Hello,

Here is a masterpiece on the issue of Retention….

- 90% companies have retention problems
- 50% of these are manufacturing, services and marketing companies
- The small-sized and medium-sized companies lose more people
- Turnover rates are as high as 7% in manufacturing and 13% in the hi-tech industry
- Employees go to - Small companies - for exciting opportunities and greater identity Large companies - for defined roles, clearer career paths and better HR systems.                                                  

The stats are really to watch for, anyone to describe the above causes..

Bye,

Barkha Doshi

Employee retention, according to me has always been an overlooked aspect of the management. As and when, this topic comes to my mind, I always seem to wonder about that one question as to “Why is it important to keep good employees and not lose them?”

The answers would be reduced problems in the workplace, reduction in the amount of time and money spent training new employees; and generally a more viable & profitable operation of business. So, instead of continuously searching for that perfect employee, why not we invest some time and resources in shaping and developing the good employees? Why not think of working and extending a little hard to develop and nurture the employees you have?

I would rather be comfortable to considering these steps :-

· Hiring should be very selective
When hiring a new employee, try always to recruit the candidate who will best fit into the culture and group of employees that you have. One should find for someone with skills and competencies that will complement those of your present employees. There are also some people who are good at working on computers, some do have excellent people management skills. And as far as my experience goes, I feel people management is a very significant aspect in matching the right person with the right job and at the right time.

· On the Job Training
Generally speaking, people always want to do a good job and I have seen that the lack of adequate and proper training & development activities, however, is often a serious problem at most of the organizations. Some positions, however may require only a day or two of training while others require much more time and inputs for the training process.

Last, what I feel is the extra time that is spent with a new employee at the beginning of a relationship usually yields enormous dividends and results in the long run……

Any members with their views on this interesting issue ??

Mark

Dear barkha, mark & colleagues,

Retention is one of the major problems IT industry esp is facing these days. I fully agree with mark that already existing employees should be polished for the further positions. As per the two points mentioned :

1.Hiring should be very selective
2.On the Job Training.

I agree if we take care of these two, retaining employees is easy. But there are other major issues which we come across daily and i hope all HR people face these problems:

1.Market has so many options for one candidate,that sometimes,candidate joins and uses the offer somewhere else and grabs another job. It happens number of times.

2.Cultural Issues play a major role. People from Southern/Northern region if relocate to north/South they sometimes can't settle down and pack their bags soon and take few people along them to some other organisations!!!!

3.If few employees who are already working with an organisation are not happy with the culture they create such a mess with their colleagues,retaining that group becomes difficult.

To retain employes is becoming difficult day by day....

Regards,

Pooja

Dear Friends,

According to me, it's high time organizations take an initiative to retain an employee on grounds such as organisation culture, flexible working hours, giving enough leisure time to its staff, job rotation etc. rather than focussing always on the financial perspective of this issue.

I assume members would want to share their piece of mind on this issue since, each one of us have had faced this problem more than once in our professional cycle. I would appreciate if, the HR fraternity share their views on this topic amongst us.....

Regards,

boman

Hello Colleagues,

Firstly, I've joined this site few minutes back and was enthused to see the info exchange on various human perspectives. I found the talk on 'retention' to be interesting and hence am drafting my views on the same.

Each organisation may have different reasons for employee turnover. It is often felt that by giving high pay, organisations would be able to retain employees. There are many reasons to employee turnover. Few of them could be low morale, no job satisfaction, unhealthy relationships and many more. Analysing the cause of the turnover is the most important aspect, which will help every organisation to take corrective steps.

"Pay and benefits will get people to continue to show up for work. But without the attitudinal commitments of job fulfillment, growth opportunities, [and] recognition...they won't stay long."  - Thomas O. Davenport, HR manager, Towers Perrin

"To get turnover to a livable level, we must hire right, manage wisely...[and] reward well..."
- Jeffrey Mount, president of Wright's Gourmet House

"Another important factor [in reducing turnover] is to reward those employees who perform their jobs well and motivate those who need a little encouragement. Remember, people require different motivation." -  Don Taylor, co-author of Up Against the Wal-Marts

Warm Regards,

Smita