With every business slowly becoming knowledge-based even in this economy, it has become imperative for CEOs to preserve the
only dynamic repositories of learning in their companies: employees. That's why, across sectors, sizes, and statures, corporate India now deploys myriad techniques to retain its people. From sharing the CEO's vision and career-counselling to welfare-management and conflict-resolution programmes, there is little that companies will not do today to keep their people. And, as in any other marketplace, only CEOs who are innovative about their retention strategies appear to be winning the war for people.Carry the Pareto Principle to an extreme: as 20 per cent of your employees account for 80 per cent of your success, focus 80 per cent of your retention efforts on 20 per cent of your people. Across industry-types, manufacturing, marketing, and
services companies believe that it makes little sense to retain all their employees all the time. The real objective: retain only those people who contribute to the company's performance in terms of improving the quality of goods and services, or increasing the level of customer satisfaction. However, hi-tech companies insist that their strategies must focus on retaining all employees. Their logic is that organisations get the kind of employee-performances they deserve. Given the high costs involved in mid-career hires, especially in software and telecom companies, it does make sense to create an environment where all their employees can continuously upgrade their skills-sets rather than let go of them.
Expectedly, the hr department and the senior management are the organisational centres vested with the responsibility of retention management. However, the process is shared: in most organisations, the hr department, the individual functions, the top management, teams, and the trade unions manage the retention function, individually and together.
THE Retention Measures

Companies now adopt more than one technique to create an internal environment that will retain their employees. As per the
survey, the most popular retention-oriented initiatives includeINCREASING THE ORGANISATION'S LEVEL OF PROFESSIONALISM.

Employees leave companies where intra-organisational interactions are unstructured, and decisions, ad-hoc and driven more by
personal prejudice rather than professional consideration. By adopting systems that introduce an element of objectivity into
its internal operations, a company can create a better workplace.
MOVING FROM FAMILY TO PROFESSIONAL MANAGEMENT. In most family-managed organisations, professional managers leave because they cannot see themselves holding key positions, or functioning with the level of independence that their designations merit. By inducting professionals into senior management positions, a company can lower its attrition-rate.
MAKING PERFORMANCE APPRAISALS OBJECTIVE. Employees like to know how, when, and by whom their performance is going to be
measured. An appraisal process that lists objective and measurable criteria for performance appraisal removes the uncertainty
in the minds of employees that their superiors can rate their performance any which way they please.
INVOLVING EMPLOYEES IN THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS. People like to work in organisations where their opinions count. The
higher an employee's involvement in decision-making, the higher the organisation's retention-level. A participative decision-making process is good; total empowerment, better. ENSURING A MATCH BETWEEN AUTHORITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Most companies fall into the trap of holding an employee accountable for a specific activity without empowering her with the authority to perform it well. Often, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that they vest another employee with the same authority, but do not hold him accountable!
MEASURING EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION. Obsessed with catering to the demands of their external customers, companies ignore their
internal customers. Periodic employee satisfaction surveys can highlight the potential flash-points, and enable the company
to take corrective action. ACHIEVING A MATCH BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANISATIONAL GOALS. Many companies fall into the trap of expecting their employees to subsume their individual objectives before the organisational one. Which forces employees to leave. The best companies achieve a balance between the two. ESIGNING A COMPETITIVE COMPENSATION PACKAGE. Money isn't a motivator, but it is an effective de-motivator. While organisations that pay best-in-industry salaries may find themselves unable to use that fact to motivate their employees, those that do not could find their best employees leaving. INCREASING ORGANISATIONAL TRANSPARENCY. People do not like to work in black-box like organisations, where information is rationed out on a need-to-know basis. They prefer a transparent organisation that is willing to share every aspect of its functioning with its employees.
PROMOTING EMPLOYEES FROM WITHIN. A company that constantly fills vacancies by hiring from outside is certain to face
retention problems. Employees who realise that they are unlikely to be promoted to fill the vacancies will leave the organisation. Growing your own is a sound retention strategy. HELPING EMPLOYEES ACQUIRE NEW SKILLS. As the job-profiles and desired skills-sets for a particular job change, companies may feel the need to hire employees with new skills, or retrain their existing employees. Companies that choose to do the latter will find it easier to retain their people since the training signals that the organisation values their contribution, and is willing to invest in upgrading their skills.
OFFERING STOCK OPTIONS. ESOPs are a sign that the organisation recognises the role of the individual in its performance, and is willing to share the benefits with her. FOCUSING ON WELFARE MEASURES. Employees are not just warm bodies; they are individuals with families and lives of their own outside the workplace. Organisations that recognise this, and help employees achieve a better balance between life and work are likely to face fewer problems than those that do not