Top four outcomes of an Exit Interview!!

Author: Simran Oberoi

 

 

Exit Interviews are usually not perceived as pleasant interactions – some people view it as a venting exercise, some adopt an “advisory” approach of providing solutions to the issues they faced and a lot of people are usually indifferent!

So as an HR practitioner, it can be very frustrating to try and gather data or meaning from these discussions and try to link it to actual root causes for employee attrition. Have you ever thought of making a slightly different sort of list of what you want to achieve out of this discussion from an exiting employee? If yes, you are ahead of most others ! If not, here are some pointers which might help…and here I’d like to use my favorite sentence- this is an indicative list, not an exhaustive one !

 

1.  The most obvious - Reasons for leaving the firm. Of course, employees have a standard response to this that they come prepared with – but the onus is on you to make sure that you ask questions that make the employee give clear and specific answers instead of a whole lot of subjective information on what didn’t work well. Also, employees are hesitant to share negative feedback – whether it is due to the fear of confrontation or lack of belief that the feedback will have any  impact. You have a hugely challenging task of creating a sense of trust in an already-disillusioned employee !

 

2.  HR needs to find some answers, but it also needs to understand the thought process of an exiting employee…So probe sensitively about how the individual arrived at the decision to leave the firm. This will help you reach the core of the actual issue and manage attrition in a more focused manner.

 

3. Try to also collect the positives , the optimistic thoughts from such interviews even if those seem rare to come by – Perhaps names of supportive managers/peers, high potential team members and so on. Agreed that this could be very subjective and perception driven, but then so are a whole lot of other things related with people ! This information will come in handy to anticipate where your strength lies and how to anticipate any exits of key employees.

 

4.  Collect feedback for HR too – so the exit interview should allow the employee to share his or her thoughts on how and when the HR’s involvement could have helped prevent the exit. This also covers getting the employee’s thoughts on what interventions make sense to them and what didn’t have any impact on their motivation/engagement levels.

About Author
Simran Oberoi
Sr. Knowledge Partner - SHRM India

She has over a decade of experience primarily in HR advisory services in the areas of Rewards (Benchmarking, Strategy, Job Mapping, Measurement), covering APAC, South Asia and the US), Long Term Incentives engagements, Organization Restructuring, Capacity Building, Competency Frameworks and Talent Development.  

She has published several articles on different HR areas, with leading HR journals such as People Matters, Human Capital, Business Manager – HR magazine and industry magazines such as Oil Asia. She regularly contributes the SHRM perspective across print and electronic newspapers.

 

Performance Management process... is it so difficult?

Author: Samruddhi Mulye

I’d wonder why few things in HR are treated differently from the rest.... so like generating payroll or organising an event for HR is ‘by-the-way’... Performance #Appraisals become a very serious job. It draws complete focus and attention from all the employees and to a large extent the company’s management as well. We’d think why getting people perform is at times so difficult or also an employee to deliver set targets does not garner complete focus and determination.  After all appraisal in true sense is the result of all the hard-work...something that gets tabulated in a matrix... that brackets your performance into terms like – ‘outstanding’, ‘very good’, ‘average’ & ‘poor’. So what makes appraisals so important and special – it’s the money that gets tagged along with it that makes #appraisals so important. The struggle is to get highest hike. Why is an ‘MBA program’ into an elite or premier I institute or some training program for ‘technological advancement’ or a ‘holiday – with – family’ and may be an opportunity to work in ‘different geography or build an enterprise for the company in an unchartered territory’ not that important or does not seem to be a great reward for an employee! There is money involved in this as well. The organisation is investing in the employee, working towards building a leader in you.

There is only one answer to this – it is the ‘culture’ that we have shaped. It is extensively focused on direct monetary rewards because we have chosen to shape it that way. .. we have failed in making employees see the bigger picture and a better tomorrow.

So here’s something I went through. This is year 2003 [I was about four years in #HR career by then]... and not getting into specifics of company name, industry or employee details... but just the crux and my learnings from this incident. Typical ‘Open Performance Appraisal’ system. With KRA’s that were set last year... you guessed it right, not reviewed through the year!  So, here’s the outcome first... the #appraisal letters are handed over to a set of employees [there were unions prevalent that time].  The increments given to these people were less compared to some other employees, probably the lowest in the grid. So even if we’d say that compensation related information should not be shared [else management will take strict action...!] – the discussion is bound to happen. Some happy expression... some sad.

Therefore the obvious questions from these people were ‘why such a low increment?’  The management anticipated some questions but the force with which it came was not anticipated. The increments were decided with no definite data points and rationale so again the answers to ‘why’ weren’t readily available.  The responses from the management were vague. Event / circumstances specific answers were given. For which there were counter reactions from the employees. In all the entire exercise was unplanned and the process made its flaws and fissures visible to all. All the increment letters given were retracted. Fresh letters issued with obviously different figures and then much expected phenomenal attrition. The Management cuts a sorry figure.

So, in all a simple exercise turned out to be a night mare of sorts for the organisation. While, many years have gone by... things have changed and improved for better but some basic learnings.. we never seem to memorise and practice about Performance Management... though I carry them with me wherever I go and whoever I meet to explain... it isn’t a success always but it is my strong conviction that – Performance can be managed only through culture and only Culture can drive performance. You do not need an HRIS or process with a manual to achieve a flawless PMS [although must say technology does simply and organise life for everybody]. Only know and understand your objective, your goal on a broader and organisational level. The fractions to achieve the bigger picture will fall in to place steadily [which set targets right in beginning]. Secondly.... know your people; gauge their emotions... see their problems. Increments are obviously not based on these but it only helps you creating a different perspective of non-performance. Lastly, keep it simple... stay connected with your people, talk to them often. Communicate your vision, ideas. Let them respond. Keep talking to them about their performance. What you like about them and what you feel needs improvement. Let them know. 

Rest the mechanical steps will fall in place automatically...! Let the culture be performance driven and let performance talk about your organization's culture to the world outside.


Author

Samruddhi Mulye
PlugHR Pro


 

10 ways to measure employee enagagement...

With changing times as Personnel Management became Talent Management, employee wellness has becomes the focus for any HR Manager. Organizations too have realized that though employees are governed my labor laws but ultimately they are major stakeholders in its organic growth. This paradigm shift has brought a major challenge of keeping employee motivated and engaged within the organizations. More opportunities and technologies have resulted in competitive strategies to have more happy faces around.

However like physicists say ‘ No machine can have perfect efficiency’ likewise hitting a perfect 10/10 can be a  farfetched dream but still there are ways to measure your engagement quotient and timely action can make just turn around stuff.

Best and the most well known is to analyze your exit reports and keep a tab on that deadly attrition factor. Resignations not only adds to ones blood pressure but replacement too come with added cost .So why not channelize the energy and finances on more productive side which can help keep the      attrition counts stay low and engagement high.

Remember what made college better than school? Well college didn’t have any uniform. Truly burden of strict policies such as reporting time sometimes can be highly annoying. Employee are truly engaged if they come on time because they love being at office not because they have late marks counter on.

Do your employees doze off or try to bunk those open forums addressed by the CEO or founder? So next time make sure it’s more interactive. They deserve to know where the organization is heading and let them feel like a family only then they would give their best to you.

How about the last appraisal process? How many reminders did you send to the managers? Do they believe in the appraisal process or is it just another formality for them. Processes can give us some very critical information’s about the employee motivation.

Once somebody suggested about having a ‘Smilometer’ , which can help us tracks smiles in day. Indeed more laughter and friendly behavior on floor suggests that it a happy place to work and smiles are always infectious J

My personal experience says an engaged and motivated employee will always. The feeling of pride to be associated with one’s dream company is too good a motivator and also helps spreading the feeling around.A happy employee would love to refer more of his friends to join the gang.  So you know when employee referrals are low what needs to be done.

Mostly HR faces challenge of maintaining salary confidentiality and more employees are stressed and frustrated every discussion boils around their favorite topic. If they are monetarily satisfied and happily engaged there are no reasons for you to worry on your strict and confidential information to go public.

Have you noticed who all regularly miss annual day celebrations or office parties? It’s similar to avoiding a dinner because your don’t like the host. Do I need to say more?

Trust in management and feeling of belonginess plays a great role too. If an employees is participative and know that his ideas and efforts will be well appreciated and acknowledged, he would be well bounded with the organization values and philosophy .However this comes with due course and here timely and right communication channel is very important.

 Keep a tab on informal and ‘online and social media’ discussions. Technology has opened many avenues for official gossips. Understanding employee psychology and behavior helps to understand their needs and leads to timely actions and further improvements.

Employee Engagement is need of the hour. Today keeping talent motivated and happy is important so that focus on organizational growth is undeterred. Important is to understand that every organization and individual is unique. What works with one might not click with others .But the beauty is to manage complex human brains in the most simplified manner.
However we all know that nobody is married to an organization but being engaged is no less than that !!

Wish you Happy Engagement J

 

A great appraisal challenge !!!

Imagine getting into a new client relationship at apparaisal time and finding that some fifty professionals need to be appraised in absence of any suggested KRAs. Further more their roles also may not be defined clearly and both they and their managers cary different versions about their roles.

Now imagine you are in charge for pulling off this appraisal and there is a deadline. You are wishing you were better dead. So did we.

Thanks to survivor skills of our Group Manager that we really pulled it off after some intense discussions, definitions, form filling, processing and late night coffees.

While India seems to be on a one way journey of growth, state of affairs within organizations remains pretty dismal as far as organization building is concerned. Short cut seems to be the flavor at both companies and training schools thus making original work uninitiated & unrewarded.

plugHR's own research points out clearly that top reason for high attrition in companies is not salaries at all but absence of basic people management practices apart from faith in senior management.

Its time for coporate India to revisit basics we guess and put money where the mouth is. HR is the mouth :)