| Retention Strategies |
| This paper was co-authored by one of the partners at PathwaysforGrowth and published by the Journal of Entrepreneurship at Xavier Institute of Management & Entrepreneurship |
| Principles to keep in mind for retention: |
 |
The most important principle is to treat your employees as you treat your prized customers. |
|
The first step is to develop a pool of talented workforce. |
|
Once you re sure who your key employees are, recognize that they have different needs. |
|
According to the Job Characteristics Model7, core job dimensions like Skill variety, feedback and autonomy plus Employees Critical Psychological states like meaningfulness and responsibility for work, influence satisfaction and motivation. Therefore, keep reassessing the elements that are important to the employee (on par with finding the needs of customers). |
|
| Career anchors |
| It is essential for organizations to rethink the way they manage people. Edgar Schein at MIT has identified eight themes and has shown that people will have prioritized preferences lists. These affect their career graph or the course they are likely to take in the long haul. Understanding the career anchors of employees will help the HR department to place these employees in the areas of their preferences or to help them perform better by tapping their deepest passions or skills. Identifying segments of the workforce that drive their current and future growth rather than just concentrating on metrics will help in understanding the career anchors of employees. And it will help in retaining the star performers. |
| Mentoring Forging Relationships |
| A recent Gallup Organization study based on queries to around 2 million workers in 700 companies found that more than promotion or rise in opportunities, it is the relationship with the boss that determines the length of stay of an employee. In order that this may happen, the trend currently is to train managers to retain employees and more importantly, hold them accountable if an employee leaves. |
| This inevitably leads to the methods that most companies use to hold mangers accountable and help them achieve better relationships with their subordinates MENTORING. These include: |
|
Train managers to give informal feedback everyday. |
|
Train managers to regularly ask their employees about their training needs especially for a knowledge workforce that places very high importance on up-to-date functional skills that are essential for their career advancement. |
|
Teach managers to be flexible in terms of work-life balance that has become so important for managers today. |
|
Financial-services giant, American Express Co. last year unveiled a plan to double its cadre of analysts and financial advisers to roughly 20,000 for the coming decade. In the face of such massive expansion, their HR experts began training managers on how to become mentors to employees whom the company views as up-and-comers.The idea is to bolster
the development of prized recruits before they go looking for such nurturing elsewhere. |
| Macys retention strategies include attaching a new hire to a Team Angel (experienced associate) for mentoring. |
| Woo them back homing pigeons |
| Resignation need not mean an end to the relationship between the employee and the employer.In the recent past, organizations have found that encouraging ex-employees to join back into the organization increases the level of their loyalty. Having the right ingredients (compensation package, designation and level) will help in wooing the employees back. |
The second innings of such employees usually turns out to be more powerful in cases where the organization has been able to strike a balance between the internal and external parities.
|
| To succeed in keeping in touch with the ex- employee it is important to have a successful channel of communication that enhances the level of bonding and networking. |
| At Wipro Technologies, ex-employees are literally brand ambassadors for the company.In fact a regained job opportunity is not the only option.Some of them have become excellent customers and vendors for the company.According to Bijay Sahoo, Vice President Talent Engagement and Development, it is the all-pervading organization values that make it so easy for people to work with Wipro even after leaving. He says The Wipro philosophy aimed at creating a memorable and pleasant example for employees itself is a strong factor in an employees decision to rejoin.The organization must be caring and welcoming to such employees.Further it is important to demonstrate this by keeping the process of rejoining simple and easy. |
| At Wipro, many ex-employees keep in touch with the HR manager, their supervisors and other business leaders on an informal basis.There are several ex-Wipro employee associations operating in different parts of the world. |
| Websites such as orkut encourages setting up communities for people to keep in touch.A company-specific community encourages all who were or are a part of the company to maintain contact.This helps in preserving the relationship between employees and employer. |
| |
