Attrition & its antidote in my realization

This blog has nothing new to the HR professionals, so HR professionals you may stay away from this article or you may read this article to argue or to criticize. This is a blog written for those who are indirectly or directly connected with the private organizations and its problem of retention. After spending a brief span in the field of HR, my important realization is that retention starts with the process of recruitment. And retention precisely depends upon the understanding of generation.

This is the first time in the history of employment organizations are experiencing all the generations to work together and naturally they are different from each other. They all have their own creed, own level of aspiration, own level of desire and own set of rules. Process of recruitment is not just pooling the talents, short listing them according to the requirement, conducting the interview and selecting them. It is more than just this mere process which is not written anywhere. There comes the HRs of the organizations who play the pivotal role to keep the talent in the organization for a longer period of time. From the maximum of 30 minutes of interaction with the candidate an HR needs to identify his compatibility in the organization keeping the things in mind whom he would report to, what are his aspirations and desires, what kind of job roles he would handle, which generation he belongs to, what motivates him, what de-motivates him, which category of personality he possesses etc. And mind it these are not measurable!! This has been clichéd in the industry that most of the time people don’t leave the organization, they leave their bosses.

This has emphasized me to think over and over on the relationship that the boss and his subordinates share (kindly do not consider me as a male chauvinist the male counterpart has been taken for the convenience of discussion, it holds true for the female counterparts as well). An HR should always give a special attention to the generations of both the boss and the candidate. He should understand the traits of both the generations and match their strengths & weaknesses and also their compatibility to each other. This better understanding will surely foster the relationship between the boss and the candidate. That’s how at the very first step one HR can create a harmony between the boss and the new joiner under him without the knowledge of both of them. Better understanding of the generation will give a scope to the HRs to device the antidote for the poison “attrition” which irrespective of the industry, more or less, is suffering from. The biggest challenge that today’s organizations and HRs are facing to retain the top talents and attracting the best suitable talent. The understanding of generation will facilitate the HRs to create Employee Value Proposition (EVP) by improving the existing HR policies and amending the policies according to the culture of the organization and its average age of the employees. These can help not only to retain the top talents but also can attract the best suitable talents through a positive EVP.

Better understanding of generation not only will help the HRs to select the right fit candidate but also will equip the HRs with the new employee engagement arrows in their quiver. HRs can’t make “one size fits all” kind of rewards & recognitions or employee engagement activities, otherwise it would not be a good exemplar for the organization and will experience high employee turnover rate. As earlier it is mentioned that first time in the history of employment organizations are experiencing all the generations to work together, so which motivates the “TRADITIONALIST” or “BABY BOOMERS”, will not motivate the “GEN X”, nor will they motivate “GEN Y or millennial” and things will be more arduous for HRs when in few years down the lane the “GEN A O” will join the workforce who will be more demanding, challenge seeking than its predecessors and very much creative. Therefore, all the employee engagement activities, employee relation activities HRs need to design in such a fashion that each of the generations gets its honey from these; nobody should feel deprived from his dues.

Understanding of generations will help the HRs to select the right fit candidate to arrest the attrition rate at the threshold of the employment life cycle and can bring break through result as a reply to the hackneyed phrase.