Your workplace - Make it a better place

I am leaving for want of better pay — I am leaving for a myriad of reasons — I am leaving... I am leaving... say so many employees during their exit interviews. But research by many organisations, including Gallup, has established beyond reasonable doubt that most employees leave behind difficult environments, difficult people and stressful situations.

“What’s the big deal if one employee leaves? After all, attrition is a problem that everyone has.” Or, “Attrition is high in the ITeS space. Given the prevailing competition, we cannot help it.”

These are the comforting statements that are often heard in HR departments and in the echelons of power in organisations that have high attrition rates.

As human beings we have certain standard operating philosophies. We are creatures of habit. What we do and what we do not — be that for money, social causes, patriotism or indeed if we are angry or sad — is pre-determined. We might try and create an illusionary secondary logic — but the fact is our behavioural pattern is defined by our upbringing and the ethical standards instilled in us by our parents, teachers, peers, friends and relatives. These ‘standard operating philosophies’ only mature over time — they rarely change.

Therefore, if money were the reason cited for changing jobs — how come we don’t change our families and friends for money? The truth is that it’s not the money that is attractive — it is a way out from a fight or a situation that we find ourselves in.

If money were the most important aspect of life — how come we have motivated jawans in the army? Let’s take the life of Capt Vikram Batra who died in the Kargil conflict re-taking Peak 4875 which he had previously captured. For his display of personal bravery and leadership, he was awarded India’s highest decoration in battle — the Param Vir Chakra. As an officer in the Indian Army, his salary was less than what an Assistant Manager in a good company in India gets paid these days. The Indian Army does not rank in the “Best Places to Work Inc”, nor does it feature on the “Best Employer of Year” in Fortune Magazine. And no, it does not feature on the salary surveys by Hewitt or Mercer. It does not have fantastic recruitment advertising budgets, nor stock options, and not all servicemen and women carry Apple iPods, Dell Laptops and state-of-the art Nokia cellphones. What’s the connect? What is that elusive answer that we are missing?

Models of success


We all know of the Southwest and Starbucks stories. It has been historically proven that business soars because of its people. The quality of people within can enhance a company’s brand image and increase revenue. They increase customer satisfaction. Their people are sought after but reluctant to leave because of the emotional bonding, the training and empowerment. They believe that the experience and the qualification are just the entry ticket and not the guarantee for a job.

Promote for Ownership, Commitment, Dedication and Reliability and not because someone has been in a role for a long time. Haven’t we all seen the video or read about Pikes Fish market at Seattle and how the folks there enjoy even something as mundane as selling fish and how that environment is transformed.

At my own organisation, we hire for talent and attitude. On joining the bank, I was meeting with people and happened to walk into my neighbour’s cabin. The gentlemen from Projects introduced himself and proudly said his father, who had been with Core Banking, had retired from the bank after 35 years of service and he had himself put in 15 years. He then proudly said his son was on the Tech team, and had been with the bank for eight years. I was truly impressed. I see this across the bank – husbands and wives, sisters, brothers, cousins – all of us working together.

We work for social causes such as for HIV infected people and on Go Green initiatives. Engagement is built in throughout the employee life cycle. Brand-building is not only about slick advertisements or huge brand spends, but about each employee being a living testimonial to the brand.

Emotional beings


The fact of the matter is that as human beings we are emotional and it is imperative that organisations deploy emotional engagement at the work place. People perform best in such environments. According to Gallup, “Organisations using emotional engagement automatically record high growth (financial), high percentage of customer retention and very low attrition.” Unless we realise that employees have their emotional baggage and deserve the same emotional logic and rationale that we adopt with our own relationships, we will always complain of high attrition.

In many organisations, rather than pursuing emotional engagement as the single driver that keeps people productive and happy, organisations and managers employ short-term ‘let’s say we are caring’ tactics. People are smart and can sense the difference between true caring and faking. For example, organisations provide facilities — but what is the use if the facilities provided are sub-standard. The whole purpose of providing facilities would be lost and such a charade could prove costly.

Not many organisations actually put an accurate cost to downtime when an employee leaves. Besides, there is also the cost of talent acquisition, the time taken to get a new employee up to speed on transactional issues and the cost of dissatisfied customer attrition? Who actually calculates that? Especially in the ITeS space, personalisation takes a back seat simply because most companies cannot be sure an employee will stick on even if paid top dollar.

In today’s environment - money is no longer the reason why employees stay or leave an organisation. In most cases – ironically, it is the people, environment and culture that drive people out of organisations

Turn on the taps of Emotional Engagement and watch the Power of Human Relations converge upon the work place. Does this mean throwing away processes? Procedure? No it doesn’t – it means humanising the work place like never before. Let us recognise people as people, admire them for the qualities they posses, accept their personal lives as fathers / mothers / brothers /sisters and organisations will begin to engage with employees and develop long-lasting partnerships with them.

Harvard Business School research has shown that the most significant contributing factor to an organisation’s success is employee loyalty, which can never be achieved in an environment that is not conducive to long stay. Human beings can only be at their productive best when they have a compulsion to stay, develop, produce and contribute.

I believe in the Power of Human Relations and I do hope that in the years ahead the Indian management system — totally unlike the traditional management system of profit taking precedence over everything, including human emotions — will prevail and that people will borrow this success model in order to replicate it across the globe. This then is our sustainability and our future. This is the world we owe our children – the future employees and employers.