DailyPost 237
INDIAN IT – THE WAR OF ATTRITION
In the real world, the war of attrition has a debilitating impact on both the warring sides, is borne out by history . In the IT world, the attrition being seen in companies is having similar consequences. The norm is either the companies find the lots of mass hired resources useless or the employee/s turn their back on the company for small financial gain. Yet again, both seem to be the losers. Only few exceptional companies have been able to retain talent & out perform market trends.
The over emphasis on mass rather than class has brought the Indian companies to this pass . It has become a zero trust game where both are the losers. This adds to what we call as the bench category, again a liability to the company & finally the consequent cost is passed over to the customers. At the end of the day it leads to the ATTRITION MINDSET which is suicidal for the company in the long run. A company which does not the trust its own employees, for sure, will not have the trust of its customers.
Without knowing the human resource game either at the entry or exit level with clarity strategic planning cannot be an easy game either for the HR or the whole company as such . This at least partially explains losing out on the product narrative, which the Indian IT companies could never get into in a serious manner. For the non-product mindset of the Indian companies to solidify, this ongoing war of attrition could be one of the critical factors.
Enduring companies are made of sweet & blood, vision remains a rarefied concept for most of the employees . Jim Collins in well researched treatise on enduring companies Build to Last has come out with the concept of Level 5 managers, with a bit of an extrapolation one can safely conclude that these are the time tested managers who would have come victorious through the tough grind. Fair weather employees are a liability. This has been the business story from Toyota / IBM to the present day market leaders of the likes of Google.
ATTRITION IS A TERMITE WHICH EATS UP THE VITALS OF THE COMPANY.
Sanjay Sahay