Employee attrition in IT Sector

Employees are to an organization just as blood is to the body. In human body, blood plays a huge role in transferring Oxygen, nutrients and other necessities to various organs. Similarly, employees plays a critical role in an organization. And in IT Sector they are the most valuable assets.

It’s common in every organization for its employee to leave them for numerous reasons. But it gets unpleasant for the organization when the number of employees leaving increases beyond the threshold, and in turn, affect the company’s growth and success in the long run.

What is attrition?

The textbook definition of Attrition is gradually making something weaker and ultimately destroying it. Exactly the same impact attrition has on an organization. Employees resign or retire from an organization and if, leading to replacement by any new employees, this gives rise to employee attrition in an organization.

Employee Attrition is not a bad thing. There is positive and negative attrition. Positive attrition happens when the loss of an employee has a positive effect on the organization and negative attrition as the name suggests, has a negative impact on the organization when the employee chooses to leave.

How attrition is affecting ?

In India, close to 3.9 million people (2018) are employed in the IT industry directly. Every year a vast number of people are selected and trained by organizations. A huge fortune is being invested by every organization in the training of employees in the IT sector. These efforts are nullified because of attrition, the organizations are not able to regain their investment.

As per the interview conducted by Economic times Chief human resources officer of a renowned IT Company said, “Training is an important part of an organization, but deployment is key to organizational success”.

IT Organization train candidates at high speed but this speed is not in sync with the deployment of the talent. When a candidate’s training is completed but never engaged in the right direction then it arises employee dissatisfaction which leads to attrition of a skillful employee and such skillful employees are always in great demand in the IT sector.

So, when a trained employee chooses to leave the organization, it impacts the growth projection and target achievement of the organization.

What triggers attrition ?

There are many factors that lead to employee attrition in IT industry. Such as Overburdened by workload, better opportunity, lack of recognition / development, and difference in opinion with seniors or peers.

In IT Sector employees generally finds their workload is not in proportion to their work hours and that they find it hard to maintain a work-life balance. And others find better pay and opportunity elsewhere and they chose to leave the organization.

From a study conducted across employees in IT sector salary is not the only factor. They also have the want for recognition and the opportunity for personal growth.

Many of the employees sited lack of growth options as the major reason for their departure from an organization. Furthermore, lack of coordination and understanding among subordinates also can create employee dissatisfaction.

Conclusion

Viewing the current scenario, stop attrition is not practically possible. To minimize impact of negative attrition concentration efforts needs to be put together.

Retrospection internal processes and execution patterns such as hiring, engaging and evaluation will allows us to  highlighted deviations and a path needs to be paved to minimize them.

Author : Sagurika Patel