PwC: Indian organisations trail global counterparts in retaining people

By Rob Starr, Content Manager, Big4.com

Among the key findings of the PwC Saratoga India Survey, 2011-12 on HC effectiveness is the fact that 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, organisations stepped up their Learning and Development efforts as well as ensured 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.

Amongst industry sectors, IT organisations clocked 64 man hours per person whereas engineering and manufacturing organisations clocked 12.6 hours only. Banks had the maximum number of employees (109) being serviced by 1 HR person. At the same time their HR department costs made up only 0.38% of their total cost base.

Sankar Ramamurthy, Executive Director & Head, People & Change practice, PwC India commented:

“One of the key finding of the survey this year was that organisations which were better able to manage talent turnover gained more benefits from investments made in employee development,” he said.  “With India being a developing economy, organisations that succeed in maximising their HC contribution to business performance will stand to gain exponentially. This report provides deep insights on how companies can better manage and leverage their HC for strategic advantage.”