India Inc hates to lose 'em

MUMBAI: Never say no. Sandeep Pandey (name changed), 30, a supply-chain engineer knows what it means. On to his fourth job in 7-year career in auto ancillary, he has always kept his options open.

In between jobs and about to join a Faridabad firm when Gita Puri, director, Personnel Network, called him up with an offer.

“I have accepted a job offer - I am joining in four days,” he said. Puri almost hung up on him - before he blurted out “but I will be happy to consider this one”. He added he had forgotten to mention in his resume that he had also changed a job six months ago.

Missing integrity, a frequent job-hopper, plenty of red signals to stop on him, she thought. But surprisingly, her client was open and insisted she organise an interview. “There’s a certain desperation. They need to have somebody - whosoever they can get - urgently,” she says.

Things are getting worse. “Such compromises are being made everyday,” she adds. Frown at them. Look at them with suspicion. And avoid them if you can. When HR professionals went to college they were taught the golden rule - frequent job hoppers aren’t a good breed and they must be avoided and discouraged at all costs.

A rule most HR experts instinctively swear by even today. But alas! a booming economy, surge of new jobs and a talent-starved job market is pushing them in a different direction. Never mind the quick shifts - serial job hoppers are in demand and are being actively wooed by one and all.

None that The Economic Times reached out to admitted to facing any problem in finding jobs. In fact, most admitted that job offers came mostly unsolicited with higher salaries. Who cares about the golden rule when most recruiters are grappling with the hard business reality of a fast ramp-up.

“Perhaps there isn’t much choice today,” says Vijay Kashyap, vice-president (HR), AV Birla Group. Kashyap should know better. He has experienced it first hand as the HR head at Shopper’s Stop. At the entry level, the retailing major faced a churn of 75%, which was better than the industry average of almost 100%.

It’s the same story in BPO industry where attrition rate ranges 25-75%. IT services industry, for whom employee salary is the single-biggest cost, has a churn rate of 25-40%. This is not surprising, says Rajeev Gaur, vice-president, Times Jobs.

“The level of attrition in India is no surprise given that the increase in skilled manpower is not able to keep pace with India’s scorching growth at 8% plus a year.” Of the 55 lakh resumes that Timesjobs.com has, a majority of them want to relocate.

There is little doubt that corporates have to work harder to maintain their workforce, leave aside grow it. And there are companies out there like Reliance, Infosys, Wipro, ICICI Bank who are talking about adding thousands in a year.

As a result, “HR heads, particularly in the services sector, are today quite open to cross-sector hiring”, says Mr Gaur. Everybody is feeling the heat. But for the smaller ones the situation is reaching desperate proportions.

Struggling to gain mass amid growth, even as they grapple with business expansion, scarce talent, the firm’s unattractiveness in the job market is making things difficult.

With not much clout and branding, they are the most susceptible and flexible, and “are willing to go that extra mile to accommodate job hoppers’ demands”, says K Sudarshan, managing partner, EMA Partners India. This is when one hasn’t even factored in the surging salaries.

Almost all of them have reasons why they are hiring them. Unglamorous, staid, old manufacturing sector like textile garments, auto ancillaries, with low salary levels have no choice but to accommodate them.

Ditto for companies in fast-growing sectors like hospitality, airlines, retailing - with not enough talent depth - that are also relatively flexible and open about their recruitments. It does not help that most fast-growing service sectors like retail and BPO are employment-intensive where human talent is the most critical component.

“Despite all their drawbacks, most serial hoppers tend to be smart with excellent communication skills - something that’s in great demand in the industry,” says Ajit Isaac, managing director, Adecco PeopleOne. A reason, he says, why they seem to be much sought after despite their promiscuity.

It does not help that the talent crunch is the most where the propensity of job hopping is the highest - which is under-30 age group. For a typical BPO company like Genpact, this is how the employee pyramid stacks up from the bottom to the top - 14,000:1000:60.

In fact, not just BPO, companies in sectors like retailing, telecom have a similar hiring pattern. There is enormous demand - almost everybody from manufacturing to services sector wants to hire these young flexible upwardly mobile under-30s. Hence the compromises are natural.

What has worked in favour of job hoppers is the fact that at entry level (0-4 years of experience) companies are not looking for skill sets and technical qualifications but attitude, and are willing to train them on specific skills later.

Hence, anyone can join anywhere - for example, a History graduate working in a BPO firm wooed by a hotel and retailing company simultaneously. This automatically multiplies the job openings available to them.

However, most HR heads admit that while they may take job-hopping lightly at the entry level, it weighs heavy when they are considering anyone in leadership roles. “Stability and long term commitment at senior level is extremely critical,” says Arun Mahapatra, managing partner, Heidrick & Struggles International.

Whatever the level, courting job hoppers does not come cheap. The thumb rule in most industries is that if an employee moves in less than 12 months, the cost of replacement is 2.5 times his annual salary which could be an expensive affair.

Non-poaching agreements offer some relief - and its use is spreading beyond IT and BPO industry to media and banks. But it is hardly a solution when entry level staff are not just changing jobs but also switching professions and sectors.

But they do not have a choice. Not only is job hopping becoming more common, more and more of India’s future workers will inherit that mindset. Says K Ram Kumar, HR head, ICICI Bank: “This is a fairly impatient impulsive generation. Their first reaction when anything is not going their way is to quit.” Multiple job offers coming on a platter do not make it any easy.