When I joined my first job, I thought, that’s it, I can work in the same organization forever, just like my Dad who served for around 35years in a government sector. But soon I realized that it was no longer my dream, I had new set of desires, to work in a Multinational company. This prompted me to move out of my first job to join a Multinational. Big name, fat salary and then I thought may be this is it, but that was no longer true after couple of months. I moved out again for better opportunity. This holds true for many of us? Most of us get lost in the quest for the ultimate “it” What will satisfy me in terms of my job? Great salary? Or Great work or designation?
The major challenge facing the IT industry is the high iteration ratios. IT companies spend exorbitantly to ensure employee job satisfaction. With the booming INDIA market Indian companies expect growth in the offshore projects from abroad. But before gloating over the bright prospect of the Industry, its imperative to answer some questions like, can we mange this growth? Do we have enough supply or manpower to execute the offshore projects to keep this business sustaining and growing at the same rate?
Unfortunately the numbers in the numbers in the books of HR and recruitment department give the real picture, iteration ratios are hitting high numbers, skills are manipulated to fit requirements and resume fudging is becoming another unfortunate art for many recruiters. Knowledge just like any well cooked Indian dish, takes its own time to develop, there are no shortcuts. Given the above scenario it is very obvious that for a talented employee there are plenty of opportunities around, in a place like Bangalore an employee can choose a company like picking up a car or cell phone from the market. The market gives variety of options with great deals. IT companies have been groaning in pain for achieving employee retention and striking the right balance in the employee job satisfaction. .
The current generation of professionals, refrain from making salary and brand name as the only parameters for selecting jobs. Cutting edge next generation technology serves as a great motivator for employees. This has raised the bar for retaining talented employees, and making them a part of the winning teams.
Responsibilities
Money no longer lures candidates to join companies. The expectation of candidates in terms of responsibilities have rouse, and the appetite for being involved in the interesting developments at the company are on the priority list of candidates expectation while selecting a company. The new employee wants the feeling of success, while contributing to something that makes a significant difference in terms of the technology or the revenue of the company. As an invisible factor in the equation of job satisfaction, every “good” employee wants to get more responsibility and become more accountable towards company’s growth.
Looking it from a different point of view, the new employee is just asking for a “good” reason for his existence. These added responsibilities give enough manure to answer otherwise difficult question like “what I am doing?” “What is the cause of my life or goal of my life?” Answer to these questions are a source to a unique compensation called the “Internal Satisfaction”.
Many times people leave companies because they feel they are just wasting time, they do not have much to work and whatever work is given to them is not good enough as per them. In a way they are indicating “I don’t think I am doing much around here” and hence decide to move on to next job that has more challenges then the current work”.
To retain talented employees it is very critical that the job offers them work as per there caliber and does not load them with some work which the company is not able to justify to its employees.
Show me some respect
One of the common reasons of employees leaving companies is frustration. But what causes frustration? Many a times it has been observed, success either it is credited to some seniors or management or not well credited in the employee’s names. But of course if there is a failure then the entire blame of failure is passed to the employee. These are the symptoms of a “sick” company, where the top management or senior resources of the company might not have enough skills left to keep up with the existing environment and they survive like parasites on the work done from the junior’s employees. Today’s competitive world will never accept the kind of treatment.
If an employee works hard in your company next thing that he/she expects is some appreciation. Everyone would like to get acknowledged for the hard work and untiring efforts they put in. From a management stand point it’s important that all employee are not weighed on the same scale of performance. Appreciation is one aspect that has been very poorly understood or practiced by many of the companies. It is something like asking 10 different people “what makes you happy”, and there are bright chances of getting 10 different answers. Every human being is different, everyone has different point of view to look at things and the management need to understand and know each one of them. This calls for extraordinary efforts in people management, but the execution is not as difficult as it seems. It requires focus on the project and the project team, with small efforts mentors/coaches can know each team member very well and use that investment to identify individuals for their appropriate identity in the company based on their strengths.
Where do I go from where
Every parent wants the best for their kids. Millions of parents might have spend several hours to find the best school for their kids, they always look for a perfect school where their kids can grow in a good environment, study well and of course nowadays they need to make sure that it also fits their budget.
Everyone while growing up always had the eyes of their parents of loved one’s on them. They always wanted a check on the kind of friends, hangouts, habits etc. The object is to ensure their kids go on the right track, have a good growth and hence a successful life. We are always worried about our growth, our success. I don’t know a person in my life who can tell me, that you know what I have done everything and I think I am done.
Growth is one of the fundamental part of our life, whether it is growth in terms of our finance, property, friends or anything which someone loves. Many of the employees always want someone to look forward for, everyone needs good growth in there job. They not only want to grow technically but also grow as a good human being, they want to grow there leadership skills, there communication skills. I always looked up to my Manager while I was growing my career skills in Silicon Valley. I was lucky enough to get great bosses from whom I learned lot many things, everyday I was working with them I knew I am going to learn one thing or the other.
The current company structures needs to provide an open environment where the juniors can learn from there seniors or they can look up to someone as a role model or mentor. But if this is as simple as it sounds what is the problem? Many a times our education and other development systems around have made people to get into a mode where they “follow order”, there are big egos and pride to have authority. Most of the companies have “Bosses” not “Mentors” or “Coaches”. The basic difference between a “Boss” or “Manager” and a “Coach” is that the “Boss” will make you do things and believe things even if you like it or not, but when you become a “Coach” to your team, you are not just forcing things on them, but you are teaching them the best tips and trick you know for the game to make sure that your team wins, all of them grow as a strong team and you be a proud “Coach” of that team instead of a nasty “Manager”
My boss at one of the companies in Silicon Valley taught me a very good lesson, he always uses to tell me “Family and Health comes first, work can wait or be done by someone else, but family and health might not wait for you”. Whenever any one of my team member calls me up to inform that he is a bit sick or anyone in his near family is sick the first thing which pop’s in my mind is to tell him that do not worry about work and take care of your health or your family everything else at work will be taken care of. Many people have appreciated this and you can see that appreciation over the phone. At times it amazes me that I didn’t knew that when our work place became so nasty simple qualities of a normal human being became a point of appreciation.
Flexibility does not mean that you come at 11:00 in the office and go early or do whatever you want, but it means having few deviations from the regular routine once in a while when someone really needs it. In IT companies flexi timings were one of the selling points of the companies, we came a long way from punching the in and out time to provide flexi timings, but at the same time companies needs to make sure that the employees does understand the real advantage of flexi timings and they do not exploit that.
Not to mention that all the above points are great but still there is one more important aspect for the beautiful recipe of job satisfaction. It is the compensation package; all of us are worried about our take home salary. Whether anyone likes it or not but this is the “salt” in our recipe. You just do a bit of miscalculations you might lose the entire deal no matter how great are the other ingredients. But keep in mind that just paying fat checks does not mean as much as it use to be earlier, since now there are many option available which make a proper package for any employee.
As the world grows the work environment and the work models will keep on changing with little control over that, but things that we have under our control is to make sure that in the race of survival, keeping up with the world and technology we do not forget the most basic and simple element of our life “our piece of mind”.
A smile on your face when you go to work and when you come back home from work is all we always asked to define a great work place.
Rahul V Shah
