The following questions were asked during the recent Expert Series webinar that was conducted on securing employee loyalty. Many of the viewers raised pertinent questions that have been answered in detail by our guest speaker, Anil Nagendra. Here you’ll find key tips and tricks to overcome HR related obstacles.
Q: What training programs/ any other specifics do you recommend for Managers to ensure that they ace at retaining their team members?
A: Some trainings could be: “how to have tough conversations”, “Identifying parameters for motivation”, etc. However, the best way would be to talk with people who have experience in the industry and look for best practices. Avial good talks from experienced people which will add a lot of value.
Q: What has been some of the most successful retention programs with the organizations you were associated with?
A: 1. Manager connect 2. Sharing information with clarity, 3. Aligning the work people do to the overall organization goals makes the work valuable, 4. Making an honest attempt to impact the over personality, 5. Being honest and truthful to the employee, 6. Not over rotating on the employee side or the other side.
Q: If employee strength is vast, how can the HR identify the employees’ passion? Which are Feasible ways?What current practices are used for that these days?
A: Passion is very personal to an individual. However in the organization, a manager will have limited people to lead. He/ she has to discover the individual passion together with the employee. It is a journey together and once you identify passion, align it to company goals, there is no looking back. There is no short cut.
Q: Non-performers getting recognized - this is tricky. Since mostly people feel that they are better than the person getting recognized. How do you ensure that people feel that the recognition was fair?
A: Recognition should be based on data and fact. Even when you recognise behaviors, you should be clear what that behavior resulted in. Once you have clarity and value, share it with the team. The chance of negative competition reduces.
Q: After the performance appraisal, it becomes difficult to retain employees. They have a very high expectation and sometimes it cannot be fulfilled. Please suggest what measures should we take to avoid such type of issues after the performance appraisal.
A: Very rarely we can satisfy employees through salary. Salary is something which does not have a goal unlike food. You cannot eat after you are full unlike salary there is no limit. Retaining employees on long term by increasing salary has limitation. Normal demotivation on salary happens when the employee compares it to others. As a policy, you should discourage sharing of salary between employees. There should be a long term career plan for every employee which should be followed and shared, where appropriate.
Q: As a HR Head, how do I set the salary hike for the new hire, sometimes people are expecting more than 40%.
A: In case you need that employee badly and cannot afford to miss the employee, the only way to decide salary is to figure out at what minimum salary would he join. Over time, get the salary at par with others by controlling future hikes.
Q: How can public feedback demotivate employees?
A: I said publicly sharing negative feedback would demotivate employees. No human being would want to be publicly reprimanded. Feedback when packaged well, will be a great motivator, else it will be a disaster. Positive feedback could be shared publically provided it doesn’t put anyone down.
Q: Should we increase salary if the salary increment was not to the satisfaction of the employee?
A: No way. Would rather employee leave and manage attrition, than increase salary. If you increase you are starting a trend which will be followed by the same employee or other employees.
Q: How to handle conflict between a high performing undisciplined employee and a disciplined not so great performer?
A: Very diligently, you should work with the performer and ensure that he understands the value of discipline and how indiscipline will impact his performance and rewards. With the non-performer, whether he is disciplined or not, it’s best to help him perform well. Non performance should not be tolerated at any cost.
Q: How to handle favoritism in the organization? How to handle employees who take advantage of favoritism?
A: Encourage transparent communication. If a senior leader is showing favouritism, ensure that he is informed and aware. Once you fix this at the senior level, it generally gets fixed across. Tighten the recruitment process, favouritism generally starts from this process.
Q: In small companies, it’s very difficult to retain employees as they don’t provide minimum facilities to them. How does one manage that situation?
A: There is no limit to facilities. HR/ Senior management should be communicating the facility clearly to an employee before joining. More than facilities, surprises demotivates people. Do not give something in good times which you then retain in bad times. Consistency in policy and facility is the key.
Q: Removing a non-performer is difficult. How do I solve this? It leaves a wrong impression on the present employees which affects their quality.
A: The best way to remove a non-performer is to try and talk him through leaving on his own. Share with him the lack of opportunity for his growth as generally most people will leave when they know that their non-performance is visible. For the rest who do not get the message, you may have to use the stick.
Anil Nagendra,
Vice President - IT at CA Technologies
Anil is a dynamic leader and seasoned professional with over 28 years of pioneering experience in varied areas with reputed companies like IBM and HP. He is involved in multiple successful startups and has managed and overseen several large projects, programs and key initiatives. Currently, he's the Vice President - IT at CA Technologies.
