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American Sub-Prime Crisis and India

American Sub-Prime Crisis & India

Merill Lynch's sudden merger, Lehman Brothers filing for bankruptcy... These are few lines which are enough to send the panic signal in India among the employees of different private sector players. Is this so grave and alarming? Do we need to worry about this? Lets see, how these may effect us...

Its true that the global slowdown is there because of the US subprime crisis but this never means that whole world is equally hit. Its an alarming situation for America that it has given so much of loan to the whole world that now its own loan is depreciating its Dollar value. Its a temporary phase as US has now started taking very stern corrective actions to tame the situation and if consider the India point of view, India is not getting whole of its business from US but we have major contributors from Europe also and more or less Europe is in a stable position.So, its not as alarming as it is flashed in media.

Now what will happen with the employees who were working with these big players and now are sacked or going to be sacked? Why do we forget that we have many other similar players in the markets and who are big wigs e.g. HSBC, Citigroup, ING, JP Morgan, etc. These companies have a 24/7 open requirement. And these are big enough to accomodate 3000 headcount... So, this is also not something which we need to bother about...

What we need to do is keep on improving our quality and effectiveness... So, Don worry be happy... Lets pray that the government also comes positively in the favour of this to support the future of we Indians...

India and Philippines – The BPO Home War

This IT revolution and easy access of internet has made the world business very challenging and revolutionary. India is considered to be back office of the world and internet is not a rare phenomenon here. Companies outsourced there work to India as a preferred location, but now other locations also are providing the back-office space to the companies.

Philippines are one of the many countries which are giving India a tough competition in terms of getting the back office business. As per the reports about 250 companies have set up there offices in Philippines. But the major part of there outsourcing shares comes from Voice based services. It is claimed that there accent is very close to the US accent, even though they are in Asia. So, the question comes is – Is Philippines the new BPO home? We will try to answer this below.

Voice Accent – India is a multilingual country with Hindi as its National Language. In India, majority of people know, speak and write more than 1 Language. English is also a language which is known to a vast population. The more than 1 language edge enables the Indian population to be flexible with learning the different accents and foreign languages. Philippines accent is close to American accent and about 20,000 people speak Spanish also, but the Spanish speaking population is aged. As compared to Indian neutral accent, people in Philippines have an accent which is similar to Americans but due to this high resemblance, it’s difficult for them to adopt or learn to any other accent as all business is not from US. On the other hand, India produces around 20,000 foreign language speaking professionals every year.

Infrastructure Base – India is 7th largest country in the world in terms of land area while Philippines stand at 72nd position. In India, there are many locations where industries and offices can be set-up and abundance of Manpower is also there as India holds the second largest population of this world while Philippines has got 72nd rank in world population. So India is a better choice in this regard also. India is 33rd in population density while Philippines are on 32nd position, so India has more space for industries and offices.

Climate – Climate wise India has got a mixed climate. It has got Himalayas in the North and East, desert in west while ocean in the south. So, it’s a pretty diverse and non-monotonous climate. While Philippines is a collection of 7,107 islands in the Pacific Ocean, and to add it’s mostly a mountainous region which is covered with tropical forest and volcanic mountains. The country also lies within the typhoon belt of the Western Pacific and about 19 typhoons strike per year. So, India encounters lesser number of natural calamities every year.

Literacy – In Literacy, India stands at 60.3% while its youth literacy rate is 71.3%. Literacy was 92.6% in 2003, which is more than of India. If calculated in terms of numbers, Philippines has a literate population of 82,020,092 while India has 619,290,194 so in this also, India shows an edge. Moreover UNESCO and India have set the target together for 2015 for a 100% literate nation.

GDP – Per capita GDP of India is $977 (132nd) while for Philippines it is $5,365.287(99th) which means that Philippines may prove to be expensive in terms of cost. And due to higher abundance of skilled talent, India proves to be a cheaper generation.

Economy – Indian economy has been repeatedly rated by the many economics experts as one of the most promising and growing economy with good amount of stability while Philippines is still to be considered. So, India is a set market with lesser number of risks.

VISA – Indian VISA rules are easy and flexible. For foreigners to come and work with a work visa is not a tough job. Philippines VISA rules are not that flexible. Indian hospitality is world known with quite a good number of tourist locations as well.

These are few of the points on which it can be judged which is a preferred outsourcing location, but this series will continue…

HR & THE TERROR STRICKEN INDIAN INDUSTRY

India was and is a fortunate land of great thinkers, beautiful places, and marvelously intelligent minds. But some times the intelligent mind is constructive and sometimes it may be destructive. India has been hit by terror at many instances, sometimes its Mumbai, or Jaipur or the Silicon City Bangalore or the premier management institute place Ahmedabad. Recently, it was the real height when Bangalore and Ahmedabad were hit on consecutive days. In this scenario, the employees are stricken badly by this terror shock as people from all over India and even abroad come to these metros for working they may feel and consider going back to their native and look for some other means for earning the livelihood. Also, the stakeholders of the company may think of shutting their offices down in these places and move to places where things are cheaper and comparatively safer.
The above pictorial representation represents the situation. The green colored space shows the organization and with the HR department in between. Employee, Environment and Stakeholders are the major contributors to any organization. Environment is something about which you can not be sure enough, it will keep on fluctuating and changing and is beyond the control. But the Employee and Stakeholders can be reached and can be talked, convinced and motivated. In this case, environment is the terror which is eminent everywhere. Green color shows productivity and HR in between that means organization should be kept productive.

HR department who always has to maintain a dual focus – one towards the employees and the other towards the stakeholders, is in a crucial position at this point of time. They have to maintain a high morale of both the parties i.e. employees as well as stakeholders. Also, in the present scenario organizations have frivolous hierarchical structure which defers direct communication between the top management (the stakeholders) and the employees. They consider HR Department as the official spokes person, by they I mean both the parties – Management as well as the employees. Let’s take the cases one by one. Taking the downside up approach towards the organization, we will take the employees first.

In this situation, the primary goal is to keep the employee moral high. HR can use certain means which may prove to be very useful. These are detractive situations in which employee lives under a constant fear of losing the job as they create their opinion based on the reports and news flashed in media which majority of time is based on false facts just to hike there TRPs. HR can not do much (or apparently nothing) for media, because they have their own problems; now they are 24/7 and they need something which is crispy, spicy and fast selling. This will fall under the environment.

In such a situation, the best way to persuade employees is one to one approach. The personal touch is always magical in effect. HR executive only has to keep in mind that they have to convince the employees and this can happen only when you talk in their language and their tone. HR always needs to keep in mind that the language that they are taking should be of the employees but the words should be theirs. While resolving this, HR shall always keep in mind that emotions sometimes lead to enhanced productivity. HR can call employees for one on one counseling and can let them know that this is a temporary phase and if bright employees like them start leaving the organizations like this, company may shut down their offices and can move to some other place and ultimately the loss will be ours. We will loose on opportunity and prosperity.

Trainings play vital role in such conditions. HR department shall arrange for such trainings on a regular basis. Sometimes this may be a proactive approach while sometimes may be a reactive approach. HR department can design some trainings specific to such situations or something like emotional intelligence. HR can arrange for behavioral trainings which may help the employees to get out of this situation and the trainers should be very professional in their approach. Typically the trainer should be of Train the Trainer status. This may be something like motivation training or crisis management training, etc. These trainings do magic in disguise. These are soft skills training which impact the mind and create a positive environment and outlook.

Apart from the soft skills and behavioral trainings and workshops, operational trainings also contribute a lot as this gets reflected in very soon in their skill sets. They value this a lot as these are expensive in the market for the individuals but are available at a lower cost for the corporate. But these trainings should be relevant to the business requirements as the investment should not go in vain and the stakeholders will lose faith in the HR Department (as this may put your own job at stake ;-)). These trainings can be anything related to the business requirement or something like Six Sigma Green Belt or Black Belt training. These trainings have great craze as well as value in the market and at the same time these trainings and projects require good amount of time so you will be gaining over the retention of the employee and by the time the project and certification end, the dust of terrorism might have settled down.

Also as per one of the management theories, employees work either for the money or for recognition. So in such a scenario, an innovative FBP can also help. As per the basic definition of FBP (Flexi Benefit Plans), these are such benefits which are not part of the employee’s salary but are given through means other than cash. If you have a FBP plan already existing in your salary structure of your organization, you can decorate it further by adding few more variables like a Special Day allowance. This special day allowance may be for any day like employee’s birthday, or birthday of any of their family members, or their anniversary. HR can include any or all depending upon the management approval and budget. You can arrange for a one day outing or can propose a plan for a company sponsored trip to some tourist place for the best performing employee. Of all these measures, make sure that you are not over shooting your budget and you have a dual target, first to retain the employee and at the same time to increase or maintain their productivity so that the management is also convinced with your decisions.

HR can also act proactively on the ways of ensuring employee safety. They can look for all possible options available within the reach. This can be something like installing and positioning close circuit cameras at all possible strategic locations, enhancing security checks at all entrance points, etc. By beefing up the security cover for the company premises or by arranging for extra security measures will help in building a good rapport of the company in employee’s view and will improve the understanding of employee towards company and hence will reduce the attrition factor. Also, this will be a nice opportunity to market you in terms of employee relations and HR policy. This may help you in getting the required unexplored and highly valued working force.

By turning the table and looking towards the stake holders, we will find one more interesting challenge. Normally, the first focus of this class is profit and then they consider any other aspect of the business. So, again HR needs to change their tune and start using their language but putting their own word forward. This is thumb rule for any HR professional.

HR should address the stakeholders in a very positive way. They should start with a positive note and should end on a positive note. If well begun is half done then having well begun and well finished is full job. HR should address in such a manner that they should be able to convince them on this temporary phase of business. This is something which has hit the whole world, irrespective of the regions (even US). They can present the establishment cost and investment already done for the office and the cost of establishment, hiring, branding, training everything and prove statistically that the cost would be much higher and the impact on the business may prove to be fatal. At this point of time, HR should convince the stake holders that the company is ready for any such crisis management and this disaster is not such big that it can’t be handled.

Also, HR can convince that in spite of this crisis the work is not going to suffer as they have introduced such plans which will help in keeping the production high and at the same time they will encourage the employees with some small yet effective incentives. At this point of time, HR can introduce the plans that they have designed and plan to roll out among the employees. As at this step they will be pretty confident of their HR department and will show minimum resistance to any positive plans suggested. Also, always ask them to suggest and additions or deletions to the plans proposed by you. HR can convince that these incentives won’t put any extra pressure on the company’s budget by linking everything to the productivity and hence the profit.

HR can always propose that they would like to enhance the security cover of the office, as this will help them in building a nice rapport with the employees as well as in attracting the best talent across the industry. To ensure them about the security of the premises and to take out any worries about any legal complications, you can present an improved security plan to them which may ensure a fool proof protection. They won’t mind spending a bit extra to strengthen there long running business. You can propose to schedule a meeting with local government authorities to ensure that company will not run into trouble at any point of time.

Stakeholders should be ensured of their profits at each and every step of the talk. This helps in gaining and maintaining their interest in your plans. This will be good for the organization as well as for the HR department itself. HR can market themselves as good strategic thinkers as well as loyalist for the company which may be rewarded by the company in terms of cash or kind. So, this is a win-win situation for the HR department as well. They are saving the employee’s interests, stakeholder’s interests and at the same time, in disguise, getting their interests fulfilled.

HR is the human face of any organization and the role of HR in any such situation is very important. There one good stand can move company to new heights and one wrong move may prove fatal for the organization. HR is also the single point of contact between the employees and the management. Employees take their words as the words of management and vice-versa. In such a situation, HR should always talk in a diplomatic yet positive way. They should avoid saying or behaving in a manner which may be taken as negative in nature. This negativity may reflect in any of the means, talking to someone, words selected in writing a mail, the body language, etc. Because they should always keep in mind that this is crisis time and the unconscious mind of people keeps on looking for negativity. They should be very careful about anything they do or say as even a small mistake can lead to a complete misconception about the company policy and trigger a chain reaction which may harm the company business.

HR can coordinate with the concerned government bodies and make them aware about the organization’s concern and can take some firm assurance regarding the safe guard of the organization against any such occurrences. This can be presented to the management to assure them of a smooth running business.

In the above representation, different aspects of HR can be clearly noticed. HR will start with mentoring the employees and maintaining the motivation level high. They need to give a personal touch to all the employees and hence enduring on the employee relation and with a good employee relation they can retain their employees. And if the workforce is motivated, a good relation is maintained between employee and management then this will surely lead to maintaining a sustainable production level. All these combined together can help the HR department in convincing the stake holders for continuing business.

So, in this time of crisis the HR department should extend their helping and understanding hand towards the organization to make the business run smoothly and also, lets don’t get panic and face this situation boldly and BE ALERT AT ALL MOMENT OF TIME BECAUSE WE ONLY CAN FIGHT SUCH SITUATIONS and TOGETHER WE CAN AND TOGETHER WE WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Employer Branding – A New HR Arena

This is a market oriented era. If you have a good brand value in market, you will get good response if not; it’s very difficult to convince people. From an HR point of view branding is very important. If your organization has a good brand image in the market, it will help you in getting right workforce at right time and at the same time you will have a control over the employee cost. An organization with no brand name has to shell out lots of money to attract and retain the right candidate.

Branding can be done in two ways: (1) External Branding and (2) Internal Branding. Lots of factors may influence the branding strategy of an organization, like A) Nature of Business B) Nature of market C) Target reception D) Budget flexibility E) Long term mission of the organization F) Organizational structure. Etc. These are the few to count on but there may be many as per the business.

Branding Strategy

A) Nature of Business – Branding should be based on the nature of business. Like if an IT company goes for a fashion show, it may not yield the same results as it would have got by going to IT Fair or something similar. A real estate company may go for some road show on property market.
B) Nature of Market – It is always recommended to gauge the market before going for any project which involves market risk Like if you are targeting to explore a Financial market or banking and at the same time it is marred by some other factors like Inflation, you need to design your strategy which could help you in overcoming the negative trend.
C) Reception Target – It’s always good to define the reception target or the audiences. If you are planning to sell Villas and targeting the middle class, probability is very high that you will end up spending your time and resources in wrong direction.
D) Budget Flexibility – Budget always plays an important role in deciding the strategies. If your budget doesn’t allow you to spend a lot, its always recommended to partner in any event where other participants are not of your field and it has got at least one participant who has got a good market value so that you can attract the crowd.
E) Long Term Mission of Organization – Also the long term as well as short term goals of the organization should be kept in mind. If the organization does not have any long term goals in the target market or location, it’s always recommendable not to go for branding or it is very much required go for a small, low budgeted branding event.
F) Organizational Structure – Organizational structure is also very vital part for deciding any strategy. Organizational structure is the strength of any organization and any event or branding can be done based on that. Like if your organization does not have lots of hierarchy steps, you can boast of Flatness and claim of equal behavior. And if you have different layers, you can market the clear definition of roles etc.

External Branding – External branding refers to branding which is done by using external sources and which may (or may not) require some investment in monetary or other forms. Let’s see the different means of doing external branding.

(a) Use of Job Sites – As HR the first thing which comes to the mind is recruitment, so Job sites also offer good branding opportunities through different means like Pop ups, pop ins etc. It’s always better to go for pop ins as most of web browsers come with pop-up blockers.
(b) Banners – Banners are also a good mean for branding. Banners can be of both types’ means Online Banner and Street banners. By Online banner, your organization name will be flashed on different web pages as per your choice and price. Street banners are good for bigger requirements.
(c) Road Shows – Road shows are also an important mean for creating brand awareness. You can organize talks, presentations, seminars etc. for attracting people towards your organization.
(d) Corporate Social Responsibility – Corporate social responsibility refers to corporate getting associated with society for some noble cause. The association can be in any mode either getting associated with a Charitable Trust or a NGO or some other public venture. Corporate can align and attach with any of these and share the stage. Always keep in mind that choose as per you organization status meaning if you are a small firm, do associate with a medium sized organization and if medium you can align with either of these- large or medium. Idea should be you get a nice coverage in the popularity cake.
(e) Public Events – Public events are one of the major ways of creating a brand image. An organization can participate in any of the public event and assuring that it does not get disappeared in the crowd of many brands or big names.
(f) Newspapers – Branding can be done through newspapers as well. If you target the local public, you can go for advertisements considering the individual day circulation, target readers, rapport of newspaper, type of newspaper etc. If you target only to employ people for your workforce requirement, you can place job Ads which may seem expensive at the first glance but in terms of attracting the correct workforce, it can do magic.
(g) Email – For mail ids related to job portals, you can create an auto reply which can contain brief description of the key aspects of candidate’s and public interest and at the same time introducing your company to the public. It should be informative as well as crispy so that the audience reads it and just doesn’t do Shift Delete.
(h) Tagline – Create a nice, attractive tagline or a punch line for your brand and give it a significant visibility in all your branding efforts. The tag line should be in accordance with your organization values, goals, work etc. so that it reflects an overall image of the brand everywhere.
(i) Align with celebrity – Aligning with a celebrity is also a good way of creating a brand image. But this may cost you big bucks and ultimately increasing your cost dramatically. This is an expensive method of branding.



Internal Branding – Internal Branding is comparatively a cheaper way of branding. You can use your internal organizational staff for this purpose.

(a) Front Office – Always pay attention to your front office because first impression is last impression. It should be kept neat and clean with a pleasant receptionist who always maintains freshness and welcomes the guests with courtesy.
(b) Stays Interview - HR can always conduct stay interviews in which they can interact with the employee and ask them regarding their career prospects, there alignment with the company, there feedback regarding their concerned departments, etc. These feedbacks can be analyzed and used for different purposes by which you can create an internal brand image of the country.
(c) Exit Interview – An exit always carries a fair chance of initiating the chain reaction among the employees so always be very careful in analyzing the exiting reasons so that you can overcome the justified ones in the future.
(d) Employee Satisfaction – Employee satisfaction is always very important for any organization to grow. A satisfied employee is a productive employee. If your employee is satisfied, you can relax because they will create a good and positive rapport for the company in the market outside.
(e) Policy Information – Always design your policies very strategically. A policy should be designed in such a way that it holds good even after a long period of time. A frequent internal policy change sends a message to the outer world that the company is not consistent and knowledgeable and reliable.
(f) Customer Orientation – Customers are always the most important factors. Always keep your workforce motivated towards delivery of customer oriented services. Customers can be of either type, internal or external.
(g) Employee Participation – Always try to ensure the maximum participation from the employee side, either in terms of internal events participation or external events.
(h) Trained Employees – Always ensure proper training of employees before they are engaged in work. The training should be in all the aspects like policies, vision, mission, organization. This will project a good picture of organization on the new employee.

These are few to count with but based on the requirement and strategy, the list may increase or shorten.

Time and Motion

December, the appraisal time. Everybody waits for this eagerly but after this most of your employees complain of unfair evaluation. And you at the other end are not able to gauge the real thing. Sometimes the employees’ voice goes unheard. This can lead to dissatisfaction among them and hence hampering the productivity and ultimately the revenue of the company. This sometimes leads to a bad image in the market as well and hence you can end up as a non preferred employer.

The time and productivity tool acts as a scale to measure the work and performance of the employees. This ensures the uniform and perfect gauging of the employees’ work and hence leaving no room for injustice and ensures transparency.

This will measure all the work done by the employees on a common scale and after having the data about the employees, you can prepare a report or rank them on that scale and decide the salary hikes, promotions etc. on that basis.

For each department you have, first decide the standard job which is almost commonly done by majority of the team members of that department or team. Now, calculate the average time spent on it by collecting few samples of it from each member (getting precise, you can record average time for doing each step involved in that job). This will give you a scale that what is the average time required to do that job.

Average Time = Total time spent ÷ Total number of samples collected

Now similarly, take the samples for time spent on each job and calculate the average time accordingly. This will give you an overall idea of the time spent on each job. Now based on the productivity report for each employee, you can assess the productive time of the employee and hence do the review on that basis.

And also with this you can measure the non-productive time of your office and can use that much effectively in other constructive works and also can plan further headcount hiring and also a reshuffle or expansion.

This will help you in ensuring a new broad outlook towards employee and organization and at the same time leading to employee satisfaction. With this everything will be in black and white leaving no grey areas, so those who are real effective and working will prefer you as employer and the idle ones will be sidelined. This will give you the maximum value of each dollar spent on the employee.

Change Management

Some 20-25 years back everything was stabilized, no movement. The top management used to formalize and finalize the strategy and targets and the whole company used to move on a straight line. No frequent acquisition, mergers, etc. But if you see today there are very frequent acquisitions, mergers, and diversifications etc. In this scenario, companies are bound to change their style and everything very frequently. This is the change and as everybody knows that change is always difficult to introduce. Its human psychology that it resists the change, firstly it thinks things as everything is going smoothly in this way why does he need a change? Secondly, even if he is convinced that this change is for betterment it’s still difficult to adopt. More than anything the change management is about the psychological aspect.

Before considering going for a change management, first check for few things. Check why do you need a change? What is the required change? How this change is going to help your organization? Finalize a time frame and step by step program for the implementation of this program i.e. when it should start and end and how to introduce the change so that you face the minimum of resistance and other hassles, meaning calculate the risk involved.

How to plan for a change to be introduced to the organization? This comes as a BIG question to any organization. First and foremost, as this change plan is going to get implemented directly to the employees who are human beings, so the HUMANITY ASPECT should must be there. The more of this, the lesser the resistance experienced. This is the psychological aspect of change management.

Another psychological aspect, as the lower level employees see towards their superiors and want to be in their position. So they best way to start the change implementation is to START FROM THE TOP OF HIEARCHY LEVEL. Then going down step by step and assuring that it’s introduced and implemented comprehensively. If the flow goes in this way, the lower level employees will be inspired and would see the change with a positive mindset. So let the BoD first gets adapted to these changes, then the CEO and so on…

For monitoring the change introduction and implementation, make a small team of employees who will act as MENTORS AND LEADERS during the whole process. Let this team select employees at different required levels through whom they can introduce the change to the particular level of employees. These people will be those who are more in contact with the particular level of targeted employees. The top most level of the group will be ultimate owner of the whole process and going down these employees will be the owner for the particular step.

Many a times the employee is not completely aware about the change and the corresponding impacts of the same. Make sure that the message is conveyed completely and organize AWARENESS SESSIONS for the sake of better diffusion of the message in the company environment. This will help you in avoiding and controlling any misconception or rumors spread across the organization. As implementation of a change is a critical issue in itself.Sometimes this change gets encountered with the culture resistances as well. It’s always advisable to handle this delicate and sensitive issue with DUE DILIGENCE AND NO NEGLIGENCE. It’s always good to access the cultural risk in advance and plan the change accordingly. Try to take the culture as a sacred thing and maintain a nice distance from it. If in any unavoidable circumstances you are unwillingly subjected to such a situation, then before addressing it try to gain some knowledge about the particular culture as it will help you in justifying your point after listening to the other party patiently.

Always try to be accessible to every individual to satisfy their query. If your budget allows, create an online forum on your organization’s website like ASK YOUR MANAGEMENT or something similar and don’t obligate them to disclose their identity. This will enable them to interact with you and you in turn will be getting the feedback. This will make them feel connected to the management and will be easier for them to adopt. Also, do specify a Turn Around Time for it like 24 working hours or something.

To conclude, it always seems easier to think for introducing a change but before finalizing it first finalize the risk factors and plan to encounter them. Any change should be productive and make sure that during the course of change implementation, the productivity is not hampered. The mentors and leaders should explain the ease with which they already adopted the change and how it is helping them. They should always try to solve and explain things with the examples mentioning themselves.

Employee Retention Tools

In the present scenario, world is turning into a global village and the whole globe is reachable from any destination. In this small world even companies are reachable to the people and vice versa. And so their jobs are also easily accessible for everyone. In this situation, the biggest challenge for a company is to retain its workforce intact especially the Knowledge Banks.

All the companies are planning to increase their turnover every moment of time. While in all this workout of increasing the turnover they forget about their loss incurred by the resignation of employees and the expenses of hiring new employees (Hiring Cost, Training Cost, Productivity Loss etc.). This hiring of a new employee normally costs around 35% or more of the average employee salary. For example- let us consider average salary of an employee per year as Rs.20, 000, and then the cost of hiring a new employee and other expenses come around Rs.7, 000. If you have 2 employees resigning per month the cost comes to Rs.14, 000 and taking the same for 12 months comes to around Rs.168, 000, which is a direct loss from the turnover of the company. And after all this there is always a risk of getting a right employee for the right position with a right attitude.

If an employee resigns, then good amount of time is lost in hiring a new employee and then training him/her and this goes to the loss of the company directly which many a times goes unnoticed। And even after this you cannot assure us of the same efficiency from the new employee (He might be better and might not be)। You require time to judge his capabilities and work nature। The loss is even graver if he/she is Your Knowledge Bank, this can bring your process to a stand still even. And above all these things, one resignation many a times triggers a chain reaction among other employees, leading to a negative effect.

For all these and many other reasons you need to retain your employees. For retaining your employees, you need to understand the requirements of the employees and at the same time should make them clear about the expectations of the company from them. It’s a general human tendency that each human being thinks himself as important and expects the same from the other side, so the company management should make their employees accountable for their respective jobs and make them feel that they are very important for the smooth processing of that process(At the same time create a backup for him). Care and importance are two things of which every human being is mad of.

Below are few of the tools for Employee Retention:-
1. Employee Reward Program- You can make a provision of Monthly or Quarterly Award (depending upon the budget) for the best employee, Awarding 2 or 3 best workers each month. The award can be in terms of gifts or money. If it is money then it should be divided into two parts, first part to be given with the next month salary and the remaining after 6 months. In this way he/she can be retained for 6 more months. These rewards shall be considered at the time of appraisal.

2. Career Development Program- Every individual is worried about his/her career. You can provide them conditional assistance for certain courses which are beneficial from your business point of view. Conditional assistance means the company will bear the expenses only if he/she gets an aggregate of certain percentage of marks. And entrance to that course should be on the basis of a Test and the number of seats to be limited. For getting admitted to such program, You can propose them to sign a bond with the company, like they cannot leave the company for 2 years or something after the successful completion of the course.

3. Performance based Bonus- The employee always comes to know about the profit of the company which is of course based on the strategic planning of the top management and the productivity of the employee. To get more work out of the employee, You can make a provision of Bonus. By this employee will be able to relate himself with the company’s profit and hence will work hard. This bonus should be productivity based. You can make sure that this bonus is not adding extra-pressure on the budget of Your Company and you can arrange this by cutting a part of the salary hikes and presenting it to the employees in the form of bonus.

4. Employee Referral Plan- You can introduce Employee Referral Plan. This will reduce your cost (charges of external consultants and searching agencies) of hiring a new employee and up to an extent you can rely on this new resource. On every successful referral, employee can be given a referral bonus after 6 or 9 months of continuous working of the new employee as well as the existing employee. By this you can get a new employee at a reduced cost as well as are retaining the existing one for a longer period of time.

5. Loyalty Bonus- You can introduce a Loyalty Bonus Program in which you can reward your employee after a successful completion of a specified period of time. This can be in the form of Money or Position. This will encourage the fellow employees as well whether they are interested in money or position, they will feel fascinated.

6. Giving a voice to the Knowledge Banks- First of all you should try to retain your workforce intact, as they are the intellectual asset of the company. And above that you can’t afford losing your knowledge banks. These are the people who stabilize the process. You can involve them in some of the decisions.

7. Employee Recreation- You should also let your employees enjoy in a light mood. You can take your employees to a trip or for an outing every year or bi-yearly. You can make use of this trip as well. You can start this trip with an opening note about the management views and plans, strategies etc. At the same time you can involve your top management into some of the fun activities as this will make feel the employees that they are very close to the management and everybody is same.

8. Gifts at some Occasions- You can give some gifts at the time of one or two festivals to the employees making them feel good and understand that the management is concerned about them.

9. Accountability- You should make each employee accountable so that he can also feel that he is as important as his manager. If he/she will be filled with this sense, he/she will seldom think of leaving the company.

10. Making the managers effective and easily accessible- You should make the management easily accessible so that the employee expectations can be clearly communicated to the top management, as it is impossible for the top management to reach each employee frequently.

11. Surveys- You should conduct regular surveys for feedbacks from employee about their superiors as well as other issues like food, development plans and other suggestions. This will make them feel of their importance and the caring nature of the company. Some of the suggestions might be of real good use for the company.

For a company, the workforce is like an intellectual property, both in terms of skills and money. A trained and content workforce can lead a company to new heights while a opposite one can hamper it badly. So, every resignation saved is every dollar earned.