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
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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