New attrition busters

Attrition has always been a touchy topic with IT firms. Despite offering among the highest salaries across all business segments, the industry has been plagued with attrition across the board, particularly in the past few years. In fact, last one year has brought about a reality check among a number of Indian companies with the discovery that it is increasingly harder for them to hire and retain the employees they need to meet the booming demand in business.

This ever-growing wage inflation and attrition rates have put margin pressures on software firms, otherwise riding high on outsourcing wave. Faced with the constant threat of losing the best workers to the competition, India's two biggest IT software and services companies have added another category to their future performance guidance: the size of the salary raises they expect to give.

Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys Technologies have told company stakeholders that they plan to give India-based employees raises ranging between 12 per cent and 15 per cent in the coming year. While the attrition at TCS rose slightly to 11.3 per cent from 10.8 per cent in the third quarter of the year, for Infosys the attrition rate rose to 13.7 per cent from 11.2 per cent in the year-ago period. For the third Indian IT major Wipro, it stood at 16 per cent in the December-ending quarter.

There's also a joke that HR experts and headhunters - aggrieved by footloose workers - love to crack. Reeling under rising attrition, recruitment woes and fussy job seekers - despite rising salaries - they feel that a slowdown could be the only way for sanity to return in the job market. A downturn may help settle the job market a bit.

But one need not have such drastic ideas. Here are a few new lessons in attrition-busting.

Change and flexibility
For a generation used to constantly seeing and adapting to change, "getting bored" will happen quick and easy. Jobs will be increasingly treated like projects and assignments that workers would like to complete and move on. And they would want to have the option of multiple employment contracts - full-time jobs, consultancy, project-based jobs to retainerships. Companies will have to either cater to these needs or lose them to competition
Perhaps a reason why many `Best Employers' like Satyam are institutionalising the job change. Satyam has a "global rotation plan" where every 18-24 months, employees can actively seek a job change. HR head T Hari says that with growth, they are able to shuffle employees between various technologies, geographies and verticals. At TCS, where retainership was virtually nil five years ago, it now stands at 2-3 per cent. Democratic workplace With networked, global organisations, smart companies can no longer be very headquarter-driven. They have multi-nodal structures with decentralised command structures. Almost simultaneously, workers are getting used to a more democratic world with You Tube, wikipedias and bloggers. As a result, proactive firms are becoming more democratic and accepting of diverse views, allowing staff the opportunity to participate in decision-making. TCS is trying to delegate and empower its regional operations. The company's global HR head S Padmanabhan says that the first thing to eliminate as they grow globally is the notion that all decision get taken somewhere at Nariman Point. Life beyond work Workers will increasingly have very multi-faceted life as lines between work and life blur and workers chase multiple dreams. As a result, caring companies will need to connect with their staff far beyond work to be able to engage with them better. Many are already doing it. Family and children are getting the attention they never did in the past. Satyam Idol, a mega event organised by the IT major, encourages people to show and reinforce their talent. For their staff's children, it regularly conducts events like `Global Racing Star' - a three-day residential programme -- where 13-18 year-olds are groomed in presentation, behavioural and attitudinal skills.
Hiring young
IT majors are now also turning towards youth from the interior regions of the country to get more loyal employees coming from rural parts. As a part of its experiment, Wipro technologies has recently gone to Chindwara in Madhya Pradesh to train students.

As part of its four-months 'finishing school' programme, Wipro Technologies is eyeing students who are either graduates or even those who have passed the 12th standard.

The company is not just hiring candidates from the rural areas. Wipro has also hired science graduates instead of engineers. It has hired 300 science graduates, who will undergo the training to acquire necessary IT skills.