i am have been off vacationing and hence the huge time lag since my last post. I have been catching up on friends - many of whom i have not even emailed for years.
I was telling them about the Professional education company that i have launched - Oyster Learning. - http://www.oysterlearning.com/
Some of them were really excited and even gave me a lot of references of people who might be interested in working with me or would give me business!.
I marvelled at how references make such a huge impact in our lives.
A reference is almost like "giving away a part of your reputation" is what some guy said - i definitely believe in it and I think the hiring industry does so too...
Reference based hiring is a great way to hire for yourself good candidates.
Companies are well latched on to this concept and there are a variety of ways in which they have gone about it.
Employee Referral Schemes
The Referral scheme where in employees of an organisation refer friends and acquaintances whom they feel would fit potential roles in their organisation. Referring individuals are given a certain token money (in today's time - its pretty substantial - as high as 50k) if the referred candidate is selected.
The rider is only that the referred candidates should stay on for at least month - (or even 3 months - in BPOs)
Refer a Co - candidate
Companies have gone a step forward and have even come out with schemes where in candidates! can refer others and if the referred person is selected then they are given gift vouchers. Some times rewards are also given as a mere good will gesture to such persons - the aim being to keep them motivated enough to keep on sending references.
In one of my later posts ....i shall definitely talk about how one can do even more exciting stuff and what are the riders involved....
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Fresher Attrition
Attrition is a ghost that every Recruiter fears.
I read somewhere that the attrition after the training period (which is about a month) is about 5% (of current employees) at Infosys - that is as much as 2000 people.
And a disproporti0nate number (as much as 25%) of this attrition is from amongst the freshers or campus recruits.
For recruiters that's a lot of hard work down the drain..it is also big revenue drain since critical recruiter time is spent in replacing the employees who left.
In terms of return on investment....it is said that an organisation starts achieving profit from an employee somewhere between 6 months to an year of his joining - for freshers it could be as much as 1 year plus.
While in today's time attrition is accepted as a fact of life there are many things recruiters could do and are doing to stem the tide ....
Let's look at how one can stem attrition amongst freshers.....
Firstly some philosphy....!
Fresher retention is a tough one to manage since its difficult to differentiate between them on criteria like compensation or responsibility since they have no experience.
However a selective policy of retention is also important. After all it is important weed out the ones who show low potential
So what all do we need to be doing.........
Retaining freshers starts with the Recruitment process itself.
Recruiting employees who donot fit in with the company's mission and long term plans does no good to anyone.
Managing "high flyers" - the ambitious guys, who want to a do a lot of things(normally their way!) - is also a tough proposiiton. Since this means managing them differently - be it differential compensation or roles
Compromising on the recruiting process in an attempt to close the required numbers - will also result in a lot of heart ache - since many unqualified candidates get taken - who have to be told to leave later since they have not met the mark
IDEA
1. Put in place an excellent Recruitment process which identifies the right candidate
- assess the qualities of the current crop of igh performers who have stayed with the company for a reasonable period of time and understand what makes them stick and tick!- attracting similar candidates will result in greater recruiting success
2. Have a remuneration philosophy which is tailored for the kind of candidates who are recruited. For a candidate who is clearly a high flyer - have a differential compensation or role challenges with relevant performance filters so that it does not result in heart burn for others
__________________________________________________________
Attrition is a result of internal factors and external factors. When the external factors are more attractive than the internal ones, employees are tempted to leave
Some of the factors which affect Freshers are compensation, roles, location, culture, reporting manager's style
More than any other working age group freshers go thru a huge "adjustment period" where in irritants seem magnified for them ....be it change in food or even weather !
To add to it their tolerance levels to uncertainty and personal challenges are also very poor.....all of which does no good to corporates ....
IDEA
Regularly conduct climate surveys to understand this fact in detail.....be it a galloping economy which could mean mid term hikes or the need for a flexi -time culture - which could mean incorporating telecommuting or providing creche facilities
Proactive providing classes which equip candidates with life skills - be it cooking to knowing where to buy the right clothes (and not get cheated) to finding a house will really go a long way to managing these challenges.....
More on attrition ideas in another post
I read somewhere that the attrition after the training period (which is about a month) is about 5% (of current employees) at Infosys - that is as much as 2000 people.
And a disproporti0nate number (as much as 25%) of this attrition is from amongst the freshers or campus recruits.
For recruiters that's a lot of hard work down the drain..it is also big revenue drain since critical recruiter time is spent in replacing the employees who left.
In terms of return on investment....it is said that an organisation starts achieving profit from an employee somewhere between 6 months to an year of his joining - for freshers it could be as much as 1 year plus.
While in today's time attrition is accepted as a fact of life there are many things recruiters could do and are doing to stem the tide ....
Let's look at how one can stem attrition amongst freshers.....
Firstly some philosphy....!
Fresher retention is a tough one to manage since its difficult to differentiate between them on criteria like compensation or responsibility since they have no experience.
However a selective policy of retention is also important. After all it is important weed out the ones who show low potential
So what all do we need to be doing.........
Retaining freshers starts with the Recruitment process itself.
Recruiting employees who donot fit in with the company's mission and long term plans does no good to anyone.
Managing "high flyers" - the ambitious guys, who want to a do a lot of things(normally their way!) - is also a tough proposiiton. Since this means managing them differently - be it differential compensation or roles
Compromising on the recruiting process in an attempt to close the required numbers - will also result in a lot of heart ache - since many unqualified candidates get taken - who have to be told to leave later since they have not met the mark
IDEA
1. Put in place an excellent Recruitment process which identifies the right candidate
- assess the qualities of the current crop of igh performers who have stayed with the company for a reasonable period of time and understand what makes them stick and tick!- attracting similar candidates will result in greater recruiting success
2. Have a remuneration philosophy which is tailored for the kind of candidates who are recruited. For a candidate who is clearly a high flyer - have a differential compensation or role challenges with relevant performance filters so that it does not result in heart burn for others
__________________________________________________________
Attrition is a result of internal factors and external factors. When the external factors are more attractive than the internal ones, employees are tempted to leave
Some of the factors which affect Freshers are compensation, roles, location, culture, reporting manager's style
More than any other working age group freshers go thru a huge "adjustment period" where in irritants seem magnified for them ....be it change in food or even weather !
To add to it their tolerance levels to uncertainty and personal challenges are also very poor.....all of which does no good to corporates ....
IDEA
Regularly conduct climate surveys to understand this fact in detail.....be it a galloping economy which could mean mid term hikes or the need for a flexi -time culture - which could mean incorporating telecommuting or providing creche facilities
Proactive providing classes which equip candidates with life skills - be it cooking to knowing where to buy the right clothes (and not get cheated) to finding a house will really go a long way to managing these challenges.....
More on attrition ideas in another post
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
