Companies ready watches to cash to stem staff churn
2 min read 20 Feb 2023, 11:45 PM ISTNew Delhi: An increasing number of young employees in India are leaving their jobs after only two-three years, frustrating employers and prompting companies to respond by designing policies and reward programmes to retain employees for longer
PremiumNEW DELHI : An increasing number of young employees in India are leaving their jobs after only two-three years, frustrating employers and prompting companies to respond by designing policies and reward programmes to retain employees for longer.
Online furniture store Pepperfry, for instance, is offering a one-month sabbatical to employees who complete three years of service, and a decade of service will earn employees a Rado watch. Panasonic, in turn, is offering cash rewards and ICICI Prudential additional medical benefits and insurance to employees who have been with the company for five years. Tata Power is introducing a dashboard to monitor employees’ financial, health, and emotional well-being, a first for the Tata Group.
“Any period above three-four years now is considered relatively stable by the employer, given the options in the market. Before the pandemic and the disruption of technology, 5-10 years was fairly common," said Roopank Chaudhary, a partner at human capital solutions, Aon India.
Chaudhary said some companies are offering short-term learning sabbaticals, learning and development programmes and skilling opportunities across the globe to their performers after they complete two-three years as a retention mechanism.
Pepperfry’s employees who complete three years with the company get one month of paid sabbatical, during which the employee is not expected to work on office projects. According to a company spokesperson, the firm also gave Rado watches to employees who completed a decade with the company, which was launched in 2021.
According to a Mint + Shine Talent Insights study, 50% of respondents prefer to continue for an organization for two-five years compared with 22% of respondents who want to change within the first two years of their career. The report gathered responses from 820 senior HR executives across sectors.
Traditional companies such as Tata Power are preparing themselves for the change as well. “The frame of tenure of the new generations is different. We will have to be realistic going ahead, but it is not an issue yet," said Himal Tewari, chief human resources officer for the utility.
Tata Power, for example, has created a total wellness programme called Fullerlife which will create a dashboard of the emotional, psychological, and financial health index of its employees across teams. “It will show the overall demographics, general profiles of each department, the trendlines...a healthy employee is an engaged and productive employee," Tewari said. The index is being piloted now and will get rolled out in FY24.
Although Tata Power has a workforce across generations, Tewari noted that the company is demographically changing. “From the high 40s, last year we went to 37. In the next two-three years, it will be 33-33.5 years of age which is a young company," he said.
Employers are acknowledging the shifting employment patterns by rewarding both long-serving and mid-tenure employees. Panasonic provides a cash incentive of ₹10,000 to employees who complete five years of service, with larger rewards for subsequent years. ICICI Prudential Life Insurance is offering additional benefits to employees who have worked for five years or more, such as group and term insurance, continuing education support, increased gratuity, and executive health check-ups for employees and their partners.
