Total Rewards Management - NASSCOM Mantra to manage attrition???

Attrition, Employee Engagement and Retention probably still seems to be haunting the IT/ITES HR community. Though most of the community has reclined to the fact that this cannot be eliminated in a booming industry which is the current scenario of the Indian IT market, there still seems to be some hope coming.

I was fortunate to have attended the Nasscom seminar on "Total Rewards Management" in Bangalore on 26 April 07. The Panelist included quite a number of prominent HR folks who debated whether Total rewards Management is the the same as C&B which mean old wine in new bottle or would it be the next buzz word or HR Mantra to employee engagement and talent aquisition.

Some felt that it would take employee engagement perspective on different planes, others felt it to be just another synonym for C&B. There were still others who felt this cannot happen without a TOP - Down approach and especially in today competetive market where even studies by major consulting companies may not be true given the fact that most of us hesitate to divulge the true facts.

Call it whatever, ultimately, it all trickles down to common sense and logic and ultimately how much an organisation can invest on a resource....so back to square one, wheres the money and are we ready to implement such a thing at this point of time???Food for thought...

Job portals adding on to attrition???

The most feared word among HR folk in the indian IT industry - "attrition". The industry seems to have accepted the fact that attrition cannot be arrested - so-live with it. "keeping the pipeline on" is the trend today. But hey, take a closer look at reasons for attrition, isnt there some reasons which are artificially created??

Compensation, job satisfaction, work culture...blah..blah...blah. But wait, didnt we miss something.....the rising number of third parties making money out of the organisations dismay and any employees unending wants-yes of course media and consultants do enter this forray but somewhere hidden but probably without much limelight are the human resource database companies....take for example one of such companies which has recently forrayed into this business. The punch line says it all "because you are worth more" and this more has no ceiling.

Recent trends also indicate how these forces can add on to the attrition levels, portals dont do anything by themselves, but those behind them do....things dont stop with just portals, joining the bandwagon are jobfairs, where its not compnies shopping for people, but people walking into employer of their liking...good or bad, its anyways time for HR folks and Nasscom to think how to tackle one more additional cause of attrition.