the employee’s annual salary.*
At the same time, it is essential to understand, not every employee is worth retention. An organization should be smart to identify those who are crucial for organizational success and need to be retained. Then there are those who are not crucial yet important and there should be enough focus to keep them as well. Then there is a big-league of talent which is good to have and can be accommodated but not necessarily. Every organization has a bush-league of employees which should be churned out. This also enables to hire new and fresh talent from the market.
This article talks about the reasons for which an employee quits and how an organization can sustain talent.
*Cascio, W.F. 2006. Managing Human Resources: Productivity, Quality of Work Life, Profits (7th ed.). Burr Ridge, IL: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. Mitchell, T.R., Holtom, B.C., & Lee, T.W. 2001. How to keep your best employees:
Why employees quit?
Even before I elaborate on how we can sustain talent, it is essential to understand why employees quit. A general perception is employees quit for a better package. This is true, however, it is essential to understand money is important but it doesn’t buy employee loyalty. More than money, people want a chance to prove themselves by working their way up and having a healthy work-life balance.
There are two broad sections under which we can categorize the tendency for an employee to quit
- Controllable factors
- Uncontrollable factors
We shall discuss the uncontrollable factors because these are irrepressible and a company can do little to stop an employee if s/he is leaving for any of these reasons.
- Termination
- Retirement
- No specific reason
- Boredom
Believe it or not, employees most of the time have no good reason to offer on their quitting. Here, an organization cannot convince an employee to stay because there is no foundation on which the employee can be asked to stay put. The employee isn’t clear itself and therefore, it is little the HR can help on. There are employees who are bored to stay in the same organization for more than certain number of years. Such employees are drifters. They would not stay in any organization for a long time. The HR team should possibly through behavioral analysis, identify such employees at the time of recruitment. They might be the brightest of the lot, but they aren’t the ones who could bring stability to an organization. It would help to identify such a lot in the beginning and allocate projects accordingly. It would not be good to have drifters for projects which require stability or long term association/ interaction with the client.
Controllable factors – I define these factors which contribute to the Employee Happiness Index (EHI) within an organization.
EHI can be defined as the index which indicates whether an employee will leave or stay with an organization. The lower the index value, the higher is the possibility of the employee to desert the organization. In its absolute form, this value should be 1. However, this is a case of absolute zero and therefore, not possible. Nevertheless, a closer or tending towards 1 value is a good enough indication.
EHI can also be defined as why people leave their jobs. Thus, a lower EHI is always a reason for people quitting. EHI depends, but is not restricted to the below factors –
- Advancement – this can also be termed as growth opportunities within the organization
- Work-life balance – one can use the terms like stress factor, overworked, rest and relaxation in place of work-life balance
- Money – Money is understood in all languages and there is no alternative to it!!
- Management – This can itself be further bifurcated into a multitude of branches. Management in itself is an index and should be measured and followed diligently
- Difficult co-workers
- Geography
I would like to elaborate on these terms for understanding the employee psyche better.
Advancement – If you do a job too well, you’ll get stuck with it. Promotions in an organization shouldn’t be about begging. Nor should the organization shy away from acknowledging employees who have been working day and night to put up a strong client interface. Within IT firms, a general perception is to hold on to the promotions of those at client locations versus those who are working at low-cost center locations. While it is essential to hold on to the employees at low-cost center and keep them happy, it shouldn’t be at the expense of those who are directly interacting with the client. While the employee at the client site enjoys a better salary package it is always at the expense of being in the direct line of fire. Other factors can be personal and/or private.
Even at low-cost site locations, promotions shouldn’t be an a-summit-to-Everest process. Admit it, an employee views promotion as a gesture of encouragement from the organization. And if the organization is less than willing to encourage, there are other organizations waiting to absorb well-trained people at better positions.
Work-Life Balance – This can be called as one of the major reasons for people quitting their companies. Stress or overworked human beings can never give the best results. The work-life balance must go beyond just flexible working hours or even the work-from-home facility. A stress-free environment produces superlative results as opposed to a milieu laden with strain and tension. Flexibility in the workplace is what an employee eagerly looks for.
Money – People do leave for better compensation.
Management – this in itself is an index. There is always a possibility of an employee having management issues. A free and fair environment within an organization gives an employee to voice out his/her opinions. However, it shouldn’t be just limited to lunches and meetings. Until and unless action on the ground happens, it is next to impossible to convince the employees. Moreover, it shouldn’t be just lip service. Employees tend to be intuitive about this and with time start skipping such lunches and meetings.
- Alignment with company culture – Employees, sometimes, find it difficult to align with the company culture. We have people from varied geographical regions joining the organization. It is essential even if a single employee joins from a particular geography an HR walkthrough is given to the employee about the history of the company and its culture and ethics. This is done, however, a VC or a phone chat can never replace the potential of personal attention. An employee should feel wanted. Where the older ones are a pro with the processes, the new hires find this process a web. New hires are tangled and soon lose the enthusiasm to continue.
- Inadequate training – Training is the mantra to succeed in the future. It is also a pitfall. Identifying the right training needs is all that takes employee survival to another level within an organization.
- No appreciation from bosses – A person who feels appreciated will always do more than what is expected. Every good job, however minor it is, should be esteemed. We must not appreciate a good employee’s absence, rather the presence.
- No sick leave – Certain organizations don’t give sick leaves. One sick leave per month is all that takes the Employee Happiness Index (EHI) closer to 1. Every sick leave should dissolve with the month. There is no need to carry forward those sick leaves. Imagine the impact it will have on the women’s strength of the organization! Women go through their painful cycle every month and sick leave (rest leave) for them is a way to show we care. It is no Knights Templar’s secret, yet we shy away from giving women employee extra care. This is the workforce that stays loyal to its male counterpart if it is treated with care.
- Boss not trusting – When your manager trusts you, s/he empowers you. Trust can be a funny thing; if put in the wrong place it can break the existence of an individual but if showered on the right person, it can move mountains. Trust always encourages an employee to stretch beyond limits to perform.
- Boss blames you for mistakes – How many time are we going to pass the buck? The managers/ senior management should understand the buck stops at their desk. A true leader always takes the weight of the mistake rather than pushing the ball in a subordinate or colleague’s court.
- Favoritism – Favoritism can arise from anywhere. It is seen in regionalism. It is seen when people mingle out a lot beyond after office hours, sometimes it arises when a manager spots a prodigy. Favoritism can be good or detrimental. It is essential to control it with checks and balances. We can’t be like judges who don’t mingle because their judgment cannot be biased. Yet, we have to ensure our favoritism is in check to not upset other employees.
Difficult co-workers – There are co-workers who reverberate negative chaos every day. They make working difficult for new joiners or even the old wine. Office gossip can be healthy if it doesn’t cross the line of hurting a person’s individuality or credibility. There are victims of office gossip who chose to leave rather facing the situation. This is a logical way out. Again, difficult co-workers result in dropping of Employee Happiness Index (EHI)
Geography – For employees, this is a major factor to consider when they decide to quit. A favorable location may reduce the quit percentage hugely.
Hence, for a good EHI, a win on all the above influences is obligatory.
How to sustain talent?
When employees give you a reason to quit you give them reasons to stay.
The first step in the analysis is the segregation of employees based on their job bands, roles or positions. A parallel analysis should also run which is gender-based. It will be interesting to see what is the eloping pattern based on gender.
The First Thought: It is a matter of concern we still have fewer females in the management roles within the organization. Any organization needs women employees because they bring –
- More empathy in the organization
- Intuition in the leadership
- Possess greater awareness and concerns of their people
- Better insights on the outcome of the decision at a larger scale
- More loyal than their male counterparts
Imagine the dedication of a womployee (Woman Employee) can bring if she is awarded, acknowledged and appreciated in the organization. To retain womployees and attract more it is essential to prepare the workplace to ensure they can meet their personal or family commitments and be more productive and happy in the workplace. Some of the factors can be/ have been implemented are –
- Flexible location – working from home or any other place instead of the office
- Compressed hours – working four days a week instead of five by working longer hours
- Job sharing – where two or more people on part-time hours share one full-time job
- A mentorship program for women, by women – women in the workplace who have successfully been promoted to upper management are by far the best mentors for other women with similar aspirations. Connect them.
Most of these policies are gender independent but womployees have just been historically more willing than men to ditch any workplace that doesn’t meet these demands and suffer the career fallout this may result.
However, it is also essential we stop thinking exclusively in terms of ‘mommy-policies’. Once we have implemented woman-friendly policies, it is essential we mix the demographics again.
The Second Thought: Figure out from the data, Consistent Top Performers
HR should reach out to such employees directly and ask pointed questions. Sample these;
- How frequently do you think about looking for a new job?
- If given a chance would you leave the organization?
- Why would you leave the organization?
- Do you feel undervalued?
- Have you been trained properly? How relevant it was to the job you are/ were performing?
- Is the current job you work at, as per your expectations?
- Does your immediate supervisor lack people skills?
- Have you been given any creative development opportunities?
- Are there any rest and relaxation activities held by your manager?
The investigating team should understand – An ambitious employee cannot have a lazy manager. An unambitious manager may be helpful in many ways but he cannot and must not supervise a zealous person. This creates frustration and friction in the work environment further leading to talent elopement.
The Third Thought: People who were top performers but now their performance has dipped. This holds more wisdom than the previous thought.
Performance can dip for any reason – problems in getting a rightly-deserved carrier progression, conflicts in the workspace, personal issues. An enterprising and connecting HR should figure out the reasons and suggest the cure.
Sample this – when an employee is promoted s/he might find it difficult to cope up with the peers or time or management. A suggested cure by an HR can be signing up the employee for the right training program by identifying the exact cause. There are cases where an employee is facing personal issues. An empathetic ear by HR can create a feeling of being cared for. Empathy and compassion go a long way in employee engagement.
Professional rivalry or peer issues are other problems that dampen the spirit and impact the performance. HR must investigate these matters with diligence and empathy.
The Fourth Thought: Non-performers, Average performers. It is important to figure out how the best hires turn out to be non-performers. The gap in hiring and the expectation from the person has to be bridged. We need to hire the best talent if the best talent within the organization is deserting. Replacing a good or the best talent with mediocrity serves no good.
The Fifth Thought: Work-Life Balance. This doesn’t end with work-from-home policy. The HR department should think beyond policies and processes. Sample this – HR should identify the number of hours an employee is clocking for a project versus the leaves s/he has taken in the period s/he started working in the project. Coupling in other factors like project criticality, days since the project is critical, current situation, etc. a forced leave should come into being after the ‘decided’ threshold for working is reached by the employee. This empathetic leave creates a long-lasting impression in the hearts of the employees. It is seen empathy wins over better than money in the long run.
The Sixth Thought: Identify leaders and managers. This is required in order to ensure the leaders are retained. Some of the points which can be considered in identifying a leader from managers are below –
| Leader |
Manager |
| Long term goals |
Focused on short term gains |
| Thinks of people as people |
People are mere resources |
| Earns respect |
Wants to be liked |
| Thrilled on the success of team members |
Threatened, insecure |
| Empowers honesty and transparency within the team |
No information sharing, discrete |
| Result-oriented |
Concerned more about processes |
| Takes responsibility for failure |
Blames the team |
| Celebrates creativity and open-minded |
Conceited and thinks creativity as an additional burden |
The Seventh Thought: Help people open up. What is common between Tim Cook, Robert Hanson, Lord Browne, Trevor Burgess, Christopher Bailey, and Rick Welts? They are openly gay. Management that promotes individuals irrespective of their personal choices secures a place in the heart of the individuals. It is not just encouraging them to open but also, ensure any downgrade remark or office gossip against them is dealt with severity. Encouraging employees to open also means developing an environment of empathy for them. Without non-judgmental co-workers, this is not possible.
Parting thought
As HR tries to retain, it must remember no employee can hold the company by its neck. Yes, retention is important at the same time there should be no compromise on the principles and ethics of the organization. An organization is a small replica of the society. People thrive in it. They are proud of their culture. By remaining true to its roots, HR must help retaining people, keeping in mind clearly – human nature cannot be predicted. Even after the best efforts, some employees will still leave.
Howbeit, curious data analysis on the employee data can open more doors in sustaining talent. Remember, brains, like hearts, go where they are appreciated.
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