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TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary Objective of study What is employee Attrition? How to Measure attrition rate? Reasons for Attrition Cost of Attrition Employees Retention Employee Retention Strategies 10 Factors That Affects Employee Retention Role of Manager in Employee Retention Challenges in Employee Retention How to Curb Attrition Benefits of Attrition Introduction Solutions to Cognizant technology

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A Visit to Cognizant Technology Solutions Findings Conclusions Bibliography

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
In the current scenario of high economic growth and rapid globalization, the fight for talent is becoming increasingly intense. Talent or human resource is a major asset for any company. Company Invest high amount of money for their recruitment, selection & training and what happens to company if these Talents or Employees leave the organization in short while seeking new opportunities. Plagued by erratic attrition trends and cutthroat global competition, organizations are now realizing the need to understand the supply-demand equation better in order to garner strong mechanisms to attract and retain top talent.

Employee retention is critical to the long-term health and success of any organization; however it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies across the globe to attract, motivate and retain key talent. Attrition rates are still on the rise and as the war for talent becomes more intense each year it is becoming increasingly important for companies to ensure they have the right people in place to guide future business success. Overall attrition rates are continuing to rise in Asia. Retention also remains a key challenge in IT/BPO and pharmaceutical industry.

Managing attrition is not a very easy task to do in the IT/ BPO industry. It is the route to their survival. Turnover is of considerable concern for managers because it disrupts normal operations and necessitates the costly selection and training of replacements, the costly hiring and training the new employee to regain the lost customer and supplier contacts. The employee retention is obviously one of the

most important challenges in organization and avoids unwanted turnover. Staff attrition represents significant costs to most organizations. It is odd, therefore, that many organizations neither measure such costs nor have targets or plans to reduce them. Employee turnover or resign could disrupt normal operation necessities the costly selection and training of replacement. Reducing employee turnover required the management efforts of the companies.

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Human resources are the only source of long term competitive advantage for any business organization. It plays a key role in helping companies deal with a fastchanging competitive environment. According to Wayne F Cascio, people are a major component of any business and the management of people is a major part of every managers job. It is also the specialized responsibility of the HR department. Thus Human Resource Management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organizations most valued assets. Human Resource Management involves five major areas: staffing, retention, development, adjustment and managing change. Together they compose the HRM system, for they describe a network of interrelated components. However, rising business competition has led to high attrition rates in many sectors and retaining the employees is proving to be a Herculean task for most organizations in the modern era of globalization and competitive business. Attrition is a normal and uncontrollable reduction in the workforce because of constant stress, retirement, death, sickness and relocation. In simple words, attrition refers to the number or rate at which the people leave an organization. It is one method of reducing the size of workforce without management taking any overt actions. The drawback to reduction by attrition is that reductions are often unpredictable and can leave gaps in an organization. Attrition is one of the biggest challenges and it represents significant costs to most organizations. A high attrition reflects poorly on an organizations ability to hold on to its people. The toughest concern for an HR manager is the high attrition rate. Attrition level can

also be more, due to rigid and unpopular HR policies pursued by the corporate. All companies are working day and night to find out a long-term solution of this complex issue. The study of attrition is very important because the excess of it tells about the productivity of the organization. It is obviously difficult for any organization to operate smoothly and to attain its objectives if employees leave the organization. Level of attrition beyond the normal range in any organization can have a direct impact on that organizations effectiveness and efficiency. Most employees leave their work for reasons other than money; they want more meaning in their work. Employees seek opportunities that allow them to use and develop their skills. They often indicate that they want to use their qualities and skills in challenging teamwork led by capable leaders. There are numerous reasons which may drive an employee to quit. Some of them are: career opportunities, proper working environment, psychological satisfaction, unfair practices in organization, stress etc. Among management-level employees, the key attrition drivers are such as opportunities for management, ability of top management, use of skills and abilities and work/family balance. For professional level employees, the key attrition drivers are concern about coaching and counseling from ones supervisor, clear sense of direction from the company and chance to do interesting and challenging work. Among clerical level employees, the key attrition drivers are concern about type of work, use of skills and abilities and opportunity to learn new skills. A study on employee attrition falls incomplete without probing into employee retention. Effective employee retention is a systematic effort by employers to create and foster an environment that

encourages current employees to remain employed by having policies and practices in place that address their diverse needs. One of the major challenges of the Human Resource Management these days is to retain the organizations employees without letting the rot set in. However, sufficient steps should be taken towards achievement of this goal. The efforts should start right from the beginning, i.e., at the time of hiring. One should hire only those employees who can be retained easily. At the organizational level, adequate steps should be taken to ensure that there is a sense of belonging to the organization. The organization should also encourage social networks among employee groups. Rewards are another way of motivating employees. The top management of the organization should maintain a rapport with key knowledge workers. Employees should get the feel that the organization is concerned about their interests. The most frequent methods for increasing employee retention have been to provide orientation and some level of mentoring support and guidance. As the economy improves there are chances to hear more about the impact of employee attrition. Soon, retention will have to become a focus of employers and human capital management consultants and HR outsourcing providers. People usually dont leave for money or opportunity alone. Several situations work together to cause attrition. There are many possible root causes stemming from uncertain business conditions, the work environment and external factors. In such an environment employees focus more on their career choices, sense of well being and personal safety. Attrition normally brings decreased productivity. People leave causing others to work harder. This contributes to more attrition, which

result in increasing cost and lowering revenue. This often forces additional cost reductions and austerity measures on an organization. This in turn makes working more difficult, causing the best performers with the most external opportunities to leave. The true cost of attrition to the organization is often substantially higher. Each time an employee is lost, hiring and selection cycle must start again. These costs can be significant: advertising costs to announce the job opening to the masses, cost of recruitment agencies, background checks, reference checks, drug testing, cost of overtime pay, temporary help and much more. Once hiring decision is made, the costs of turnover don't stop, but rather continue. Sign on bonuses, relocation costs and any increases in salary level necessary to attract new talent, all add up quickly. The time spent by HR managers to orientate and train the new employee can also be costly and unnecessary. Another serious cost to companies when they lose employees is the loss of organizational knowledge. These are all tangible costs that could be avoided with a better employee retention strategy. If managers know the real causes of attrition, managers can control attrition and retain employees. Each retained employee can save money and lead to better opportunities. Managers should always try to control attrition and promote retention.

2 . OBJECTIVES:
To understand the reasons for high attrition rate.

To understand the factors which are central to employee attrition.

To identify the major problems faced by employees in the organization which lead to attrition.

To understand the problems faced by the organization due to attrition.

To suggest ways and means to check attrition.

To suggest certain activities that organization might undertake in order to decrease attrition rate and retain employees.

3.MEANING OF ATTRITION:
The wearing down of an Adversary, making him weaker by repeal attacking them or wearing down of resources i.e. the process of reducing the number of people who are employed by an organization by not replacing people who leave the job. What is Employee Attrition? A reduction in the number of employees through retirement, resignation or death is called Attrition. Attrition is also called total turnover or wastage rate.

4. HOW TO MEASURE EMPLOYEE ATTRITION RATE?

Employee attrition rate allows you to determine the percentage of employees that left your business over a specified period of time, usually one year. Attrition includes all employees who leave the company, whether the leaving was voluntarily and involuntarily. An employee who chooses to leave a company for another job is an example of voluntary employee attrition. On the other hand, an employee fired by the company is an example of involuntary attrition.

Step 1

Calculate the average number of employees who worked at the company during the year. To calculate a simple average, add the number of employees who began the year with the company to the number of employees remaining at the end of the year and divide this sum by two. For example, assume a company had 1,000 employees at the beginning of the year and 1,100 employees at the end of the year; 1,000 plus 1,100 equals 2,100, divided by two equals 1,050. This figure represents the average number of employees employed by the company during the year.

Step 2

Determine the number of employees who left the company during the year by examining the past year's employment records. If your company does not keep a running tally of employee attrition, physically count the number of employees

who left the company over the year. As an example, assume that 300 employees left the company during the year.

Step 3

Divide the number of employees who left the company during the year by the average number of employees employed by the company during the year to arrive at an employee attrition rate. Continuing the above example, 300 divided by 1,050 equals .286. Multiply this figure by 100 to arrive at .286, or 28.6 percent. This figure represents the company's employee attrition rate for the past year.

5. REASONS FOR ATTRITION

10 Reasons Why Employees Leave 1. Expectations not met: Expectations play a large part in determining whether an employee is satisfied or dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. On joining the firm the individual will have a range of expectations covering areas such as the style of management, the working hours, holidays, pay, bonus and so on. It is not unusual for employees to leave within the first six months when they discover that things arent quite as they imagined they would be. Their expectations may have been unrealistic from day one, but each departure is yet more disruption, harming productivity, adding extra unnecessary costs and making it more difficult to reach goals for sales, revenue and profitability. Few firms seem to appreciate the importance of expectations. They dont ask candidates about their expectations, giving them the opportunity to select someone who is unlikely to be disappointed, and therefore, more likely to stay. 2. Mismatch between the person and the role: Employees who find themselves in roles that do not suit their individual strengths, tend not to stay around that long.

A productive employee gets promoted into a position that requires skills that they do not possess. A role that exposes their weaknesses, and as a result, a role that they do not enjoy. Faced with the prospect of having to spend many months, perhaps years, in a job that is a struggle, a job that they find difficult, a job that is a mismatch for their specific talents, most of them choose to leave the company and go.

3. Mismatch between person and the culture of the firm : It is not so much that there is a single ideal culture, more that cultures vary, and as many departures show, not everyone is likely to be ideally suited to culture of your firm. Some workplaces are high pressured, fast paced, dynamic. Ideal for people who thrive on adrenaline, who enjoy this tempo, constantly being on the go. Others are caring, emotional, long discussions, shared views. Endless dialogue before action is taken. Everyones opinion counts. Put an employee in a culture that suits their temperament and they feel at home. It is an environment in which they can function to the best of their abilities. But put an employee in a firm whose culture does not suit their personality, their style or their approach and it rarely works. They dont settle, they under-perform, they miss the feel of previous employers where they were able to contribute more. They leave. 4. Insufficient opportunities for growth and advancement :

Employees want to make progress, to get ahead. They want to make that next step up the career ladder. They think about where they would like to be in 5 years time, in 10 years time. Their loyalty is largely to themselves, to make the most out of the natural talents, the skills, and determination they possess. They recognize the importance of building new skills, refining current ones, getting new experiences. If the opportunities arent available with their current employer, they will find look elsewhere. 5. Insufficient recognition or appreciation: The Employees that dont receive adequate recognition for their contribution, that get little appreciation for their efforts, start to wonder why they bother. And it doesnt take much to tempt them away. Employees that did not feel valued, that felt that their efforts, their hard work, was not appreciated. That their achievements, their contribution to the success of the business, was not recognized. Employees want to feel valued; as though their role is important, as though the business needs them. They want someone to say thank you. Thanks for that piece of work, thanks for helping out in a crisis, thanks for dealing with that problem. 6. Problems with direct manager : The state of the relationship between an employee and their direct manager goes a long way towards determining whether they stay or leave.

Some employees stay far longer than might otherwise be expected because of the relationship they have with their supervisor. Others leave jobs in the first few months because they sense their manager is not someone that brings the best out of them. And they need to get away. Because the daily challenge of dealing with someone they dislike, someone that lacks basic people skills, is just too much to bear. Poor relationships between employees and their managers are one of the most common reasons for employee turnover. 7. Dissatisfaction with pay: Not receiving a fair salary, a fair pay rise, a fair bonus. Dissatisfaction with financial rewards is complex. Much of the dissatisfaction is due to comparisons. A previously adequate salary starts to feel insufficient when you have just learnt that a new arrival is receiving a higher wage for performing a similar role. Salaries rarely remain a secret. The information leaks out. If it isnt fair, if it isnt equitable, if the procedure for determining pay settlements is tainted, employees become dissatisfied. And in time many of them leave.

8. Stress:

The stress of work, the stress from working long hours, the stress related to pressure from above; employees can take only so much. Stress drives employees into the arms of alternative employers. They simply want to get away from the workplace, from the people involved, from the firm. A stressful workplace is rarely a productive one. Attrition is high, people dont matter; there will always be someone else to fill the vacancy. And in time they too will probably leave for much the same reasons. Stressful work environments tend to be high turnover environments. If there is an alternative, people take it. 9. Lack of work life balance: Employees have responsibilities to their employer, to their families, to their friends. There are times when the demands of work require extra hours, staying late to get things finished, working during weekends to meet deadlines. For some employees the demands of work are no longer compatible with the needs of their family, the needs that exist beyond the workplace. Perhaps they coped better when they were younger, before they got married, before they had a family. But now the arrangement just isnt practical. They need a better balance. They need to have time for themselves. Time to take care of loved ones. Free time not devoted to work. 10. Loss of confidence in the firm, particularly leadership:

Confidence matters. Companies go bust; you just need to read the papers, watch the news, to realize the risk involved. When employees lose confidence in the firms leadership they head towards the exit door. They know that confidence matters, that seemingly invincible companies can collapse in days, if not hours. They dont want to be left without a job, should the company go under, or be taken back. 11)Higher Education:

This is a problem as most of the employees in this sector are pretty young and aspiring. They join the firm because of lucrative salary. But with time, they try to move on to other sectors or top management and one of the ways to do this is higher education

6. COSTS OF ATTRITION

The impact of employee turnover on company performance is often understated by organizations. This describes how the cost of turnover is can be calculated using some basic organizational parameters. The purpose of this document is to provide talent cost of turnover calculator with insight into how costs are calculated and the reasons why certain costs were include or excluded form the calculator. The calculator should only be used as a guide in understanding the impact of turnover on a company. If the desire is to understand the true cost of turnover then it is suggested that a greater degree of analytical work is undertaken. The key areas used in the calculation of turnover are:

Administration and sourcing costs These include the administration of the termination and recruitment functions together with the costs associated with interviewing, testing and attracting applicant

New Hire costs Once a person has been employed an organization generally spends significant resources in the induction and administration of bringing them into the organization.

Lost productivity

The hidden costs associated with lost productivity of employees prior to leaving the organization and new less skilled employees are one the largest components of the total cost associated with turnover.

Dysfunctional and avoidable turnover

Determining the level of dysfunctional and avoidable attrition provides a perspective on the scope of control that a company has to manage their turnover costs. Determining the cost of turnover is the first step in the process of developing a management plan. To deal with an attrition issue effectively the reasons for turnover and an understanding of the demographics of turnover need to be understood. Undoubtedly, the financial costs of turnover have attracted the attention of academics and practitioners alike. Besides the more familiar costs associated with the administration of terminated employees the economic costs such as productivity losses need to be included in any calculation. In particular, departure of employees - especially experienced or talented ones - may threaten overall firm productivity or client retention. Furthermore, personnel losses may endanger the firms future opportunities in the marketplace or the morale of their remaining work force. Human resource accounting experts Cascio, Hom and Griffeth define exit expenses as having two main components - direct and indirect costs. A company incurs both direct and indirect costs that result in losses in

production dollars and overall production volume, as well as increased administrative costs. Direct Costs are actual dollars spent each time an employer has to attract, select, and induct a replacement for an employee who leaves the organization. Indirect costs are those expenditures Attributable to turnovers affects on production - that is costs for incomplete or disrupted work, loss of quality, etc.

The cost of turnover can be calculated by measuring the time taken to administer each activity plus the direct costs such as advertising costs. The turnover costs calculated using the calculator represent dollars spent. The potential loss of revenue if these dollars were invested elsewhere or through lost productivity is not calculated. Therefore, the figures are an indication of the minimum costs that the organization is subjected to when an individual leaves the company.

Administration & Sourcing costs The most visible cost of turnover is incurred by organizations in the area of recruitment administration and sourcing. The time associated with processing terminated employees and recruits places a burden on organizations where staff turnover is excessively high. The assumption is that this is largely an administrative task conducted by people at 80% of the average company salary. In addition the direct costs to a company for recruitment agency and advertising costs are highly transparent.

Process Administration:

Resignation Administration

The time taken to administer a resignation will include activities such as: conducting exit interviews & processing of administrative tasks. The time taken to perform these activities is ideally measured as a result of analyzing the processes involved.

Recruitment Administration

A large amount of time is often spent in administering the recruitment process. Writing the job ad, posting it onto job boards, organizing agencies and reference checking all require the use of organizational resources, whether internal staff or outsourced. The hours spent involved in these activities does need to be factored into the cost of turnover.

Sourcing Costs:

Agency expenses

The cost of sourcing a successful applicant from an agency may be one of the largest single direct costs associated with recruitment.

Advertising costs

The cost associated with posting job ads to job boards or traditional media such as newspapers can be significant. The average cost per vacancies is used within the calculation.

Interview Costs:

Interview

A core component of recruitment administration is the cost associated with interviewing applicants. Interviews make use internal resources. The more interviews held and the greater the number of candidates interviewed the larger the costs associated with these activities.

Testing

Companies are making greater use of psychometric and aptitude testing in their recruitment processes. These tests can be costly to administer and as such need to be factored into the overall attrition

costs.

Travel

Companies may pay the costs associated with bringing an applicant to the interview location. Although this may not be done for every candidate an average is used in the I4 calculator.

Cost of New Hire

The two costs measured in this area are the administrative tasks associated with inducting a new hire into the organization and the associated induction training. When measuring the cost of attrition sometimes the total cost of training that an individual has received whilst in the employment of an organization is included. However, as all learning undertaken by employees will be used back on the job an add value to the business it is inappropriate to count it as a cost of attrition. Also, where particular jobs have high training, often there is a corresponding lower rate of pay which acknowledges the investment that the organization is making in the individual, e.g. Youth wages. One aspect of training directly associated with turnover, however, is the induction of new staff to the Organization. High staff turnover will necessitate greater levels of resources being made available to induct new employees. It is the

opportunity costs of these resources that must also be calculated.

Induction Administration

The process of induction into an organization can involve a substantial amount of time. The activities included here would include the processing of new hires into organization systems (HR) and introductions to fellow employees.

Induction Fixed Costs

The fixed costs associated with inductions include the cost of materials such as induction kits and staff manuals.

Induction Training

Any initial training received by an employee on joining the company. This includes the costs of the materials, presenters and the opportunity costs associated with the new employee taking time off work to participate.

Relocation Expenses

Similar to travel these cost are incurred by companies in an effort to

source the best talent for alternate locations. An average cost needs to be captured as part of the calculation process.

Productivity Losses

The most detrimental aspect of staff turnover is lost productivity. Evidence has found that leavers often miss work or are tardy before they depart. Deery and Iverson argue that according to progression-ofwithdrawal models the productivity of leavers may deteriorate before they depart. Turnover is commonly viewed as belonging to a family of withdrawal Behaviors that physically distance employees from unpleasant work settings. Serving a common psychology function, withdrawal actions reduce the time spent in an adverse environment and thus reduce job dissatisfaction. Studies have shown that employees leaving a company will have a greater level of absenteeism prior to leaving. Excessive sick leave is not only costly, but is also an early warning signal that an individual may be considering resigning from the organization. Not only does staff take more sick leave but Hom and Griffeth state that their overall productivity decreases as well. Furthermore, resignations may disrupt other employees work if their work depends on the leavers or they must assume the leavers duties.

The second effect of loss of productivity occurs when new hires join the organization. They will not have the networks, understanding of organizational processes or product/service knowledge to be effective. Studies have shown that a new hire will generally take between 3- 8 months to become effective in their new role. The longer period is associated with more senior roles.

Excluded costs

Not all the costs associated with turnover have been included in the attrition calculator. Costs that cannot be accurately measured or assumed have been excluded. These costs, although hidden, may be the most critical in terms of organizational impact. Examples of hidden costs are included below to highlight the organizational impact of attrition.

Employee Demoralization

Turnover may erode the morale and stability of those who remain employed. Their morale suffers because they lose friends and may interpret motives for quitting as social criticisms about the job. A belief that a leaver has a better job elsewhere may change employees perceptions of their jobs. As a result stayers may denigrate their present position in the light of superior alternatives and begin contemplating other

employment. This phenomenon may lead to a cycle of attrition whereby employees leaving a company prompt other to do the same.

Impaired Quality of Service

Turnover also hinders the delivery of service and retention of customers. Attrition among service personnel impairs customer service because understaffed branches delay or withhold service. Unlike experienced leavers, new employees may also provide less competent or less personalized service because they do not know the clients and cant meet customer expectations through lack of knowledge and experience. If satisfied employees make customers feel well treated, disgruntled employees may provide careless service before they leave. Turnover also interrupts the transmission of service values and norms, which are the essential underpinnings of high quality service, to successive generations of employees. Customers' perceptions, attitudes and intentions seem to be affected by what employees experience, both in their specific role of service employees and their more general role of organizational employees. It has been found that there is a high correlation between employee turnover and customer turnover. Therefore, the cost of decreased customer satisfaction and loyalty should be taken into account when considering staff turnover.

 Turnover reason & cost impact

Just as attrition can lower productivity, incur financial costs, and undermine slayers morale, turnover can have the opposite ramifications under certain circumstances or for certain firms. That is that the exit of marginal performers may improve overall firm productivity, while new replacements for leavers can infuse companies with new ideas and technology. Though turnover is obviously costly, personnel shrinkage especially among administrative staff - can nonetheless reduce overhead costs. Further resignations may create more job and empowerment opportunities for employees who remain in firms.

Functional and Dysfunctional Turnover

Departing from conventional beliefs, some academics point out that turnover can prevent stagnation and complacency, facilitate change and innovation, and displace poor performers. Turnover is not inherently negative. Although it creates personnel costs, the organizational consequences of turnover are dependent on who leaves and who stays. The departure of good performers is construed as dysfunctional turnover representing a loss to the organization - for their replacements are likely to be of lower caliber. The departure of poor performers is viewed as functional turnover - because they are apt to be replaced by better

performers. Research into whether high performers or low performers leave tends to have found mixed results. A meta-analysis conducted by McEvoy and Cascio found that generally it is the poor performers that will leave their place of work. There are two possible explanations for this: firstly, terminated staff has on average a lower tenure than current staff and so have not had the time or opportunity to develop the skills necessary to perform well; or the current performance management systems which exist are encouraging high performers to stay and poor performers to quit.

Avoidable and Unavoidable

Further differentiation should occur between organizationally avoidable turnover and organizationally unavoidable turnover. For example, organizations cannot control (that is, it is unavoidable) turnover caused by an employees death, or by an employees quitting to follow a relocating spouse. It is important to identify carefully those exits that are avoidable and those that are unavoidable. After all, leavers whose departures are unavoidable resemble stayers more than they resemble the leavers whose departure is avoidable; they do not resign because they are unhappy with their jobs or the organization.

Despite the appeal, determining whether exits are avoidable or

unavoidable may prove difficult because employees may falsify reports of their reasons for leaving, they may not wish to burn their bridges behind them. The cost of attrition is only calculated on the level of avoidable turnover. There is no benefit in including the cost of unavoidable turnover since a company has no control over these events and can therefore not put in place action plans to minimize the negative consequences of staff Turnover.

7 .EMPLOYEE RETENTION

Effective employee retention is a systematic effort by employers to create and foster an environment that encourages current employees to remain employed by

having policies and practices in place that address their diverse needs. A strong retention strategy becomes a powerful recruitment tool. Retention of key employees is critical to the long-term health and success of any organization. It is a known fact that retaining your best employees ensures customer satisfaction, increased product sales, satisfied colleagues and reporting staff, effective succession planning and deeply imbedded organizational knowledge and learning. Employee retention matters as organizational issues such as training time and investment; lost knowledge; insecure employees and a costly candidate search are involved. Hence failing to retain a key employee is a costly proposition for an organization. Various estimates suggest that losing a middle manager in most organizations costs up to five times of his salary. Intelligent employers always realize the importance of retaining the best talent. Retaining talent has never been so important in the Indian scenario; however, things have changed in recent years. In prominent Indian metros at least, there is no dearth of opportunities for the best in the business, or even for the second or the third best. Retention of key employees and treating attrition troubles has never been so important to companies. In an intensely competitive environment, where HR managers are poaching from each other, organizations can either hold on to their employees tight or lose them to competition. For gone are the days, when employees would stick to an employer for years for want of a better choice. Now, opportunities abound.

It is a fact that, retention of key employees is critical to the long-term health and success of any organization. The performance of employees is often linked directly to quality work, customer satisfaction, and increased product sales and even to the image of a company. Whereas the same is often indirectly linked to, satisfied colleagues and reporting staff, effective succession planning and deeply embedded organizational knowledge and learning. Employee retention matters, as, organizational issues such as training time and investment, costly candidate search etc., are involved. Hence, failing to retain a key employee is a costly proposition for any organization. Various estimates suggest that losing a middle manager in most organizations, translates to a loss of up to five times his salary. This might be worse for BPO companies where fresh talent is intensively trained and inducted and then further groomed to the successive stages. In this scenario, the loss of a middle manager can often prove dear. In fact, some reports suggest that attrition levels in IT companies are as high as 40 per cent. The only way out is to develop appropriate retention strategies. Though BPO industry shoots ahead at 40 to 50 per cent a year, it is now losing 35 to 40 per cent of its 350,000-odd employees as well. In India there are few sectors where the attrition level is much larger compared to other sectors. For example: IT sector and BPO. Where as there are organizations like Air India, HAL, DRDO, BARC where the attrition is nearly 5% or less than that.

Employee Retention Strategies helps organizations provide effective employee communication to improve commitment and enhance workforce support for key corporate initiatives.

7.1 THE THREE RS OF EMPLOYEE RETENTION

To keep employees and keep satisfaction high, you need to implement each of the three Rs of employee retention: respect, recognition, and rewards.

RESPECTRespect is esteem, special regard, or particular consideration given to people. As the pyramid shows, respect is the foundation of keeping your employees. Recognition and rewards will have little effect if you dont respect employees.

RECOGNITIONRecognition is defined as special notice or attention and the act of perceiving clearly. Many problems with retention and morale occur because management is not paying attention to peoples needs and reactions.

REWARDSRewards are the extra perks you offer beyond the basics of respect and recognition that make it worth peoples while to work hard, to care, to go beyond the call of duty. While rewards represent the smallest portion of the retention equation, they are still an important one.

8. EMPLOYEE RETENSION STRATEGIES

Retaining key personnel is critical to long term success of an organization. A Retention Strategy has become essential if your organization is to be productive

over time and can become an important part of your hiring strategy by attracting the best candidates who know of your track record for caring for employees. In fact, some companies do not have to recruit because they receive so many qualified unsolicited submissions due to their history of excellence in employee retention. 1)Treat your employees like you treat your most valuable clients. It is cheaper to keep your good employees than it is to hire and train new ones. Your top 20-25% should be courted as you would court and then service your top customers. 2)Get your employees to "Fall in Love" with your organization. Communicate your vision in a compelling way. Show everyone the role they have to contribute to this vision. Create opportunities for people to connect with each other for support and to improve communication in work teams. Open Communication: Internal listening is a priority, multiple lines of communication (various channels.) This is essential for managing change in a positive way with less sabotage, anger, resistance, and fear. Create partnerships: Squash status barriers/Open the books/pay for performance (not titles), share the "bad" times the "good" times.

 Drive Learning: "Guarantee Employability," Encourage Life Long Learning (Train outside of job description). Loyalty comes from trusting your employees to develop their skills for the good of the company and for their needs for personal growth and satisfaction. Emancipate Action: Freedom to Fail, reduce bureaucracy, challenge the "status quo." Breathe life into your organization. Do not let your employees stagnate. 3. Strong retention strategies become strong recruiting advantages. 4. Retention is much more effective when you put the right person into the right job. Know the job! Know the employee and their motivations. Half of the Fortune 500 companies are now using assessments to more fully understand each job and the soft skills that are required for top production within their specific company culture. These benchmarked skills are then compared against qualified applicants to help determine who will be successful in the position and fit well within their company's culture. These assessments are also used as a powerful professional development tool to enhance the training of continuous life-long learning (which is another powerful retention strategy.) 5. Money is important but it is not the only reason people stay with an organization. If your compensation plan is in the top 20-30% of your industry, then money will often not be the reason why people leave.

6. Employee committees to help develop retention strategies is a very effective strategy. Get their input! Ask, what do people like about working here? What would you like changed to make your company a better place to work? 7. Leadership must be deeply invested in retention. Management must be skillful communicating company policies in a way that creates "buy-in" from their staff and be open to employee input. Help create "ownership" in your employees. The companies with the best retention percentages are the same companies that are actively committed to retention. They know that is costs less to keep good people than to continuously have to replace unsatisfied employees and managers. 8. Recognition, in various forms, is a powerful retention strategy. It does not have to cost a lot. US Dept. of Labor - 46% of people leave their jobs because they feel unappreciated. 9. Remember, the "Fun Factor" is very important to many employees. Greg Peters, Past President and CEO of Mahi Networks in Petaluma, is one of many executives who reported that retention is often related to interpersonal connections and amount of FUN in work teams. The FUN Factor is part of the generation of workers that use activities as stress management in highly charged production environments where long hours are required. Greg has encouraged Ping-Pong tournaments and basketball leagues for interpersonal interaction, fun, and stress management. Though not everyone can participate in physical activities, this sets the tone in a culture based on competition, health/well-being, and interactions that are inclusive beyond work.

10. Know the trends in benefit packages. Do your best to offer the ones your employees need. Consider offering the best of the rest.

9. Ten Factors That Effect Employees Retention

Most managers understand the importance of employee retention and its impact on the overall health and vitality of an organization. The importance of retaining

top organizational talent will only increase over the coming years as the massive cohort of baby boomers begin to reach retirement age making it easy for younger employees to find work. Shorten the feedback loop Do not wait for an annual performance evaluation to come due to give feedback on how an employee is performing. Most team members enjoy frequent feedback about how they are performing. Shortening the feedback loop will help to keep performance levels high and will reinforce positive behavior. Feedback does not necessarily need to be scheduled or highly structured; simply stopping by a team member's desk and letting them know they are doing a good job on a current project can do wonders for morale and help to increase retention. Offer a competitive compensation package Any team member wants to feel that he or she is being paid appropriately and fairly for the work he or she does. Be sure to research what other companies and organizations are offering in terms of salary and benefits. It is also important to research what the regional and national compensation averages are for that particular position. You can be sure that if your compensation package is not competitive, team members will find this out and look for employers who are willing to offer more competitive compensation packages. Balance work and personal life

Family is incredibly important to team members. When work begins to put a significant strain on one's family no amount of money will keep an employee around. Stress the importance of balancing work and one's personal life. Small gestures such as allowing a team member to take an extended lunch once a week to watch his son's baseball game will likely be repaid with loyalty and extended employment with an organization. Beware of burnout Staff adequately to reduce the amount of unwanted overtime a team member must work. Some employees enjoy the extra money that accompanies overtime hours, while others would rather spend their time with their families or doing other activities they enjoy. Burnout can be a leading cause of turnover. Recognize the warning signs and give employees a break when they need it. Provide opportunities for growth and development Offer opportunities for team members to acquire new skills and knowledge useful to the organization. If an employee appears to be bored or burned out in a current position offer to train this individual in another facet of the organization where he or she would be a good fit. Nobody wants to feel stuck in their position will no possibility for advancement or new opportunities. The ability to provide input and be taken seriously Everybody has opinions and ideas, some are better than others. However every team member wants to feel that their input is welcome and will be taken seriously

without ridicule or condescension. Some of the greatest ideas can come from the most unlikely of places and people. Creating a culture where input is welcome from all level of the organizational chart will help your organization grow and encourage employee retention. Management must take the time to get to know team members It's not a big surprise that one of the greatest complaints that employees express in exit interviews is a feeling that management didn't know they existed. Nobody wants to feel like just another spoke in a big wheel. Managers are very busy everybody is busy, but it is crucial that managers and supervisors take the time get to know the team members who work under them. Learn and remember a team member's name, what skills and talents they bring to the table, and what their business interests are. The time spent by management getting to know team members is well invested and can eliminate the headaches caused by having to continually hire and re-train new employees. Provide the tools and training an employee needs to succeed Nothing can be more frustrating to an employee than a lack of training or the proper tools to successfully complete his or her duties. You wouldn't try to build a house without a hammer, so why should an office job be any different? Providing a team member with the tools and training she needs to be successful shows a commitment and investment in that employee and will encourage the team member to stay with the organization. Make use of a team member's talents, skills, and abilities

All team members have knowledge, skills, and abilities that aren't directly related to their job description, but are still useful to an organization. Utilizing a team member's talents in areas other than their current position will indicate to an employee that management appreciates and recognizes all that an employee has to offer to the organization. This can also provide work variety and helps to break up the everyday grind of work. Never threaten a team member's job or income While threatening an employee with termination or demotion might seem like a surefire way to get the results needed from him or her, doing so will likely cause the employee to leave the organization. Put yourself in the employee's shoes, what is the first thing you would do if your job was threatened? Odds are you would probably update your resume and start checking for open job postings expecting the worst. If a team member's performance is not what you had hoped it would be, work with that team member on ways to improve his performance, saving termination only as a last resort. Take some time and seriously evaluate what your organization is doing to encourage a high retention workforce. Having a seasoned and well trained workforce can deliver a competitive advantage that is difficult to replicate.

10. ROLE OF MANAGER IN RETENTION

When asked about why employees leave, low salary comes out to be a common excuse. However, research has shown that people join companies, but leave because of what their managers do or dont do. It is seen that managers who

respect and value employees competency, pay attention to their aspirations, assure challenging work, value the quality of work life and provided chances for learning have loyal and engaged employees. Therefore, managers and team leaders play an active and vital role in employee retention. Managers and team leaders can reduce the attrition levels considerably by creating a motivating team culture and improving the relationships with team members. This can be done in a following way: Creating a Motivating Environment: Team leaders who create motivating environments are likely to keep their team members together for a longer period of time. Motivation does not necessarily have to come through fun events such as parties, celebrations, team outings etc. They can also come through serious events e.g. arranging a talk by the VP of Quality on career opportunities in the field of quality Standing up for the Team: Team leaders are closest to their team members. While they need to ensure smooth functioning of their teams by implementing management decisions, they also need to educate their managers about the realities on the ground. When agents see the team leader standing up for them, they will have one more reason to stay in the team. Providing coaching:

Everyone wants to be successful in his or her current job. However, not everyone knows how. Therefore, one of the key responsibilities will be providing coaching that is intended to improve the performance of employees. Delegation: Many team leaders and managers feel that they are the only people who can do a particular task or job. Therefore, they do not delegate their jobs as much as they should. Delegation is a great way to develop competencies. Extra Responsibility: Giving extra responsibility to employees is another way to get them engaged with the company. However, just giving the extra responsibility does not help. The manager must spend good time teaching the employees of how to manage responsibilities given to them so that they dont feel over burdened. Focus on future career: Employees are always concerned about their future career. A manager should focus on showing employees his career ladder. If an employee sees that his current job offers a path towards their future career aspirations, then they are likely to stay longer in the company. Therefore, managers should play the role of career counselors as well.

11. CHALLENGES IN EMPLOYEE RETENTION

 Monetary dissatisfaction is one of the major reasons for an employee to look for a change. Retention becomes a problem when an employee quotes an exceptionally high figure beyond the budget of the organization and is just not willing to compromise. In the current scenario, where there is no dearth of opportunities, stopping people to look for a change is a big challenge. Employees become greedy for money and position and thus look forward to changing the present job and join the competitors.. Individuals speak all kind of lies during interviews to get a job. It is only later do people realize that there has been a mismatch and thus look for a change. Problems arise whenever a right person is into a wrong profile. The human resource department should be very careful while recruiting new employees. Some individuals have a tendency to get bored in a short span of time. They might find a job really interesting in the beginning but soon find it monotonous and look for a change. The management finds it difficult to convince the employees in such cases. Unrealistic expectations from the job also lead to employees looking for a change. An individual must not look for a change due to small issues. One needs time to make his presence feel at the organization and must try his level best to stick to it for a good amount of time and ignore petty issues.

12. HOW TO CURB ATTRITION?

Money is not everything

Although the importance of higher packages is slowly diminishing, among fresher or laterals with less than three years of work experience, money is still considered to be the highest priority. Employees want not only work recognition, but also extra perks." A number of professionals are looking at more challenging jobs. "In several cases, faced with a choice between more money and a challenging job, employees have opted for the latter as it allows them to learn new technology and increase domain expertise." People analyze the training programmes of prospective companies with those of their current organization, which means that how an organization grooms an employee is weighed to a greater extent. This is because they know that developing next-level skills will keep them ahead in the job market, and finally result in better compensation. They also look for a job with higher levels of responsibility, better learning opportunities. Vision and objectives The next level of communication, a crucial part of retention, starts with acquainting employees with the companys vision and objectives. Organizations successful in retaining employees clearly pass on their goals

and achievements. Conducting regular meetings and updating employees, especially new entrants, about the companys status and achievements is a must. They should concentrate on leadership and brand building as people prefer to be associated with a brand. Respect for the job should be created by BPOs. The youth should feel proud to be a part of the billiondollar industry. Mentoring and handholding new recruits from day one to four months are important tasks; during this period, they should be familiarized with the culture of the company. It is at this time that new entrants experiment with different options. Hence they should be exposed to the best values the company has. If they are informed about regular happenings in the company, employees will be confident about the future and not try to look for better options. Treat employees like Customers Even while companies strive to understand which organizational, job, and reward factors will contribute to holding back employees, industry experts have found several loopholes at the top management and HR management

level. Companies should have a similar approach to employees and customers. If a company strives to retain an employee in the same way it tries to retain a customer, him leaving the organization could be out of question. Since software professionals have different priorities at different points of time, organizations need to structure their offer-mix while recruiting new hires, as well as promoting potential ones. Communication is the foundation for the entire process of managing attrition. This communication begins right from recruitment. In cases of peer pressure, an employee aims to join a well-known company. This could be achieved by brand building, which attracts the right talent and helps in retention as well. Understanding an employees needs at various levels is a recommended HR practice. Firing Sometimes, firing can look like attrition. Looking at firing and attrition together in a different light, firing can be an excellent tool to contain

attrition. Attrition can simply be defined as employee leaving his current job due to reasons like, job pressure, health problems, personal reasons, inefficient boss, lack of job security etc. All the above reasons are interlinked and can be the reasons for good workers to quit. If the team has under-performers who despite given sufficient support and training is unable to perform, but they continue to be part of the team damage the morale of the team. A performer will not want to be part of the team, which has non-performers because he will have to compensate for the nonperformer, thereby increasing his job output/pressure. A continuous job pressure results in health problems. Having frequent health problems not only reduces his performance, but also affects him financially. At this juncture, the performer realizes that he is working with an inefficient manager who is not capable of cleaning up the team by firing nonperformers. With the above, the performer employee feels insecure and resigns. Firing non-performers can be an efficient tool to contain attrition. Consider feedback It is important to take feedback from employees through different means

and work with the HR department to iron out differences. As industry experts point out, feedback can be got in two waysduring the employees tenure, and through exit interviews. Inputs can be secured from existing employees through various employee relationship management tools. The Wipro Listens and Responds initiative at Wipro aims to capture the concerns and grievances of its employees. The feedback we get through this tool will be analyzed, and action will be taken on it. Our employees are very excited that their feedback is being taken seriously, says Sahoo. Exit interviews help management learn the reasons why employees leave the company; based on their revelations, the organization can address the problems of existing employees, thereby curb attrition. Spend Time Developing and Benchmarking Incentives Whenever the demand for a professional in a particular field heats up, the perks associated with the job start to pile up. Standard perks for an Indiabased "fresher" (a new entrant in the IT services industry with little work experience) typically include free transportation, educational assistance, healthcare benefits, performance-based bonuses, onsite cafeteria, stock

options, and interest-free loans to absorb the cost of relocation or maybe to finance the purchase of a two-wheeler. According to Wipro's web site, its employees even have access to an agency that will handle such "domestic chores" as paying bills, thereby giving IT workers more free time. An important part of designing incentives is aligning them with market benchmarks. As far as salaries, HR firm Hewitt Associates reports that India showed the largest overall salary increase in the Asia-Pacific region in 2004. Salaries in India grew by 11.6% overall, while China trailed with a 6.4%8.4% hike, the Philippines showed a 7.4%7.7% increase, and Korea saw wages jump by 6.4%6.8%. Salary increases for middle managers in India were even more dramatic: Nasscom, India's software association found that salaries for middle managers rose by as much as 30% in the last two years. These salaries are often paired with expansive benefit packages that include standard entry-level benefits as well as special services such as help finding and buying a home or enrolling children in school. Captive centers and IT service providers have to offer innovative

compensation and benefitsor risk losing valued employees to competitors. Nonstop evaluation and benchmarking are "need to do" activities for IT managers. Subsidize Education and Certification In the United States, many companies reimburse employees for advanced degrees or certifications that relate to their area of expertise. Until recently, the opposite was true in India, but that trend has begun to change as businesses have discovered that a significant portion of their attrition problems stem from employees leaving to pursue a master's degree. Several offshore service providers have teamed with universities to offer their workers management-level master's courses at a subsidized rate, and watched attrition rates drop as a result. For example, Cognizant Technology Solutions, an IT service firm with 17,000 employees, partially reimburses Indian staff that pursues master's degrees at BITS, a higher-education institution located in Pilani, India. Business process outsourcing (BPO) player 24/7 Customer, in association with the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, launched a

management-education seminar series called "Beyond Knowledge," through which 24/7 aims to educate employees about the BPO industry and discuss related careers. Multiple providers have followed the lead of Cognizant and 24/7. In several offshore countries, advanced degrees are considered crucial to social standing. It's important for U.S. firms with little international experience to recognize this desire among employees and design programs accordingly. Change Locations The high prices and resource crunch in top-tier Indian cities such as Bangalore and Mumbai have led many companies to execute alternative location strategies. Many vendors are sending work to tier-two cities (Hyderabad or Chennai) or even tier-three cities (Noida or Chandigarh), where labor and real estate costs as well as attrition may be cut in half. Such benefits come at a price: The infrastructure quality lags that of more advanced cities, and the search to find qualified people may take longer. Another option to combat the rising attrition rates in India is to locate in

other countries. Sykes Enterprises, for example, disclosed that it is relocating the customer contact management work at its Bangalore, India, facility because the center delivered an inadequate return and a limited competitive advantage. The Tampa-based company thinks the work is better suited for the other Asia-Pacific offshore centers in its portfolio, such as China. Sykes expected to incur total charges of approximately $0.8 $1.5 million for its plan to relocate work. Rotate Employees Employees who don't feel challenged by their work often leave. In response, companies such as TCS have programs that rotate employees into different disciplines about every two years and expose them to new locations, projects, and technologies. L&T InfoTech, a software solutions provider with 4,000 employees and six development centers in India, has implemented a similar program. Offshore employees are asking for a clear career path with increased responsibility and frequent recognition of achievement. Established U.S. and European multinational companies have long had learning programs

that set expectations for performance goals such as learning a particular tool or proprietary software. Companies practicing off shoring need to provide new challenges and opportunities for skills development through training or job rotation. It may become the only reason your best employees stay with you. Combat Poaching by Encouraging Referrals Rather than going through a prolonged posting process and screening a deluge of rsums, some companies poach employees directly from their competitors and offer to double salaries or buy out contracts on the spot to scale up quickly. Poaching is generally a bad idea, as it drives up salaries and discourages employee loyalty. An employee referral program can serve as an alternative and effective recruiting strategy. Satisfied employees can be a company's best sales tool and add a personal touch that a print or radio campaign lacks. A Voice & Data survey of the top 15 Indian outsourcing companies with 1,000-plus employees found that referrals constituted 23% of new hires. For some companies, the number was even higher, at 40%. The study also observed

that recruits hired through employee referral programs are "stickier"; that is, they stay with companies longer than non-referrals. Just Ask: Are Your Employees Satisfied? Retention is inextricably linked to employee satisfaction, so it pays to periodically survey employees hopefully before their exit interviews about job satisfaction issues, and act on the data gathered. The aim is to determine why some employees depart and some remain with the 38 company, and to define the traits of productive, successful employees. Many companies examine the reasons employees leave, which don't reveal as much as the reasons they stay. An important aspect of implementing a retention program understands that it should not be one-size-fits-all. If incentives are meant to keep employees happy, then they truly have to be designed with the employee in mind. Too often, employers and employees disagree on what constitutes a good incentive. For example, a company might reward a father with three young children a monetary bonus as thanks for working overtime for five months straight. To the father, however, days off might have been

more attractive, since they would have allowed him to spend time with his family. Knowing your employees and personalizing rewards makes a difference. The global workforce has different, individualized needs, and organizations should tailor incentives for their employees if they want to retain them. If your company doesn't bother, don't be surprised if workers head for the door as soon as year-end bonuses are handed out or stock options vest. Spend More Time Recruiting With huge projects ramping up within exceedingly short windows, it can be hard to convince management to allot more time to the recruiting process. However, it's difficult to retain good employees if the company doesn't have a process to hire the right people in the first place. Simple measures, such as incorporating skills tests that relate directly to the job in question, can help companies to determine whether the applicant is indeed an expert programmer or merely an intermediate programmer. 13. BENEFITS OF ATTRITION If all employees stay in the same organization for a very long time, most of them will be at the top of their pay scale which will result in excessive manpower costs.

When certain employees leave, whose continuation of service would have negatively impacted productivity and profitability of the company, the company is benefited.

New employees bring new ideas, approaches, abilities & attitudes which can keep the organization from becoming stagnant.

There are also some people in the organization who have a negative and demoralizing influence on the work culture and team spirit. This, in the long-term, is detrimental to organizational health.

Desirable attrition also includes termination of employees with whom the organization does not want to continue a relationship. It benefits the organization in the following ways:

It removes bottleneck in the progress of the company o It creates space for the entry of new talents . It assists in evolving high performance teams .

There are people who are not able to balance their performance as per expectations, lack potential for future or need disciplinary action. Furthermore, as the rewards are limited, business pressures do not allow the management to overreward the performers, but when undesirable employees leave the company, the good employees can be given the share that they deserve.

14. INTRODUCTION TO COMPANY

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation is an American multinational information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing company. It

is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, United States, North America. Cognizant is included in the NASDAQ-100 and the S&P 500 indices.

Originally founded as an in-house technology unit of Dun & Bradstreet in 1994, with headquarters in Chennai, India, Cognizant started serving external clients in 1996. In 1997, the headquarters were moved from Chennai to Teaneck, New Jersey. Cognizant's IPO was launched in 1998, after a series of corporate splits and restructures of its parent companies, the first Indian software services firm to be listed on the Nasdaq. During the dot com bust, it grew by accepting the application maintenance work that the bigger players were unwilling to perform. Gradually, it ventured into application development, complex systems integration and consulting work.

Cognizant saw a period of fast growth during the 2000s, becoming a Fortune 500 company in 2011.In 2011, the Fortune magazine named it as the world's third most admired IT services company after Accenture and IBM.

14.1 History

The company that is now called Cognizant has its roots in The Dun & Bradstreet Corporation, a joint venture between Dun & Bradstreet (76%) and Satyam Computers (24%). Srini Raju was the CEO of this company established in 1994. Kumar Mahadeva played a major role in convincing D&B to invest $2 million in the joint venture. He was born in Sri Lanka, where his father led his nation's civil service. Mahadeva traveled to England for his studies, earning a master's degree

in electrical engineering from Cambridge in 1973. Originally called DBSS, the unit was established as an in-house technology unit, and focused on implementing large-scale IT projects for D&B businesses. In 1996, the company started pursuing customers beyond the D&B fold.

In 1996, Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) spun off several of its subsidiaries including Erisco, IMS International, Nielsen Media Research, Pilot Software, Strategic Technologies and DBSS, to form a new company called Cognizant Corporation. Three months later, in 1997, DBSS was renamed as Cognizant Technology Solutions. In July 1997, D&B bought Satyam's 24% stake in DBSS for $3.4 million. Headquarters were moved to the United States, and in March 1998, Kumar Mahadeva was named CEO. Operating as a division of the Cognizant Corporation, the company mainly focused on Y2K-related projects and web development.

In 1998, the parent company Cognizant Corporation was split into two companies: IMS Health and Nielsen Media Research. After this restructuring, Cognizant Technology Solutions became a public subsidiary of IMS Health. In June 1998, IMS Health partially spun off the company, conducting an initial public offering of the Cognizant stock. The company raised $34 million, less than what the IMS Health underwriters had hoped for. The money was earmarked for debt payments and upgrading of the company's offices.

Kumar Mahadeva decided to reduce the company's dependence on Y2K projects: by Q1 1999, 26% of company's revenues came from Y2K projects, compared

with 49% in early 1998. Believing that the $16.6 billion ERP software market was saturated, Mahadeva decided to refrain from large-scale ERP implementation projects. Instead, he focused on applications management, which accounted for 37% of Cognizant's revenue in Q1 1999. Cognizant's revenues in 2002 were $229 million, and the company had zero debt with $100 million in the bank. During the dotcom bust, the company grew by taking on the maintenance projects that larger IT services companies did not want.

In 2003, IMS Health sold its entire 56% stake in Cognizant, which instituted a poison pill provision to prevent hostile takeover attempts. Kumar Mahadeva resigned as the CEO in 2003, and was replaced by Lakshmi Narayanan. Gradually, the company's services portfolio expanded across the IT services landscape and into business process outsourcing (BPO) and business consulting. Lakshmi Narayanan was succeeded by the Kenya-born Francisco D'Souza in 2006. Cognizant experienced a period of fast growth during the 2000s, as reflected by its appearance in Fortune magazine's "100 Fastest-Growing Companies" list for ten consecutive years from 2003 to 2012.

14.2 VISION & MISSION STATEMENT

VISION:

To lead sustainable growth with environment friendly practices and responsible use of natural resources

MISSION:

Cognizant's single-minded mission is to dedicate our business process and technology innovation know-how, our deep industry expertise and worldwide resources to working together with clients to make their businesses stronger

14.3 SERVICES OFFERED BY COGNIZANT

o Strategic Services o Customer Solutions o Enterprise Information Management & Analytics o IT Infrastructure Services o Process, Quality and testing o Program Management o Application Development o Application Value Management o Testing Services o Consulting and Professional Services o Managed Services o Integrated Solutions

15. A VISIT TO COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION

I have visited Cognizant Technology Solution, an American multinational information technology, consulting and business process outsourcing company, at Powai Mumbai. There I met with Senior Executive of Human Resource Department Mr Rameez Moin Don who devoted his valuable time and assisted me with the necessary detail of Attrition level for the Project. The Topic of my Project is The Study On Attrition Level With Respect To Cognizant Technology Solution and he answered my following questions. 1. Do you measure employee job satisfaction and engagement on an ongoing basis and in order to check attrition? 2. Do you conduct exit interviews which can help to reduce employees turnover rates? 3. What are the reasons about a persons departure? Do you learn from exit interviews? 4. What are your employees retention schemes and policies and what measures do you take to manage employee retention? 5. Is your attrition rate improves after implementing these measures? 6. What are the 3 or 5 critical points responsible for turning attrition into retention of employees? 7. What can be done from HR point of view to reduce attrition rate to its minimum for this particular sector?

 Yes, Employee engagement is an ongoing activity. It helps keep a tab on employee aspirations & thoughts, observe emerging trends & behaviors thereby helping the HR team take proactive measures and keep attrition in check. To know employee job satisfaction is equally important to know how content an individual is with his or her job Measuring affective job satisfaction and cognitive job satisfaction both is important. Affective job satisfaction is the extend of pleasurable emotional feelings individual have about there overall job, where as cognitive job satisfaction is the extend of individuals satisfaction with particular facets of their jobs, such as pay, pension arrangement, working hours and numerous other aspect of their job.

Yes Exit Interviews are of great views for the company in order to gain information to assess what should be improved, changed or remain intact. Exit interviews are an mode of gathering feedback, which is useful to reduce employee turnover and to increase productivity and engagement, thus reducing the high costs associated with turnover

The Reasons are primarily categorized in 3 areas:

Family and personal issues: Many employees quit their job because of many family and personal issues like marriage, small children ,death of close family member, transportation difficulties.

Health Issues: Employees leave the organization sometime because of physical and mental illness,permanent disability,etc.

Alternate employment: Employees quit the job if they get better opportunities for personal growth and development, better facilities job of high prestige in some other organization.

There are no standard policies for Retention. Retention discussions happen between HR and Project Teams based on the reason of attrition.

Retention discussions and other engagement initiatives do help in managing attrition rates. Moreover they help the HR team identify & analyze a particular/ trend reason for attrition which helps prevent future attrition in nascent stages.

Not Applicable.

Understanding the needs of the employees and building policies around the needs can help reduce attrition rate. Employees satisfaction is very important, because if they are satisfied, they are motivated to perform good and become highly involved and in these way they can be retain for longer time in the organization.

Employees should be given bonuses as per their expectations, package of incentives for long term stay, employees are given choice to switched from one line function to staff function and vice versa or from fast track project to slow track project. These type of flexibility reduces monotony and job stress and increases job satisfaction, job interest and job liking, which is very necessary to reduce attrition if the potential cost for attrition is job related dissatisfaction

16. FINDINGS:
From the above analysis of Attrition in Cognizant, it can be concluded that job satisfaction and job engagement is very important in order to check Attrition.

The information gather from exit interviews is very helpful to reduce employee turnover.

Family and personal issues, health issues and alternate employment are the primarily reasons for persons Departure.

To know the reasons for attrition is very necessary to prevent attrition at nascent stage.

Employees should be given flexibility in job to reduce monotony and Job stress. Apart from salary other monetary and non monetary benefits should also be given to employees,

17. CONCLUSION
Study of HR practices and employee attrition in the organization was a great learning experience. It helped in understanding the intricacies of HR role in an

organization. The study helped in finding out the most critical reasons responsible for employee attrition in the organization. It brought various concerns of the employees to the forefront. Apart from the project there was also a lot of on-thejob training which helped enhance HR skills and gain a better understanding of the functioning of HR. It was an effective learning in combining the theoretical and practical aspects relating to project. There has been immense learning in the field of employee retention. The basics about attrition and retention, attrition calculation, cost of attrition, consequences of high attrition rate and reasons for attrition. The study helped in understanding the relative importance of various factors responsible for employee attrition, also revealed the fact that the opportunity for development and growth is most important for the employees of the organization. There is a crisis in human capital management. We need fundamental reform in order to address this crisis and ensure long-term ability to hire and manage a highquality, high- performing workforce. Most employees are not motivated solely by money. Historically, firms have used money and financial rewards to retain employees. High tech employees are enjoying the fastest salary progression of almost any profession, yet they are changing jobs constantly. Todays employees seek more than monetary compensation. HR Interview conducted in the company revealed that opportunity for development, salary, job content, relationship with supervisor, alternate employment are important reasons for employee attrition. The myth that salary is the most important reason for employee attrition was clarified as employees are

more concerned about opportunity for development. Salary is also important, salary needs to be competitive with the market rates, other wise there is a high risk of loosing your employees to your competitors. I also learned that even though the salary might be high, an employee would be willing to change job for better development opportunity.

18. BIBLOGRAPHY 1)S.K Bhatia,Human Resource Management,A Competitive Advantage. Deep and Deep Publications Pvt.Ltd,Edition 2006.

2)William J Rothwell And H.C Kazana,Planning and Managing Human Resources.Jaico Publishing House,2nd Edition,2008.

WEBLIOGRAPHY http://www.citihr.com/232938-attrition. http://www.employeeretentionstrategies.com/ http://guides.wsj.com/small-business/hiring-and-managing-employees http://www.pagepersonnel.com/staff-retention. http://www.cognizant.com http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognizant.