Manpower Retention During Recession

Focusing on employee retention at a time when companies are experie­ncing
mass layoffs may seem like an oxymoron. Yet, high-level players will always be
in demand. Inspiring, satisfying and retaining top players in an organization
are the key business objectives in any economic environment. The best companies
are those who focus on performance-driven reward strategies. A recession is a
period of reduced economic activity. The current US financial crisis has had
quite an impact on India as well. The Indian IT industry has witnessed a
slowdown of approximately 40 percent in recruiting new people.

Speaking about the preven­tive measures that need to be taken by companies at
this time, Harish Jayachandran, HR, Apsis Tech­nologies said, “We at Apsis are
not much affected due to the economic recession as far as manpower in concerned.
How­ever, we are taking preventive measures to address key issues, such as
retaining our manpower and utilizing maximum current resources available within
the company.”

Retention during recession

According to experts, employers, recruiters and workers are becoming
concer­ned about their job security as the US credit crisis is deteriorating. In
most of the companies be it an

IT company or in the corporate house, the employers are often concerned about
reten­tion. IT companies, engineering firms and export-oriented indus­tries such
as textiles, pharmaceuticals and automotive components are all likely to feel
the pressure.

Talking about chal­lenges faced by com­panies during reces­sion, Navnita
Nair, Manager-HR, NewWave Computing said, “In a recession, the challenge is not
to retain employees but to motivate them to perform their 200 percent to achieve
results. Being in a sales focused organization, the easiest thing for an
employee to do is to shrug his shoulders and say 'recession-no business' and
quit. The question here is-what makes an excelling organization different from
the others? Why do some organizations withstand pressure, while others crumble?
This is the time when employees have to understand that they need to think
different.”

Talking about the chal­lenges faced by most of the companies RS Shanbhag, CMD
of Value Points Systems said, “Recession purifies the system and helps in
bifurcating the best from the rest. We are gearing up from today itself to
prepare for the best to come and go cracking when markets turn around from this
recession. We are back to basics, redefining and fine-tuning every aspect of
doing business.”

During financial turmoil cost cutting measures are inevitable for companies.
Nevertheless, employee reten­tion remains a mystery to many companies. We should
be optimistic and hopeful to see significant positive movement by mid 2009. The
job market shall deteriorate and will see much more softening. It is the time
for industry to take necessary steps before the economic headwinds take a toll
on employment. This situation would last for at least one and half year more.
The pain is not anywhere close to being over it is yet to begin!

Lipsha Das

(lipshad@cybermedia.co.in)