The Hindu Business Line : `40 pc of workforce looking for change'

WHILE the demand for techies has gone up substantially over the last three to four quarters, the IT services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) players continue to find new strategies to address key issues that contribute to attrition in the sector.

It is estimated that 40 per cent of the workforce in the IT services industry may consider a job change that is mainly driven by about 20 per cent higher compensation. One way to tackle this kind of churn is to align workforce with business perspective, while constantly helping people upgrade skills and scale up value chain, experts on Thursday voiced this at a meeting organised by the Nasscom HR Networking Forum.

Addressing issues relating to retention in the IT services and IT ES/BPO sector, the Industry Leader, Hewitt Associates, Mr Aditya Kohli, said that a Hewitt study has shown that about half of the workforce is planning to resign in the next two years seeking better prospects. Significantly, 70 per cent of the professionals stay back in a company mainly due to opportunities for growth both in terms of skill and technology upgradation with good compensation.

The Managing Director of ADP Wilco, Mr Shakti Sagar, said one way to address attrition in the sector was to take the referral route. The Vice-President of Kanbay Software, Mr Manoj Menon, said that the industry now employs about 6 lakh people and this is likely to witness addition of about one lakh employees each year. "Given the current trend of growth, we could even see the industry hiring to go up to about 40 per cent."

The Deputy General Manager of ICICI OneSource, Mr Anil Dhankar, said because the company is focussed on campus recruitments, there have not been too many challenges with regard to attrition.