Employee Retention – Tips and tricks.
The major setback that most companies face in today’s world is that they are unable to retain employees. After spending a whole lot of time behind an employee – on things like induction & training etc., the HR gets a bombshell dropped in his cabin – in the form of Resignation letter!
Why do employees resign?
Before answering the ‘why’, let us look into ‘Which or what kind of employees resign’ that comes to the HR as a devastating news!? The crème category of employees of course!
Creme Category of employees do not just belong to the higher management levels but belong to all levels – starting from Lower, Lower-middle, Middle, Higher Middle and Higher Levels. Yes, even a Bell boy or a peon has an equally important role to play just as some Vice President, Marketing has an important role to play in the marketing department!
Why to retain the ‘Creme Category’ at all?
Because employees in the top crème categories are the ones who bind the others together through their positive aura and motivational skills. Everyone likes to work with a positive and helpful superior. It is rather a dreadful experience to have a Reporting head who is sulking all the time. Such Sulky Managers do more harm than good. No one likes to be screamed and shouted at especially without reason. In office environments, a work gets done through Team Work only. Everyone in the team has to be responsible. A mediocre or incompetent Manager cannot bind the team together. They work separately and at the end of the day, nothing gets done! Productivity decreases and although everyone reported on time and were all present at their respective desks, yet the Company did not benefit from their presence!
On the other hand a competent and responsible manager positively motivates his team. First and foremost – He works himself – he practices what he preaches – and thus people working under him automatically imbibe his positive qualities. Work gets done on time and with perfection. Everyoe benefits from the presence of such a strong positive personality.
So how do we go about retaining the crème?
It all depends on the HR Department! Unfortunately Indian Companies do not give much importance to the HR department. What is understood by the HR department is just that a department that keeps a record of:
- Leaves taken by the employee.
- Late arrivals of the employee.
- Go through over thousands of resumes and shortlist the required candidates.
- Organise the Interview Schedules.
- Organise Training schedules.
- Organise Appraisals.
- Organise Exit Interviews.
Apart from the above, the HR is not allowed to have any say regarding anything that is going on in individual departments.
Ideally, the HR department should be just next to the owner or CEO of the Company as far as seniority is concerned. There are many cases of Department wise partiality and even employee exploitation. The employee must be provided with a foolproof procedure to convey his/her grievances with the understanding that if they are actually being wronged, they will get justice and the wrong-doer will be punished. Unless this feeling is not given to the employees, they suffer from insecurity and start developing grudges against the Company. Any work done half-heartedly or grudgingly can never be good. The company suffers as a whole just because a single Manager was being creepy!
The employee then spreads his hatred among his other colleagues and as we all know, it is human psychology to immediately absorb the negative, many other employees start throwing out negative vibes in the office environment. What happens next is multiple resignations or multiple sacking – both of which come as a bolt from the blue for the HR department!
The entire episode narrated above can be totally avoided, if and only if the HR has a strong hold on the reins of the Company. This power of the HR should be made very clear to everyone from bottom to top management levels.
Important Notes for the HR Deparment-
- The HR Department has to be very alert. Special alert on gossips and grapevine within the company.
- The HR cannot afford to be partial or doing favours for those who are trying to be over-friendly with them.
- There has to be a strict and clear-cut demarcation between personal and professional relationships.
- Frequent motivational get-togethers should be held.
- One HR personnel can be hired even for familial affairs of the employee. Like advising the children of the employee on career choices to make, spouse related problems etc.
