Organisational attractiveness

Attracting and retaining employees is the heart and soul of effective human resource management. This has been aptly described as organisational attractiveness marketing.

JUST LOOK at the following sample of some recent job advertisement titles:

* An opportunity to build tomorrow's solutions and taste the fruits of innovation.

* If the walk-in interview schedule does not suit you, send your resume by e-mail.

* We provide a cosmopolitan work culture conducive to learning, empowerment and achieving excellence.

* Join us and be a part of our exciting new world of configurator technology.

* If you like competing with yourself and beating your best every time, then you are what we are looking for!

* Are you cut out for the cutting edge?

* We need your expertise to sharpen ours.

Nothing even remotely resembling the above ads would have appeared 30 years ago. In fact, an employer would have considered it highly unselfrespecting, if not demeaning, to tell a prospective employee, ``I need you''! What has happened?

Traditionally, one of the basic functions of a personnel department (the ancient predecessor of the modern HRM department) was to `recruit' people. To this was added training (again an ancient predecessor of the modern world, `development'). When even careful recruitment and training failed to produce the ideal employee, incentives (again an ancient predecessor of motivation) were added. So, until recently, a modern HRM department's main function was to recruit, develop and motivate employees.

Should an organisation be structure and systems-oriented or people-oriented? Time was when scientific management meant designing structures, systems and jobs precisely and in great detail, and recruiting and training people to fit obediently and passively into them. It was the exception rather than the rule for people to change jobs frequently if at all. Reasonable job security was more or less taken for granted. The success of a business depended on the sincerity and hard work of employees in operating standard systems and procedures.

From systems to people

Fierce competition for markets, the spread of information technology, the flattening of hierarchies and emphasis on customer satisfaction coupled with the vanishing traditional loyalty of employees to organisations, especially in the creamy layers of high competence, have all combined to make organisations crucially dependent on employees who possess the following attributes:

(i) Specialised knowledge, skill or competence not easily initiated or matched by competitors. (ii) A superior ability to win and satisfy customers on a sustained basis, and (iii) An ability to `shoot from the hip' in an economic environment of bewildering change.

Needless to say, such employees are, and always will be, scarce. They are not supplicants for a job, it is the employer who has to run after them! It is this that has compelled HRM departments to redefine their basic function.

`Recruit' is a buyer's market term. In a seller's market, the term is `attract'. An effective HRM department today, therefore, does not recruit talented employees but attracts them. This is the first change.

Managing to attract a good employee, difficult as it is, is nothing compared to the difficulty of retaining him. The employee's awareness of his own competence, his level of satisfaction with the organisation's working environment and the competitor's predatory eyes on him make retaining a good employee a high priority responsibility of a HRM department.

Paradoxically, the more successful the department is in attracting a talented employee, the greater the chances of his being weaned away! So, in addition to attracting, developing and motivating employees, the HRM department also has to retain them in the organisation. The initial attraction which drew an employee into the organisation has not only to be sustained but kept higher than the attractions of outside jobs. This is the second change.

When the speed and magnitude of external environmental changes are very high organisations become crucially dependent, not on systems and procedures, but on employees of high calibre who are motivated enough to be proactive and to respond quickly to the organisation's changing strategic and operational needs. Such employees constitute the inimitable, unmatchable core strength of an organisation. Everything else that an organisation has or does can, in due course, be copied, matched or bettered by its competitors. Attracting and retaining such employees is, therefore, the heart and soul of effective HRM. This has been aptly and picturesquely described as organisational attractiveness marketing (OAM).

The following are some of the important aspects of OAM:

(a) Instead of straightway looking for the best or the most qualified employees, some organisations believe in attracting people with the right attitudes and grooming them to suit the organisation's unique needs. South Western Airlines, for example, openly says: ``We do not want professionals. We hire for attitude and train for skills''.

(b) Hindustan Lever (HLL) is a company reputed to have one of the finest management development systems in the industry. Other companies, naturally, are eager to grab executives from HLL. Instead of panicking, HLL has calmly accepted this reality and continues to recruit and develop managers providing for such leakage. This may perhaps be the ultimate equilibrium most companies should aim at. After all, no company, however excellent, can achieve zero turnover.

(c) In order to cushion the impact of staff turnover, or to minimise turnover itself, companies try out measures such as providing incentives (material ones such as ESOP or psychological ones such as increased autonomy and recognition), multiskilling, outsourcing of services or getting them performed through alliances.

(d) Some organisations attempt a strong cultural indoctrination of employees so that they develop a strong sense of identification and partnership with the organisation which, in turn, acts as a kind of teflon coating insulating them from competitors' temptations.

(e) Incentives provided as part of OAM should not be the conventional ones applicable to all and sundry. Highly innovative employees need unique, individualised incentives. After all, the purpose is to make the organisation attractive to them according to their perception and not according to the rules of the organisation (Skunk works is one such example where creative employees are provided with the necessary resources to work on any project of their choice).

(f) If an employee decides to leave because his career priorities have changed as his expectations cannot be realised within the organisation, there is no way to stop him. The plus side to this is that, by the same logic, good employees from other companies may join yours provided your OAM is good.

(g) Some ways of redeeming, at least partially, the expertise and experience of leaving employees are to give them company dealerships, make them suppliers and, in special cases, even make them a come-back-any-time offer.

(h) Some other steps for cushioning the adverse impact of staff turnover are: (i) debriefing people who leave and improve OAM based on the feedback; (ii) obtaining references from those who leave about potential substitutes; (iii) keeping a data-bank of potential replacement candidates and (iv) having an active mentor system so that employees are prepared to take over smoothly from their bosses should the latter leave.

(i) Companies which have a record of massive or frequent downsizing may have a problem with their OAM. Good employees may hesitate to join them. Specially articulate, persuasive campaigns may be necessary to spread the message that only deadwood was removed and not employees adding real value, and that even if downsizing becomes inevitable, the company would actively assist in proper outplacement. GE is an example of a company which resorted to massive downsizing (which earned Jack Welch the nickname `Neutron Jack') but has managed to retain its pre- eminent position in the fields in which it operates.

(j) It is necessary for an organisation keen on OAM to constantly benchmark its HRM policies with its competitors.

Retaining employees is somewhat similar to retaining customers. (In TQM, employees are considered internal customers.) The concept of marketing mix is equally relevant in both cases. The five Ps of the conventional marketing mix for selling a product to a customer are: (i) quality product (P1); (ii) acceptable price (P2); (iii) persuasive packaging (P3); (iv) place or shelf space (P4); and (v) publicity (P5).

The OAM mix has similar ingredients: (a) quality of work environment (P1); (b) acceptable physical and psychological costs (P2); (c) credible persuasive communication (P3); (d) a unique place for the employee's contribution to the organisation (P4); and (e) visibility of benefits in belonging to the organisation (P5).

The factors operating in favour of and against the turnover of good employees may be represented by the accompanying field force analysis diagram:

The whole point is to weaken the forces above the line and strengthen the forces below, not in bits and pieces but as a coordinated deliberate OAM strategy.

The turnover of employees need not always be seen as a disaster. Sometimes it is evidence of your organisation's good recruitment strategy. If no one wants your employees, probably your organisation won't last very long! The important thing is to ensure that good employees do not leave because of your failure to evolve and operate an effective OAM.

P. K. Doraiswamy

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