Attrition Management: Prevention or Cure?

Face it ...

The only time an HR/Talent Person speaks heart to heart about an employees aspirations, etc is when the "exit interview" pops up. And then too, because its some kind of formality, where one has to undergo through the motions set in place by an organization with a "mission" and a "vision".

To me, the "Exit Interview" is purely a "good to have" reporting process. It has no meaning, and it is the ultimate evidence of an HR team NOT caring about an employee till the employee has decided to move on. It is the ultimate farce that happens in the realms of Talent Management/Human Resource Management, whatever you may choose to call it. And while the motions give a feel good factor in terms of projecting a caring, "proactive" and "people friendly" image, its nothing more than a last ditch effort.

Too little, too late, I say.

Lets take a greater look at the three top (and yet) basic points of an attrition. There may be many, many of them, probably as many as people, but in most cases, an attrite can be classified into the following primary areas of concern to an organization. These are also items over which an Organization HAS control.

1) Better Salary:
Organizations need to face it. An employee is a vendor, providing his/her services at a certain cost per hour to the organization. And if this vendor gets a better rate, why, they'd move on. Any vendor would. Just like an organization would change a vendor if value for money weren't being provided. Thats as short and sweet as it can get.

2) Dis-satisfaction with Role:
Sometimes, as an organization, its not about what you pay. Its about what you utilize too. You can't hire a highly skilled architect, pay what the market deems fit for this person and even more, AND then ask him to do a carpenter's job. The initial period may be cushy, and the person would revel in a good secure salary and no challenges, but for most professionals, this is a strict no-no. They can't and won't take it for too long.

3) Hierarchy Woes:
Dis-satisfaction with immediate managers are rampant. They're enemy number one for most people in the organization. Deservingly or otherwise, they are often annointed with a variety of tags including "insensitive", "doesn't know enough", "can't see beyond his/her nose", etc. For most people, their immediate manager's aren't the friend, philosopher and guide as the organization would want a manager to be. Overqualified engineers assigned to managers "due to experience" are the most common entities to face these kind of issues.

Other reasons, not really manageable by an organization, include hange of employee location where the co doesn't have a branch, organization relocating where an employee doesn't wish to follow due to personal reasons, change of career vertical (i.e. software to photography), etc.

It's not that enough has not been said or read about this. These are not the finds of the decade, neither are they radical thought processes. Everyone is aware of them.

Its just the approach to these points that deserve further merit of dicussion and a deeper look.

Attrition Management is far more than conducting exit interviews. Its all about proactive, sustained engagement of an employee along various delicate faultlines that every organization is based on, faultlines that may at any point threaten to turn into major churn-quakes. We'll take a deeper look at these fault-lines and the reasons that trigger talent losses.

Warm Regards
Sanjeev Sarma