Hello everyone,

My name is Ajay and I pretend to do something in Converge Engineering Pvt. Ltd. Today I’ll talk about the employee attrition rate and if it can be minimized.

Well, everybody knows that employees stay when they are;

Did I mention Paid well?

You can find this on any google page, so it must be correct, right?

If you try to quantify these 9 reasons using the pie chart, then the outcome would be quite obvious, that “Paid well” contributes 99% of the pie.

Let’s try to visualize this.

Option 1 is you are well paid, but the job is rather boring.

Option 2 is money is not good, but the job is awesome.

So, where do you think you would stay longer?

Of-course Option 1, where money is good.

No surprise there.

And this decision is quite understandable, as one has bills to pay.

Up to this, was the common narrative that nobody has any problem with.

Now let me share a different perspective, an employer’s point of view.

I am going to generalize things. So there will be a few things that do not match your equation.

There are 2 types of employers, small and big. Big means like Worley, Technip, TCE etc. etc. And small means like any start-up.

Big companies have enough budget to hire experienced engineers.

And small companies do not have much budget, so they hire freshers.

Big companies do not have to spend money on training freshers.

Small companies do not have any choice but to train freshers.

Big companies’ engineers prepare datasheets after datasheets for years.

They get bored and eventually leave to join another big company.

Small company’s engineers prepare simulation reports, handle clients, take decisions and eventually become experts.

These guys then become employable by big companies.

So the job of small companies is to train freshers so that they can be hired by big companies after years of rigorous training.

And the job of big companies is not to hire freshers, but to wait for others to train them, then pay them a little more, so that they jump ship.

So one might ask if you are so sentimental then why don’t you increase their salary so that they don’t leave?

It’s a valid suggestion, but the salary of an employee is decided by how much money he/she is bringing to the company and how much the company is willing to give him/her his/her share of the cake.

If there is profit, then adequate incentives should be given.

If any company is not doing that, then it’s exploitation, nothing else.

And also how much salary is deemed enough, as even high-paying companies like Google or Apple also have employee attrition.

There are many ways small companies try to discourage employee attrition.

They keep the notice period of 3 months as no prospective employer would wait for 3 months.

Sometimes they keep a bond of some considerable amount.

Nevertheless, such measures wouldn’t always retain the employees.

Almost all the time I have been hiring process engineers from the pool of my process design course students.

Many of them are either freshers from some lesser-known engineering college or they are from the operating company working as shift in-charge.

They would kill for a consultancy job. But no consultancy, small or big, hires them, as nobody wants to spend time and money to train them.

When I hire them, I make sure they learn the consultancy business and then contribute to the growth of the company.

Is it unfair for an employer to expect some kind of loyalty from the employee like they should take the contribution part seriously as well, not just the learning part.

No employer dares or cares to say these things out loud as it would have the backlash. But someone needed to say this anyway, so it was done.

You all have a nice day.

Ajay S. Satpute