Non-fluid employees of large corporations

Large corporations, be it IT or non-IT (I will talk more in terms of IT firms), have the tendency of making people stick or non-fluid i.e. the same group of employees (the entire hierarchy) carrying on from one project to another. Though restructuring and location-transfers help to certain extent, but the time period during which this stickiness develops is shortening. Yes, this helps the organization in a way (better bonding between team members since they have been working together for long), but it also creates a problem. With such clusters getting formed, you would either have to go for the complete cluster or nothing. Hence, the skill availability gets severely hit and, while the employee utilization levels remain low, there is always demand for people -- a fake demand due to artificially choked supplies.

Final word
I think though such stick clusters are good, however, these clusters should be broken at regular intervals in order to ensure better access to talent across the organization. One important break-point should be the allowed time-frame for the cluster to remain a cluster once it is on 'bench'.

Why restructuring causes attrition

Restructuring exercise in any organization is interpreted by people (employees) in this way: If I am going to get a new boss and a new department, I will have to prove myself again to the new group of people. I would be better off joining a new firm at a much higher pay scale. This is a typical case of comfort zone disturbance.
Similarly, a person (an employee) might feel loss of respect in the organization or might get a feeling of jealousy due to the promotion of others or better pay-revisions of others. Again, this is a comfort zone disturbance.

And whenever there is a comfort zone disturbance, people seek greater value (self perceived value) for themselves at other places (firms) either through a perceptibly better role or salary. Note that here we are talking about self-perceptions -- but isn't that the most important factor in employee retention.

Attrition can’t be attributed to aspirations, salaries or job location

Whenever we talk of attrition, we talk about one of the following:
1) Job/ Role aspirations not getting met
2) Salaries being too low or revisions being improper
3) Preferences of people for particular job location (generally near to their permanent residence or family/ friends)
4) Uncooperative boss

However, these are just the triggers (the cause) to a disturbance (the affect) which leads to attrition. The disturbance we are talking about here is the 'Comfort zone disturbance'. And this is really the cause of attrition. So, what do we do to bring down attrition?

It's quite simple. Change the affect that these triggers cause. If you can somehow prevent comfort zone disturbances, you can control attrition. This means, you need to identify the elements that comprise the comfort zone of your employees; and then you need to balance out those elements whenever a comfort zone disturbance is created. It does involve quite a bit of thinking, but I believe that is the only way of controlling attrition.

3 secrets behind frequent restructuring of an IT firm

We recently heard about organizational restructuring in top IT companies of India -- wipro and Infosys. And this is not the first time that such an exercise has happened in these companies. If you look back into time, you will find that this happens quite frequently. So, business vertical based organizations get converted to geography based and then again to vertical based and the cycle goes on and on. So, let's see the reason cited by these orgs:

When moving from vertical based to geography based --> "This will enable us to focus on those particular geographies, hedge our risks, develop an employee base that understands the culture in particular geographies etc...."


When moving from geography based to vertical based --> "This will help us provide the whole range of services in a particular vertical and seamlessly across the globe etc...."

However, i see different benefits from it:

1. Satisfying aspirations of people
Well, this is a double-edged sword. On one hand you could be creating new designations or re-designating people in order to cater to their aspirations but at the same time some other people might feel that their aspirations are not going to be met and hence decide to leave the organization (some might also leave just out of jealousy). So, extreme care needs to be taken on this part.

2. Increased networking within groups
Since the people that formed one single group are now spread across different groups --- there is an automatic creation of communication channel between the new groups and their people. Hence, the level of networking and knowledge sharing gets a boost. Nothing else can lead to this level of networking (and that too at all hierarchical levels)

3. Fresh enthusiasm - like when you join a new company
Again a double-edged sword. People will need to prove themselves again (since their bosses have changed) and hence restructuring infuses fresh blood into the organization. However, some people might also think "Since this is going to be like working in a new company, why don't i actually go ahead and join a new company where i will also get a good jump in pay". These guys were previously sticking to the company because they gave more importance to their own comfort level in the organization then the pay they were getting.

Is the next big restructuring approaching your firm? Maybe yes, if it's been a long time (3+ years) since the last restructuring.