IT industry & Employee Attrition

Employee Attrition is one of the most critical (along with the weakening US Dollar) problem which Indian IT industry faces today.

Time to time, employee surveys are done to figure out what makes employees to love or hate their employer. Based on these surveys, IT companies (if not all - then at least those who want to retain their employees) take appropriate steps with hope of reducing the attrition. This is an interesting fact that some companies are inherently immune to attrition, whereas some companies fail to control attrition despite desperate efforts. In this post I have tried to analyze the factors which might cause employees to leave an organization.

Recent Surveys
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Recent employees surveys suggest that most common factor which caused employee attrition during last couple of years has been a disliking for “Immediate Supervisor”. This trend is strikingly different from previous trends, where monetary compensation and challenging work was considered to be the main attrition factor. Before we blindly accept the results of these surveys, we need to ask some questions to ourselves:
(1) Do engineers no more consider “Money” as the primary factor? (atleast I do not accept that this could be true for any profession in any part of the world)
(2) Does “Quality of Work” work no more matter to the engineers ?
(3) What difference does your “Immediate Supervisor” bring to your job?
Basic Instincts
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We all (IT engineers) are human beings. And if we have managed to remain human beings (despite endless slogging at office), we must be bound by natural human instincts. In this post I have tried to analyze, if employee attrition in IT industry has any thing to do with IT engineer’s quest to rise the “Maslow’s Pyramid of human needs”. To start with I will re-visit the Maslow’s “Heirarchy of human needs”

(1) Physiological Needs: Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, excretion
(2) Safety: Security of body, of employment, of resources, of morality, of the family, of health, of property
(3) Love/Belonging: Friendship, family, sexual intimacy
(4) Esteem: respect of others, respect by others
(5) Self-actualization: Morality, Creativity, Spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts.

How we rise (the Pyramid)
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Most of us take up our first jobs to meet the bare minimum “Physiological Needs”. I am sure that most of human beings will be happier writing poems than writing softwares. Yet, they deny easier Arts courses (and study engineering), and a fun-filled employment of being editor in a publication company (and slog in front of computers). They choose a less-interesting career with a hope that this career will better satisfy their “basic needs”. This is the reason that the very first factor we consider to choose our first job is just “Money”.
(There may be few people who find programming more interesting than poetry. This is in fact “science of evolution”. A more rewarding work over a period of time can also become more like-able. Few would have found writing poems fun-filled in early days of poetry (and would have got scared by its complexity). But as kings started enjoying poetry, and poets were heavily paid, it became an enjoyable and respectable profession - since I belong to relatively old generation, I still find poetry more satisfying than coding - I hope my kids will not)

We find our jobs very challening and interesting for first few years (or first few months - based on how fast we adapt to the new environment). Then we start feeling comfortable with our work. We no more worry if the code we write will work or not. We no longer worry if our client will fire at us or not (for those silly mistakes and for skipped deadlines). We no longer worry if our manager is satisfied with us or not (and slip out of office to watch a movie on Friday night). I know there are few unfortunate ones for whom these worries never end - and they are the most stable people in an organization (they exist forever, unless the organization itself decides to fire them). This is the sign of craving for attaining next slot in the (Maslow’s) pyramid (of needs). From this point onwards we look for security. “Quality of Work” is an important factor in creating “sense of security”. Those people who are working on cutting edge tecnologies and who are doing more skillful work are more likely to retain their employment (than those who are working on simple tasks) in long term. One wave of slowdown - and testers will be the first people to get fired. Once company gets rid fo unnecessary testers, only then the fire will come to Developers. And probably designers will be the last one to go.

Ofcourse there could be exceptions to the above rule. Some companies might find that testers are more important for them (Are there any such well managed companies who keep optimum staffing of testers) and they may want to fire Developers instead. But such chances are very rare. Since IT industry is very competitive, companies need to keep on developing newer products (even if old products are not selling too well), to stay in the business. So companies need to retain developers (unless they have taken the final decision to shut down). Even if companies fire developers, the percentage of fired developers will be much less than percentage of fired testers. In tight project budgets, developers can even take up the additional burden of testing (most stuff) themselves (rather than testers being asked to do the development).

Those of us who attain enough sense of security in their jobs, still feel some itch. They want a feeling of belongingness and love at their work place (next stage in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). They want to feel closely attached to their organizations, teams and to the people whom they work with. They want to be appreciated for the work which they do. They want to hear how their contribution is important to the company and is helping the company to grow. They want to bond with their colleagues. They want to participate in Cafertaria discussions. Want to smoke at the office terrace with big bosses. This gives them a feeling of close knit family at work where love flows from all direction. “Immediate Supervisor” plays a big role here. It is his wish to appreciate your work or to scream at you. He might encourage you to mingle with the colleagues and let you hold long cafeteria sessions. Or he might realize that you have not been focussing enough on your work and take challenge of giving you sleepless nights. He might make you fall in love with you work space. Or he might turn the work place in to biggest nightmare for you. So, “Immediate Supervisor” (as pointed out by recent surveys) is an indirect reason (direct reason is lack of love and belonging) for attrition.

Having discovered love and belonging at work place, what we look next is Self Esteem. We enjoy the respect which we get from others at work place. And we feel a natural inclination to praise others. To appreciate their efforts, to praise their skills. And we expect the same in return.

The highest stage what an IT engineer can aim to achieve in his careers is that of self-actualization. I have met a few people who have realized their true Selves. They will be always willing to help you, on or off the record, no matter how simple or how complex your problem is. You can feel free to ask them the silliest of question, and they will respond. You can fire impossible questions at them and they will not shy away. They will help you at design, development and debugging with similar enthusiasm. They will be willing to spend long hours with you, when you are debugging a tricky issue in the lab. When it gets too late for you, they will tell you that it is the time to go home and come back tomorrow with a fresh mind. And they will probably have a fix for you, before you start your work tomorrow. They might surprise you by sending a code-base which they developed yesterday night, while making the design document. They are the greatest and most altruistic people in any orgainzation.

Answering the (Un)knowns
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Let us come back to the questions, which I raised at begining of this post:
(1) Do engineers no more consider “Money” as the primary motivational factor?
(2) Does “Quality of Work” work no more matter to engineers ?
(3) What difference does your “Immediate Supervisor” bring to your job?

If you observe carefully, “Money ” and “Quality of work” still remains to be the primary need of employees. However there are some organizations where employees enjoy the these privilleges by default. In such environments, people look for love, belonging and respect (self-esteem). Immediate-supervisors have a big control over their sub-ordinates. In case your supervisor is Ass-Holy, he can make your life miserable and deprive you of the needs which you are looking for (though it would not have costed him anything). A decade back, IT industry in India was still nascent. Most engineers were still looking out to make a good amount of “Money”. Big pay cheques was what engineers used to look for. The “Dot Com Burst” of 2000, was a big lesson for engineers in India. They realized the fact that they can not take their jobs forgranted. They might loose it any day. Firing was a new concept in India at that time. People had always enjoyed a life-time job-security till then: either in form of a government job or in form of a private job (shielded by trade unions). After 2000 down turn and firings, engineers in India started to look for job security (which comes by default from Qaulity-work). There are still many companies in India, who sell job-security to their employees (and manage to attract them at lower salary levels). There are organizations, where “money” and “job-security” comes by default. These organizations still face attrition, if they fail to provide a sense of love and belonging to their employees. Those organizations where these two factors does not come by default, still face attrition because of same basic reasons.

Compensation Hierarchy
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Based on my analysis above I can construct a Compensation Pyramid (in accordance with maslow’s need heirarchy) for IT engineers. IT engineers start their careers at bottom of this pyramid, and aim to grow upwards (some might feel stagnated at an intermediate point)

(1) Money
(2) Sense of Security (Most engineers get stagnated here)
(3) Love of co-workers
(4) Belongingness to the organization
(5) Respect of co-workers (supervisor and subordinates)
(6) Freedom to Philosophize (Very few attain this slot)

What can employers do
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(1) Employers (to be specific - Middle Management and HR) need to identify the current position of each employee w.r.t this pyramid. They should evaluate emloyee’s desperation (desperation should be measured based on efforts) to reach the next slot, and make sure that the employees rise at a speed which is directly proportional to their desperation.
(2) Employers clearly need to understand that different human beings have different intensity of desires. And some human beings get saturated after a few desires have been satisfied.
(3) It needs to be made sure that employees with in-human attitude (attitude developed on basis of gender/cast/regional biases, or frustrations, or incapablities) do not handle and leadership responsibilities.
(4) Identify the people who have reached state of self-actualization and give them authorities. These are the people who can inspire and transform the attitude of employees in a organization.

Additional notes
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Quality of Work: Quality of work is a myth. Quality of work does not depend on what work you do, but it rather depends on how you do. Most people in IT industry tend to associate “code development” with good quality work, and associate “testing” with bad quality work. However each of them could be performed in a good or bad way (with good or bad quality). This myth has originated because of the more job security which developers enjoy (over testers).
Appreciation: Appreciation is a very powerful tool in hands of manager. It does not only help engineers to feel loved, respected and being useful to organization (3rd, 4th 5th stages of compensation pyramid), but it can also create a (false or true) sense of security (because it helps to build confidence) amongst employees (2nd stage of compensation pyramid).
Love: I have seen many people leave the organization when the people with whom they interact most (inside and outside the office) leave the organization. This again vindicates the importance of 3rd stage of the suggested compensation pyramid.