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Embed employees well to stem attrition Embed employees well to stem...
Every organisation needs effective retention strategies to retain its top talent. What makes employees leave organisations is easy to guess. Lucrative offers, growth opportunities and fabulous work environment entice employees to move on. Focusing on what causes people to deflect and changing employee retention policies can be helpful to an extent but in the long run studying what binds people to an organisation can help formulate an effective retention strategy. This is w
here employee-embeddedness comes into the picture.
Based on more than a decade of research, Brooks C Holtom, Terence R Mitchell and Thomas W Lee have developed the concept of job embeddedness. According to them when an employee develops a strong attachment to the organisation and its environment, he is less likely to leave the organisation. This is because by moving in search of greener pastures he has to forgo many things in the present environment, which are valuable to him.
The secret of success is to find out what an employee values most apart from a good pay package and job satisfaction.
An employee develops a strong bond with the company when there is a closer fit between himself and the organisation and also the surrounding community. Holtom and his colleagues profess that employee-embeddedness fosters retention and also brings forth higher in-role and extra-role performance. If job embeddedness guarantees both employee loyalty and high performance isn’t it a panacea? Here are some measures you can adopt to make the employees job embedded and wedded to the organisation for years to come:
Organisational policies should be framed such that they encourage an employee to believe that his knowledge, skills and values match the demands of his job. The work environment should enable an employee to develop positive ties with fellow employees and the community in general. A comprehensive onboarding process to welcome new employees is the first step in the right direction. This process can be made interesting by including plenty of chances for the new employee to get to know the organisation and his colleagues. When they are provided opportunities to share experiences and commonalities with co-employees, new employees get into the groove easily and develop strong employee-organisational ties. It is also sensible to assign a mentor with a similar background to enable the new employee feel comfortable in his new job.
Assure the employees that there is a future at your organisation and a clear-cut path to the top. Promoting from within and providing information to the employees about emerging avenues in the organisation help foster closer employee-organisational ties. Another option is to merge individual goals with organisational goals and design suitable training programmes to ensure career growth opportunities. This would benefit both the employee and the organisation.
Improving work life balance is key to promoting embeddedness. Take into account employees’ specific concerns while developing work schedules. Care should be taken to see that employees who need to travel a lot get enough time to spend with their families. Out station assignments could be limited, so that they are in town for some part of the month.
Encourage employees to design the work environment and plan team events. Solicit employees’ opinions on decisions that have a direct impact on them. Referral bonuses help bring in new hires from similar backgrounds, which in turn creates better organisational fit. Many organisations provide facilities like gyms and conduct seminars to help employees overcome work related stress. Providing on site childcare facilities is a wonderful option to enhance work life balance of women employees in particular.
Man is a social being and therefore his ties with the community in which the company is located has a bearing on his decision to stay with the company or not. Fostering strong community ties should be a top priority for a retention strategy to be effective. This can be achieved in the following ways:
• Keep the employees posted on community events regularly
• Provide club memberships, special discounts at malls, restaurants
• Tie-ups with banks, travel agents, realtors and other service providers to offer specials concessions to employees
• Encourage employee sports teams to participate in community leagues
• Encourage employee participation in community service activities. Common core values strengthen employee-organisation relationship.
Build a lasting bond with employees through job embeddedness that your competitors will envy.
N. PURNIMA SRIKRISHNA
faqs@cnkonline.com
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