Having chanced to read many an erudite article on " How to Retain Employees", I couldn't resist penning down some of the more common reasons in IT industry, which succeeds in driving out the talented - in droves.
Management not having a learning loop - In Engineering we call it the control loop. It makes sure that the feedback is constantly received, and used to adjust the inputs which reduces discrepancy in the optimal output.( Well, doesn't that sound deep?)
It translates into answering questions from Freshers like these:
Why am I, an IIT topper, put into a project on Mainframes?
Could you tell me some justification for recruiting so many when the transportation is in the primitive stages, still?
Could we not have as a part of the Induction phase, support, wherein the management helps us relocate, considering that we are from different parts of India dumped into this city?
Pray, what is the criterion, in putting us into different streams of technology?
I joined to work in exciting technical fields -but I am on bench. Worse, many are on bench but the management is still on a recruiting spree. Shouldn't I feel insecure?
Any answer is better than no answer at all. (Remember the zero stroke theory vs. Negative stroke theory?) But hardly any one bothers to answer intelligently. And the questions are repeated in every batch!
There starts the disillusionment of the young! Welcome to Corporate Life!
Work Profile Mismatch - Often the Management Graduates face a role mismatch, having been lured by the excellent compensation packages, and not too bothered by the profile. However as the days pass, Maslow starts grinning from the pages of that obscure OB book, and one chaffs at work which one feels can be done by any layman.
Recognition-to the Visible - Can't blame anyone here -that is the politik of company life. But often, in this industry, the best need not be the most vocal, the genius prefers to work away on his computer, the nerd who truly brings business is often a poor presenter.
But Awards go to the vocal, the visible, the loud. So do promotions. How many companies have a dual career track with different competency based assessment done for the twin ladders? So finally, the quiet engineer gets an "Average", on Presentation skills and the loud one an "Excellent". Marks to the loud one-isn't communication skills the crux of them all?
And since all the animals have to do all the things the eel who can do a little bit of everything wins in the end*.
Work-Life Circus - It is not a mere circus anymore. More and more couples feel the strain of life in IT, with deadlines, pressures and travel taking its toll on home and balance. And if you have a young child, God save you!
When the Factories Act, 1948 was envisaged and amended, they never visualized an industry like IT. No one had dared (Correct me if I am wrong) to challenge many a practice of IT companies under the Factories Act. For it says for every 30 women working in a industry, there has to be a crèche. We have gyms, tennis courts, bars and coffee shops, golf clubs, but crèches? After all young women will forever remain young and childless in IT companies. Aren't they liberated? Out goes the young mother. (Who aced her B.E/MBA?)
Lost Identity - Maslow grinning again. While all of us cannot be Gurcharan Das, who could pen masterpieces along with managing an MNC, one still aspires for self-actualization.
True, many IT companies help in getting that dusty guitar out and shake a leg, and kill a fellow debater, but how many help channelise all that youthful pizzazz into something more meaningful to the individual?
It is more than " Small-Is-Wonderful", which drives the guy out to a dotcom or startup. It is the need to be recognized as himself/herself and not just as another face in the mess queue. Solutions, anyone?
Hierarchy and Bureaucracy - As an organization gets bigger, it loses all the advantages of being lithe, young, and agile. It is the Crisis of Bureaucracy, which will step in to control huge amounts of data and personnel. However, even after having achieved SEI-CMM Level 5 as a company, when service departments like maintenance or personnel, fails to respond to an immediate query, one feels like stranded in the sands of Indian civil service. How soon to that standard?
Chronic haters of hierarchy (There are software companies which insist on calling your superior Sir and fine you for talking your mother tongue though you are forty years old) make a beeline for exit when they face these twin monsters.
It is time that we address many issues like these, with sensitivity and intelligence. For more often than not, it is neither the hot pay packet nor the foreign trip that attracts the brilliant techie/MBA out of the company. It just could be something related to dear old Maslow.
No comments:
Post a Comment