“High Engagement and Low Attrition”

The Ultimate Desire of a CEO/HR Head

A Discussion Amongst Thinkers

NASSCOM
August 29, 2008
Aadesh Goyal
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Attrition….the reasons that come up

• Relationship with Supervisor
• Promised Role did not happen
• Personal
• Higher Studies
• Been here some time
 3

Employee Engagement
Job Role Engagement Areas
10
8
Com m unication Em ployee Developm ent
6
4
2
Recognition 0 Work Relationships

Environm ent Feedback & Evaluation

Learning

• Comprehensive Framework
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In General
• Employee Engagement is seen through a
comprehensive framework
• Attrition Studies are more superficial
– Sporadic Exit Interviews
– Inconsistent Implementation
– The framework is quite general
– Low priority by HR managers
– Most employees do not want to ‘rock the boat’
when leaving
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Thought #1
• Use the Engagement Framework for Exit Interviews
– Early Leavers, Top Performers, Others
– PeopleStrong experience shows that a combination of
phone interview and web-based survey works very well
• Outsource Exit Interviews to drive execution
– Internal team focuses on strategic issues
• Attrition Surveys provide ‘real hard facts’
– Balance against the engagement action plan  ‘tiredness’
and ‘cynicism’ creeps in as the whole thing looks too
idealistic
• Set up formal Alumni networks to re-hire ex-employees!
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What delivers consistent quality?

• Process!
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HR Practices
• New Employee Induction
• Compensation Management
• Performance Management
What is the predictability of the
deployment of these processes
• Training and practices?

• Employee Engagement
• Attrition Management
How can we drive towards
achievement of targets
consistently?
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Thought #2: Engagement ‘Policy’

• Environment: Continue existing practice, extend globally
• Learning: Enhanced offerings through ‘Leadership
Development and Education’ Getting Managers to become
better leaders is key
– Special Focus on Managers at all levels
• Career Planning: Better follow-up and tracking of Career
Action Plan of Best Performers by HR
• Relationships, Bonding, Recognition: Systematic
Implementation of Skip Level Interaction…driven through
HR team
– All managers to have informal ‘one-on-one’ with direct
reports once a month
– All Senior Managers and above meet their ‘skip level
subordinates’ once in 2 months
– Metrics on coverage reported each month
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….and a fortnightly dashboard

• For each employee – make an assessment on
key parameters that drive retention:
– Current Job/Assignment
– Career Aspirations
– Role Aspirations
– Compensation
– Other
– Overall
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…..dashboard…
• First Line managers prepare for their teams
– HR Rep works with manager to help resolve ‘Red’
areas
– Next level Manager reviews each fortnight and
handles escalations
• Same thing for employees who are managers
– Senior level managers review and resolve the
‘red’ areas
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Thought #3 – Layered Process

• Deploy ‘rich’ Engagement Practice for ‘Top 20 to
25%’
• Shape-up or Ship-out for the Bottom Performers
• Leaves 65 to 70% in the middle, most of whom
are individual players
– Important but too large to deploy ‘rich’
Engagement Process

The ‘Important Middle’ 

…………………….Thought #4
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Thought #4 - Fungibility
• Break down work, roles, skills, competencies
• Redefine things such that some roles get
created that require lower level of competency
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Measuring Complexity (of Domain Expertise)

• Read Project Project Project Project
‘Complexity’ as Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
‘Competency’ Complexity Level 5
Complexity Level 4
Complexity Level 3
Complexity Level 3
5 Complexity Level 1

• Wipro and TCS hiring B.Sc. –

4 and not B.Tech.
• Measure ‘Competency’
3 • Start people with low competency at lowest
competency level
• Map them to appropriate tasks in a project
2
• As people increase their ability, move them to more
complex tasks that require higher competency
1 • Thus making the best use of abilities
• ‘Competency’ framework would help implement this
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Internal Certifications
• When people join, given them a ‘roadmap’
– Different ‘skills’ and ‘complexities’
– How can they change it – Training, Tutorials,
OJT, Examinations, etc.
– Show how their ‘grade’ and ‘assignments’ would
change
• Needs significant internal ‘upgradation’ of
practices
• For example: IBM does this!
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Summary
• Studying Attrition in detail gives hard facts that
can reinforce the ‘idealism’ of Employee
Engagement
• Implement-able practices and process for
Employee engagement
– Layered Approach
– Fungibility
Case Study: Software Industry
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Different Types of Projects & Business Models

Application Development

STAFF AUGMENTATION
TIME & MATERIAL
FIXED PRICE
Sustenance
Type of Project

Testing

“Complex” Development

Business Model

• Do all these require the same pyramid?

Different Software Development Methodology
An Example

#2
 Example: New Product Development 19

Different Software Development Methodology

Domain = High Level System Engineering Capability

Domain: 100% Domain: 10% Domain: 40% Domain: 10%

Software: 0% Software: 90% Software: 60% Software: 90%

NEW

Concept/Design Implementation Integration Testing

Effort: 30% Effort: 30% Effort: 20% Effort: 20%

Domain: 100%
NOW

Software: 0%

• New methodology requires 45% domain expertise

compared to the 60% in current methodology!
Paying attention to Product Expertise and
building it in Software Engineers and Senior
Software Engineers would help to reduce this
further
 Example: Testing Program 20

Different Software Methodology

Domain = High Level System Engineering Capability

Domain: 100% Domain: 10% Domain: 10% Domain: 100%

Software: 0% Software: 90% Software: 90% Software: 0%

NEW

Concept/Design Scripting Execution Final Testing

Effort: 20% Effort: 20% Effort: 50% Effort: 10%

Domain: 100%
NOW

Testing: 0%

• New methodology requires 37% domain expertise

compared to the 60% in current methodology!
Paying attention to Product Expertise and
building it in Software Engineers and Senior
Software Engineers would help to reduce this
further