[yogambala]

What Stages of the employee Life Cycle do you want to measure& Why?

1) Acquisition
2) Hire Cost
3) Employee life at the company
4) Termination
5) Retirement

[prabh]

In my space the first three are important since they have a direct impact on my profitability simply put Greater the tenure = Better revenues / efficiencies/ end user experience

[Saurabh Chatterjee]

Originally Posted by prabh

In my space the first three are important since they have a direct impact on my profitability simply put Greater the tenure = Better revenues / efficiencies/ end user experience

I agree with this. in Operations, we are more concerned about the first three , as the retirals have more to do with the HR side. For me, being in the middle management, Employee tenure would be the most important as it directly links with my process efficiency. However, there are times, wherein we look upon a "specific" attrition as a "healthy" attrition, even if we are losing out on someone vintage in the process. But, end of the day, it should not have any or have minimal impact on the process efficiency or end user experience.

[kabinetmaker]

Perhaps I'm just too literally minded, but I can't help but note that you should want to do all five. And I believe you should be doing all five. Maybe not you specifically in your department, but the company, yes.

Your customers both internal and external should not be able to tell any differences in your processes or your products when your staffing changes. But your managers and accountants probably can if they're looking closely enough.

Employees are a process variable and they should be tracked and controlled like any other part of the process. That should never be used as an excuse to treat them callously or with indifference or disrespect. But their skills, morale and motivation have a major impact in any business operation.

[Onemeanmode]

I too, believe that we should be looking at all 5, however I would particularly look at Hire cost. Not in the expected way, I would consider that new employees get extensively trained in our current processes and process improvement stages. Get them "while they're young" and mold the minds and morale around how can we do this better, not necessarily faster. Reward even minor participation. Make being involved fun and rewarding, then participation becomes contagious. The harvesting of ideas comes next, and then we sew a new crop of innovations with an exhuberant, excited workforce. Tenure will then take care of itself.

[Saurabh Chatterjee]

Originally Posted by Onemeanmode

I too, believe that we should be looking at all 5, however I would particularly look at Hire cost. Not in the expected way, I would consider that new employees get extensively trained in our current processes and process improvement stages. Get them "while they're young" and mold the minds and morale around how can we do this better, not necessarily faster. Reward even minor participation. Make being involved fun and rewarding, then participation becomes contagious. The harvesting of ideas comes next, and then we sew a new crop of innovations with an exhuberant, excited workforce. Tenure will then take care of itself.

How rightly said!! Tenure is automatically guaranteed in most cases, once you control the factors affecting tenure in a good way.

But, does it happen effectively in most cases? - that's the big question. We all know that attrition management starts from the time employee joins a company by providing him the right reasons to stay on. Most efforts of employee retention fail when the individual has taken a firm decision of moving out. But how many managers actually face this challenge head on, right from day one? I am open to debate here, but my little bit of experience has shown me numerous managers who rather have a "reactive" style of managing attritions than having a "proactive" style of managing it. They work diligently towards attrition management only when the monthly attrition reports ring the alarm, otherwise they have better things to do.

In this thread, there is a post from Prabh where he shows the importance of employee tenure to him and very rightly links it to the profitability of the business he manage. I am sure with this approach, he definitely takes the right steps well in advance to make sure that he retains the right set of people for his business, and he would be doing it well in advance and gets the right results.

However, currently in the Indian BPO and IT sector, attrition is the single largest problem being faced by people managers. As per the data of last month - In one of the major player in IT/BPO consulting, 1400 people out of their workforce of 7000 have either left in the last quarter, or are serving their notices - that makes it 20%. The company has lost considerable business in Mortgage servicing as these are processes which are highly dependent on process expertise. These processes are transfered to the client's own captive unit. As a reaction, the HR team made a policy change and have increased the notice period from 1 month to 3 months!! Believe me, the day this policy change was announced, over 150 people had put down their resignations in just about 2 hours as they know that no company would wait that long for them. They prefer getting relieved and then searching for a job (and the job market is on a boom now). Currently, most companies are facing serious attrition issues, but companies following such "knee jerk" policies are facing the worst!

Lessons learnt for me - Give your people reasons to stay, rather than compelling them to stay. Compelling tactics like illogical notice periods, bonds etc. would hardly work in a long term.

Best Regards,
Saurabh

[sparky]

...but my little bit of experience has shown me numerous managers who rather have a "reactive" style of managing attritions than having a "proactive" style of managing it.

It has been that way in almost company I have ever worked in. We oft quote "People are our greatest asset" but how many companies actually practice what they preach?

Much of my experience has been to use and abuse the employees. Beat them until they can take no more, until they are burned out and then let them go. I can cite numerous examples, but people wouldn't believe I'm talking about the UK in the 21st century!

As an aside, it has gotten far worse as the recession has started to bite.