Cheering diversity. Manufacturing managers. Correcting ambitions. Making IBM small. Between making it a personal experience for employees and localizing global best practices, the HR folks at Big Blue have tried and tested; discovered, designed, and delivered numerous strategies to net the big bad beast called attrition.

True, it is fortunate to have a brand, a global brand, well known and recognized. Still, it would have to be leveraged on; and the burden of great expectations effectively balanced. One thing it has successfully done is create a sense of belonging-people in IBM call themselves IBM-ers-perhaps, there is no greater brand that an organization can have than its employees saying that.

Let's look at why people desire to join and work with IBM, apart from the brand factor, that is. Is it because IBM is a place where one can have a great career? The company has broad salary bands. One of the consequences of this is that one stays in the band for a long time as opposed to other companies where employees tend to get a promotion every couple of years. IBM resolves this by enabling people to move from one business to the other. Anybody can change jobs as long as they are in the current role for at least a year with satisfactory performance. Opportunity to move around would imply growth and skills development.

IBM is also a 'star employer' because at the core of its HR system is leadership and people management. “As we have grown fast, the number of managers has also grown equally. One thing unique is that we have many managers with not much IBM experience behind them. So we are focused a lot on training and developing our people managers,” says Martin Appel, VP-HR with IBM India. That identification process actually starts long before one becomes a manager. Globally, the company has state-of-the-art leadership program that teaches employees to delegate, to make presentations, to run a team, and lead people. In India, it had to supplement this with a local program to take care of the inexperienced. The gap is bridged by the 'Fundamentals of People Management'. “We realized that this supplement has to have a more HR touch. The IBM model globally has people manager in the frontline and HR behind supporting the people manager. In India, we needed to have the HR closer to the frontline too. So, we changed that model within India,” says Appel.

This is one example of IBM adapting to local practice. Recognizing India's uniqueness was important and so was the whole thing of thinking globally and managing locally.  So a lot of the policies, which were global at one level were made applicable for the Indian context. “There has been some work on the benefits policy for example, which was earlier driven from a global perspective. Earlier, we had a superannuation policy where the money was kept in trust. We would now cash it out. In India, it was more important to have the cash in hand rather than in a trust,” says Neelam Gill Malhotra, VP-HR, IBM India Global Delivery.  In the health benefits area, IBM globally is moving towards preventative health. In India, it needs to go slow on this because here, people still have primary health issues-there are parents that are sick and dependent on the employee for example. “We need to see if we can support that need rather than the need, which is in the US. In some ways, this is also a counter strategy for IBM. We are moving towards preventive health because if we can do that, it saves cost,” she says. Yet another locally driven policy is transport, and the HR has to make sure that it works effectively, and safely.

Other sticky factors for the company are things that are given to an extent these days: flexi-work options and a smooth and confidential feedback mechanism. As for the first, IBM has one of the best flexi-work options in the industry today-flexi-time, part time, work from home-depending on the role. Technology now enables a different type of workplace. And IBM has a 'core hours' concept. Most people have to be in office during the core hours, but have the freedom of coming in early and leaving early or coming in later and leaving late.

It also has an Employee Assistance Program for stressed out people. 'Mitra', meaning friend, is the helpline to dial to access counselors. It's free for the employees and their family members and is wholly paid by IBM. Help can come face-to-face, over the phone, online or through e-mail. Most people report stress when they are about to get married or are newly married. The issues remain confidential and currently, about 5% of IBM-ers use it. 

Effective feedback mechanisms stem troubles early on. “The role of the leader or manager is important because we often hear that people join organizations, but leave because of managers. So since last year, we have a manager's feedback survey-everybody can give feedback anonymously to their manager-and every manager that had at least four people respond, got to report. There is an opportunity for people to put in comments,” says Appel. He was expecting big gaps, but found people rate their managers extremely highly. “Our focus on the leader seems to be paying dividends, a combination of focus on training development, selection and support,” he adds.

Besides, there are other formal channels for people to raise issues, including channels for whistle blowers. The program is called 'Speak Up'. It's anonymous and is handled out of the country. The company also has skip level interviews, meaning one can go to a manger's manager without the manager having to know about it.

Pain Points
A company employing people in hordes-there are 38,500 right now-will also have some leaving it. Like other companies, it worries IBM too, but the company says it has seen a positive downward trend in attrition. Like other companies, IBM too has many who join and leave soon after, and this is really the worst kind of attrition in many ways after having been through the cost of hiring, the pain, the process, and more...

Malhotra says the first thing IBM did was to understand why and where attrition was happening. Every possible ways to analyze attrition was unleashed-statistical analysis, exit surveys, roundtables for employees-it gathered as much information as it could to understand this 'beast'. There were lots of things to look at: how people were hired, how the interview process happened, how the engagement went.

From here on, she built up a retention strategy. The strategy was built up in three or four areas, both monetary and non-monetary. “While we firmly believe that monetary action has a value, it only pays you dividends up to a point. There was a whole lot of work we did in the non-monetary areas that keeps an employee engaged in the organization. Leadership, the training, the manager development program has paid rich dividends,” she says.

In terms of making employees connect to the organization, IBM created virtual communicators, Vinny and Vicky. It implemented IBM TV that shows what's happening at the company. It got senior officials visiting IBM India to talk to the employees in what they call a town hall meeting. “They talk about the direction IBM is going and also takes questions. So people feel engaged. They have seen their leaders, know them, know the managers, knows what he is specifically doing, know where he fits into all this. We call it making IBM small,” says Appel.

A lot of people, he says, leave the company for career opportunities; some cite personal reasons. 'For career opportunities' is a reason Martin finds very disappointing, because there are opportunities in IBM. A lot of people also leave for further education. Like in its services business, a lot of the engineers want to do MBA. But the company has also managed to retain people during exit interviews by resolving their problems.

IBM knows it can drive volume. But the issue is also of quality. So, the organization has identified competencies and helped people locally to develop skills-things such as communication, writing skills, soft education, technical training-all significant programs have a mix of e-learning and classroom learning. “The type of lesson to be learned drives the method of learning. There is focus on development. So, every individual in IBM is required to have an individual development plan, exposure to different situations, project opportunities etc. Everybody has to discuss with a manager and sign it off. It's a commitment,” she Malhotra.

The rationale is simple: if people join IBM for career, they must feel it's real.

Goutam Das
goutamd@cybermedia.co.in

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