PwC: Indian organisations trail global counterparts in retaining people

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

The PwC Saratoga India Banking and ITeS survey finds Indian organisations trailed behind their global counterparts in retaining people, with 35% of the workforce having tenures of less than two years while for the APAC region it was 30% followed by 15% for the Western region.

To arrest the attrition levels within the industry in India, steps have been taken including organisations stepping up their Learning and Development efforts as well as ensuring new hires became productive early. On an average, they invested 17 man hours per person on learning initiatives – up from 13.5 man hours last year. Also, organisations became more aware of the need to source talent from within to aid in retention. For example there was an 11% increase this year in terms of key positions covered under succession planning, with almost 75% of key positions having identified successors. Such measures resulted in a gain of about 10% in the per rupee returns from human capital investments, up from 79 paisa per employee to 88 paisa per employee this year.

Organisations also looked at improving the efficiencies of their HR functions. They focused on core HR activities and outsourced high volume, low skill work to effectively service Business. On an average, the HR functions’ outsourcing bills went up to 15.4% of its total costs as against 6% last year.