The world has grown up a lot and a number of trends have been changed. In most SMEs (small and medium enterprises) traditions and trends keep changing with the customer’s requirements and market needs. In most economies, smaller enterprises are more in number. During the past few years, America has focused on economic expansion due to which numerous trends and themes have reformed now. Retention tools are very useful and play a pivotal role in developing a healthy environment in the workplace. Employers are finding new and talented people for their organizations. There are some retention tools that help a lot in designing retention strategies. Retention tools and strategies are very important in order to bring success to the organization. All team members, employees, and employers have great significance in building organization status.
There are numerous issues involved in this domain few of them are as follows: employment opportunity, pension management, job safety, and protection (John D Aram, 1981). IT employees are internal customers of business and an employer could not enjoy success without creating a strong bond with employees. IT Employees have certain rights and securities which an employer is always recommended to fulfill in order to establish the organization. The organization strongly requires job satisfaction from their employees, job satisfaction has been found significantly important as it has a great influence on job performance, turnover, and distress (Oshagbemi, 1996). In individual society forgiveness and patience help a lot in creating a smooth and healthy environment at a place (Collion, 1994).
Characteristics of an IT employee
IT industry is a little different than others as the rate of changes in this field is higher than in others. A good and skilled employee can help in taking an SME to high peaks. There are some characteristics which help employers to judge an IT professional at the time of recruitment: active, talented, readily accept responsibilities, strive to develop him, accept changes instantly, optimistic, and produce focus result, must be aware with the usage of new technology, ability to communicate with other IT professionals with confidence, looks for difficult opportunity. All the above characteristics differentiate an employee to make sure his credibility (Characteristics of good employee, 2008). There are some negative characteristics due to which the rate of shifting jobs from IT professional is increasing day by day. IT field is growing continually and an IT professional wants to achieve high goals in less time. IT professionals usually shift their jobs due to the following negative factors: they are left unguided for future achievements, the employee doesn’t feel comfortable with the tough environment due to strict deadlines of projects, organization do not provide financial support for further training or study, the major reason of shifting jobs is diversity at workplace.
In any market when demand exceeds supply, talent and sources are required more than earlier. The demand for IT professionals in the IT industry has increased a lot in the past few years. The competition of IT professionals has grown a lot and different SMEs are investing funds in training new talent in the IT industry. Recruiting and retaining IT talent in an IT industry has become a great challenge for numerous small and medium enterprises in most parts of the world. With the growth of internet use, the demand for IT professionals has increased a lot. Every small and medium organization must be aware of retraining IT talent in one place. Companies that keep abreast of job tenure have declined due to the frequent movement of employees from one organization to organization. Employees have usually shifted jobs where start-up companies’ giants compete for IT talent. Numerous SMEs offer the best compensation programs in order to keep their IT professionals for a long time. SME’s usually start with benchmarking salaries and benefits to design a competitive environment. Successful IT companies usually offer a competitive environment for their employees in order to keep them active. In designing human resource strategies, the forgiveness factor must be considered in order to create a soft environment at the workplace. Business people seem less concerned with the growth in character and virtue; they give more importance to their working relationship as they hold their emotions and feelings of anger. Human management resources strategies need to be designed by keeping an eye on employees’ requirements and needs. Designing integrated human resources management system ensures high profitability to an organization and it also adds value to the customer (Paul, 1981).
Recognition
Successful companies usually focus a lot on fulfilling careers for employee and guide them in their careers for achieving high goals in their respective careers. IT Employees usually shift SME’s because they left unguided what to do and how to achieve certain levels and responsibilities within the organization. Successful organization improves their retention rates and enhances morale of whole organization by recognizing employee and team goals through official and unofficial rewards. Offering this recognizing program is not very expensive but it works as gold for hardworking IT professionals. An effective recognizing program shows that a management cares of employees and their achievements. It helps in building loyalty to company and creates a sense of belonging for them. A non competitive compensation package for their employees can leave the door open for an employee who might consider shifting (recruiting and retaining IT talent, 2000).
Human resource management is the most critical department in account of organization’s success (Bass, 1981). Recruiting and recruitment of highly skilled IT professionals is not easy and it has become a challenge for financial executives and learning process can make this whole process easy (Kilby, 1869). Following are ten retention tips for employees: Compensate freely, Be open to your ideas, treat people as equal, provide growth opportunities, Say thanks, make time , be flexible, encourage creativity, keep them happy and healthy and lead with the heart. All above tips are useful for an employee and increases his value in the eyes of co workers and employees. New talent is full of courage and hard work but they need proper and organized guideline to grow. One thing which all employers must need to understand that never discriminate employees and always encourage them to create soft and nice relationship between them (Wiley, 1993).
In today’s market, retention issue has become a challenge for all employers but with the help of some rules and considering soft factor’s importance they can cope over this challenge. Proper and organized system is required to solve retention issues in today’s world. All such factors play an important role in polishing an IT employee’s skills (Goleman, 2000). Following are few retention tools for the retention of IT professionals: employee recurred program, career development program, performance based bonuses, Employee referral program, loyalty bonus, employee recreation, gifts, accountability, making the manager easy access and surveys.
Interesting Job
New IT talent always searches jobs according to their mood and nature. New IT talent doesn’t focus too much on an organization’s status and growth. However, it has great importance as if the organization is established; employees will get bonuses and good salary package (Evan, 1977). New IT talent highly focuses on job type that must be according to their nature and interest. Interesting job has ability to bind IT employee. In case job would be not according to employees’ needs and interest, he always feels stress at workplace. There are several ways by which a job can be made interesting & paying for employees. There should be some bonuses on good work; diversity issues must be resolved in an effective way at a workplace. Diversity led an organization towards downfall. Human resource department and management must look into diversity issues as they bring great hurdles in the path of success. Interesting and dynamic IT jobs always appeal new IT talent. There should be some policies designed in such a way to facilitate IT employees with challenging opportunities. Interesting job is highly associated with job salary, interesting & dynamic job sounds good to an employee only if the salary is good and attractive. Employee doesn’t feel good and relax if the salary is low. There are number of models present in real world designed in such a way to facilitate an IT employee in terms of salary, allowances, bonuses and other facilities. Its really hard to find good people once you find them its really important to keep them by applying different measures like bonuses, allowances, medical allowances etc. Federal legislation has some rules and regulation for keeping IT employees in long run. If an IT employee doesn’t find any attraction in salary, allowances, no bonuses at good work, overtime allowance etc, he doesn’t feel good to stay long at one organization. Diversity issues also instigate IT employees to change organization frequently.
Employee wants to feel a part of organization and this is only possible when management do not differentiate employees on the basis of race, color, religion etc. IT profession is a challenging profession and it requires full concentration with relaxation of mind in order to produce good quality work. While good and qualified recruitment is also very important and it’s a responsibility of human resource department to hire only dedicated and motivated IT professionals for certain jobs. After hiring, an organization must have capability to keep them in long run by facilitating them with different benefits. Job could be made interested by the aid of time to time discussion between management and employees in order to find out the demands of employers and requirements of IT employees (Harron, 1977). Mutual working relation always results well in long run. Numerous employers do not feel good in taking advice from their employees but this is the only way by which a management can easily find out the ways of making certain jobs interesting and attractive for new talent.
Leadership
Leadership has of great significance in the path to success. Proper and organized leadership can take an organization at the peak. Effective leadership plays pivotal role and facilitates all workers by different ways. If the leadership is not proper no matter IT employees are highly qualified and talented an organization would not be able to maintain its status for a long time (William, 1992). In Nigeria there are number of companies which follow appropriate leadership style for the growth of organization. Leadership can be measure by two ways: by judging initiating structure and by evaluating consideration (Dunham, 1990). Measurement of leadership behavior should be culture specific (Buomo, 1985). IT Employees are not given numerous opportunities in Nigeria; highly skilled IT employees are always under pressure of work (Olgilive, 1987). Leadership must be supportive and encouraging in any situations, a leadership is the most important retention tool in an IT industry and posses great significance in building number of objectives. Leadership in SME must take care of following facts in order to make his leadership attractive and effective (Bodner, 1999).
Never criticize employees work in front of other employees it creates negative feeling for a leader, never give too much stress to employee for the work, must take care of employees family welfare, help employees in getting loan or allowances in need. Leadership effectiveness will become more worthy if the leader uses the style of leadership which matches with organization’s requirements and needs. A leader task and leadership responsibilities have a great correlation between them and produces effective results in case of proper implementation (Lind, 1988). Leadership effectiveness’s job satisfaction, work, stress and performance all have a great association between them (Decker, 1988). Job performance and job satisfaction in an IT industry are both known as predictors of an employee turnover intention (Carnegie, 1936). Number of researches proved that the level of performance decreases with increasing stress (Porter, 1986). The major difference lies between match and mismatched employees is highly based on employee’s readiness leader’s leader style. Factors which have great significance in order to relate to effective leadership are: leadership score, employee ability and employee willingness (Trunick, 1989). Organization’s growth is highly influenced by effective leadership as leadership and management decisions are most important in the gateway to success. Organized decision making and effective leadership can help in making management decision strong and worthy (Burns, 1978). Today’s employees and new talent want to earn money in less time and they need proper guidance and leadership (Dixon, 2000). Transformational leadership is always good and guide employees in proper direction to achieve high goals (Odiorne, 1979). Employees always like to work in such organization where leadership is supportive and help them in order to complete their job limit.
Branding
New economy has comprised of numerous technologies and lots of challenges. Nowadays, local and medium organizations are electronically connected and they can contact with each other at any moment. Today, there are thousands of small start up companies all competing each other with new ideas, some succeed but most do not, the main reason behind their failure is mismanagement of resources and talent. Branding is one of the most important tools for retaining IT talent. Branding affects a lot in the retention of employees. Working in a good firm is always a charm for employees. For example companies like Microsoft, Cisco has gained so much popularity in past few years and employees currently working in such organizations are considered highly skilled and qualified in all over the world. It is great charm for employees to work in highly reputable organization as it opens new ways and paths to future career and achievements. Famous and effective branding contributes a lot in the retention of employees at a place in long run. Employees Always wants to a part of an organization that embrace the same core as them (Pheadra, 2006).
Branding increases retention turnover in an effective way as employee finds more learning area with high compensations in reputable organization. When an IT professional enters in an organization he always get influenced by proper management, testimonials written by customers, effective management, atmosphere etc and then he wishes to be a part of such SME. Nowadays, competition is really high and it’s not easy to compete any rival (Slavitt, 1986).
Branding involves high level learning internal structure building. IT companies in the new economy have ability to create their own space (Patricia, 2007).
They have clear idea of what they are doing and what they want to achieve. Their strategies are based on “differentiation”. They create new market and rule market and talent retention at their own terms. They offer unique packages and rule market at their own rules and strategies. The best example is Amazon.com, with the passage of time trends and organization’s strategies have been changed a lot. Branding and flexible work management acts as a best retention tool for IT employee. IT Employee only change their jobs frequently when they feel that provided opportunities are low and there are less chances to grow. Interaction with different organization also helps in defining your strategies. Today, competition in IT industry is really tough in market and one to be very careful in order to win the battle. If an employee feels attraction and charm regarding to the success of an organization or forecast of an organization would be attractive, employee would like to stay more at same place, the presentation of an organization in front of an IT employee helps in retaining IT talent.
Work life pattern
Employers must remember that an IT field is little tougher than other fields and an IT employee can only be retained by giving flexible work pattern to them. By incorporating flexible work patterns help in the growth of an organization and retention of employees in long run. Flexible work life pattern has become an essential retention tool for IT employees. Employees can choose options on offer like maternity leave, job sharing or part time working. Flexible working pattern in an IT industry should meet following criteria: open for all, flexible alignment, freedom to flourish, correct infrastructure at place, review performance and in the loop (Advancing adaptive working patterns, 2000).
Peer or superior relationship
Retention begins with the strong relationship bond between employers and IT employees in an IT industry. This is a common phenomenon that business doesn’t relate to emotion and relationships but colleague and staff relationship has of great significance in staff retention at a place. Young employees do not like to stay in such place where diversity issues are involved. Employees usually like to work in such organization where management and leadership relations are strong with employees. Young employees like to work at such places where they find co-operation and support of staff members and leadership that they need to complete their jobs. It usually frustrates employees to work in such environment where they do not find leadership support. Good and strong relationship with employees also encourages IT professionals to come up with new ideas and new IT technologies to an organization. Employers always provide flexible work pattern to an IT professional in order to enhance his productivity and creativity (Peer exchange, 2004).
Positive peer relationship led an organization towards success, for E.g. BLB&G in North America (Cary, 2008).
There is a shortage of qualified staff in area so by creating supportive and peaceful environment one can get success for example Becker & Mackenzie in North America (Long Term Care, 2004).
A strategic approach to employee retention
By September 2000, all previous programs for talent retention had proven to be less effective. The rate of job shifting was continuously increasing in that era. Almost two third of organizations still not realized the need of soft factors for key people retention. Talent management and retention are two important issues which are necessary for effective retention plan. Having expert professionals is a key to delivering best business, so for having these professionals, some factors are involved like salary, health care benefits, leadership, branding, appreciation etc which are consider essential for talent retention. Till now due to poor succession planning about billion 2 from stock market value of FTSE 350 companies are bearing talent loos.UK unemployment rate shows that employers do not pay attention to soft factors for talent retention. A strategic approach provides the best way which shed light on soft factors importance for IT talent retention. There are number of theories exist which consider soft factors effectiveness for talent retention.
Conclusion
An organization can work well if leadership is strong and supportive. Numerous employers don’t realize the need to facilitate employees. Facilities and appreciation motivates employee for hard work and it also enhances their productivity (Herzberg, 1971). Retention strategies should be designed keeping in mind the basic needs and market growth in order to achieve high targets in market. Soft factors have great importance and very helpful in creating smooth and healthy bond relationship between management and employee.
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