A few days back, in an internal management forum, we were talking about the increasing attrition and importance of retaining people. One of the PMs talked about how a few people in his team asked him " Why should we stay?"

That's really it. That's what we need to answer. If we don't have an answer to that (besides the nonsense about it being a challenge, and a fast growing oganisation etc.), then we don't have much of a chance.

What are the reasons for people to stay? Or, what do people look for? Here's the regular list:

• Compensation: includes salary and stock options
  
• Quality of work
  
• Role
• Quality of life ( relates to work life balance and the city you work in)
• Brand
  

Let's consider a small services organisation that does not have the best pay scales, does not have much to offer in terms of work content, and where teams often come under schedule pressure. Is obviously not a recognized brand, and is located in Chandigarh ( Great quality of life, but not very relevant to most of the target employee group.)

What does such a company do ? Does it have no hope?

I think it does. It can do one thing that is relatively easy for a small organisation to do, and which can potentially make a big impact on employees, (although probably none on prospective employees.)

Try and be the best place to work at.

That's it. Everything else pretty much follows. I think one can start by putting together a few guiding principles. Use them to check each action and policy: if they don't fit into the principles, then they are acceptable. Here are some that I believe would be good ones:

1. The small guy always wins: Whenever a decision can go both ways, err on the side of the employee. When creating a policy, use one that leans towards the employee.
2. Believe in people: Create policies based around faith in people. Assume that people are honest. In most cases, they are, and the few dishonest instances will be far outweighed by the benefits of faith. For instance, don't count leaves from attendance on a daily level: just inform the manager on a monthly level, and let the manager take a call. If an employee asks for the ability to make business calls from home, accept that she needs it.
   
3. Be pound wise, penny foolish: Don't bother with small expenses. A 200% hike in a shoelace price means nothing compared to a 1% hike in the shoe price. Don't put a tight control on RAM purchases while not controlling PC purchases.
4. Don't always be an accountant: Not everything needs to fit exactly. If a team party budget is Rs. 300 per person per quarter, it is OK for it to go above 300 once in a while: it will balance out on the whole. (Other projects will use less. If everyone is using more, perhaps the budget needs to be increased.) If a little above 300 is not OK, people will ensure they never let it be a little below 300 either: they will use all of it!
5. Communicate: Provide people information. Where are we, where are we going, how are we doing. Perhaps revenue and profit numbers. Definitely new accounts, new initiatives. Have executive management address people once in a quarter, send out mails regularly. Ask for feedback. Act on feedback. Keeping people informed encourages the belief that they matter.
6. Empower: Involve people in decisions. Allow them to suggest and take ideas to completion. For a small company, having entrepreneurial employees is essential. You will keep them only if you empower them.
   
7. Be open: Believe in transparency. If you have a cost constraint, admit it. Share with people the logic of decisions.
8. What others do is not important: Don't look at what other companies are doing: that will at best make you the average. Do what fits in with your guiding principles. If you must compare, compare with the employers that top the employee satisfaction charts!
   

Obviously, I'm not talking about motorcycles or cars :-)

I was having a chat last week about setting up a new office, and I was asked if a software services firm could go from 0 to 100 in 2 months in Chandigarh. I said no, and that 4 months was possible, adding that it might be possible in Delhi.

This was all on a hunch. Later, I started thinking about what would it take. Let's see. First, let's start on the less ambitious goal of making 100 offers in 2 months. I'll make the following assumptions:

• We pay at the 60th percentile
  
• We do at most 2 rounds of tech interviews, and most people who get to the 2nd round are selected.
• We work only weekdays.
• 1 in 5 candidates who get to round 1 get selected.
• 1 in 5 candidates the recruiters talk to get to round 1.
• 1 in 5 resumes recruiters look at are called up.
  

Here are some numbers:

• 100 offers in 2 months mean 2.5 offers a day.
• 2.5 offers a day = 3+ 2.5*5 = 16 interviews a day = 80 screenings a day
• 16 interviews daily mean at least 7 interviewers
• 80 screenings mean at least 7 recruiters
• In all, over 2 months, talking to 3200 candidates, and sourcing 16000 resumes!
  

If the recruiters can generate this sort of number, it doesn't look so bad.

Now let's see how this converts to offers accepted and joinings.

• Not more than two thirds of the people you make an offer to will join. This includes people who reject the offer and people who accept but do not turn up.
• To end up with a pipeline of 100 joinings, you need to therefore do about half as many interviews more than you needed to for 100 offers.
• That takes the total interviewers to 11, and recruiters to 11 as well.

If you're starting from zero, it gets worse, because it takes a while to recruit your interviewers! But let's say you already have 100 employees. It would be a scramble, but you just might be able to make 11 interviewers out of them.

Take the target to 4 months, and things start to look a little easier: you need only 6 interviewers and recruiters, with the time lag also providing bandwidth to do other stuff, like running the business, training people, building the brand, etc.

Do the numbers sound feasible ?