Attrition, also termed as labor/employee turnover, is a fact of organizational life. Almost all the industry sectors have to battle increasing attrition rates globally and the Indian industries, too, are finding themselves in the throes of the above problem. The reasons most often cited by the employees for quitting a job are poor management, lack of appreciation and support, inadequate compensation and ethical issues. Though IT/ITES sector is one of the major contributors to the service sector growth in India, attrition in this segment has reached particularly alarming proportions. This article discusses the implications of attrition, ways to control it and how HR departments can play a dominant/active role in framing and implementing the retention policies of organizations.

Imagine a place where employees love their jobs, their co-workers, work hard for their employers, get paid well for their work, have ample opportunities for advancement, can take advantage of flexible workhours to enable them to attend to personal needs when required and never quit the organization. Unfortunately, this is a highly optimistic and unrealistic situation in contrast to the real world where employees do leave, either because they yearn for more money, dislike the working conditions, detest their co-workers, long for a change or because their spouses get a dream job in another location. Enter the world of `attrition'. Even though people add value to the organizations, employees often leave an organization for one or more of the reasons cited above. If a company gets associated with the "here today, gone tomorrow" syndrome, it is generally taken that there is something wrong with it and not with the people leaving the company. Apart from resulting in sometimes significant monetary loss to the company and undesirable interruption in its day-to-day operations, attrition can often potentially lead to knowledge transfer, which is a considerable threat that may adversely affect business. Why employees are jumping the ship (company) is a matter for concern in many industry sectors—is something wrong with the ship, the captain (management) or the weather (working conditions)?

Attrition can be viewed as a natural reduction in personnel through resignation while attrition rate may be defined as the rate of shrinkage in number of employees due to untimely resignations. With attrition becoming the bane of companies across the world, it is strange that many organizations neither measure costs associated with attrition nor have specific targets or plans to reduce them. Many organizations seem to accept attrition as part of the cost of doing business—a sign of rising job mobility and diminishing staff loyalty, perhaps a matter to be regretted, but just `one of those things' that does not demand adoption of any urgent corrective policies.

Combating Attrition, Information technology Sector, ITES, Retention policies, Indian economy, human capital management, Indian industries Sector, Employees attrition, Huamn resource process, Budget system, Attrition rates, Human capital management, Tata Consultancy Services, Organizational culture.