Feature

How to retain remote employees

Sudipta Dev finds out what organisations are doing to reduce the attrition rate of their globally dispersed staff.

Employee retention is a big challenge for any organisation, tougher still is holding on your best talent when they are located thousands of miles away. Loyalty to the organisation takes a backseat in an environment of tempting opportunities, career aspirations and conflicting pressures. The influences of numerous HR efforts for employee retention fails to reach the people working onsite at customer locations. But smart organisations do not let distance be a matter of concern in bridging the gap with their dispersed staff and make communication a constant effort.

There are many reasons why attrition level is high among remote staff. Primarily is the factor that these assignments are on rotation basis, but most employees would like to continue working there. Kalpana Jaishankar, Vice-president, People Development & HR Operations, Patni, points out that often people switch jobs to better organisations if it fits the particular visa type. Then there is the issue of career aspirations. “At customer site, an employee performs a particular role. There are higher responsibilities in India, at customer site specific career aspirations don’t get met and they either change jobs there or on return to India. Sometimes they don’t get connected to the organisation,” states Jaishankar.

There are two type of remote employees—flexi-staff engaged by an HR company on a contract basis for a particular project and those employees working onsite. “Attrition is high in the latter simply because the employee is often unattached to the company. However, in the case of temp staff attrition is on the lower side, as employees are placed in client offices for a set period and redeployed on the next project,” says M V Subramanian, Director & COO, Focus Infotech.

Retention efforts

Constant effort is must to reduce attrition among remote staff. The HR departments in most organisations hold weekly or fortnightly meetings with the remote employees. Indian IT organisations which have a significant staff strength onsite are able to replicate the retention efforts of the company overseas more easily. Patni, for instance, has an HR team in the US. “They are dispersed in different cities, are in constant touch with employees there and anything that happens in India, gets percolated there. Now any initiative is global. It is not just an add-on. This includes training, with faculty from India going onsite.” The onboarding process starts from India, and the HR team there does the handholding. On their return, the reverse happens. Interestingly, almost 50 percent of the organisation’s fast trackers are working onsite.

As an organisation, Patni realises that communication is the key to retaining employees so whenever a meeting is planned where people need to physically come together, in India the APAC staff come down. In the US, whenever such a programme is held, people from the UK fly down there.

Subramanian lists a few must do’s:

• Remote employees can be motivated by enriching their domain knowledge and providing avenues to work in different areas
• The company should devote time and money to train their remote or temp staff and also put in place proper reward and recognition schemes
• What organisations need to focus on is relationship development through face-to-face communication wherever possible
• There should be communication between the employer and remote employees on their performance, appreciation letters and feedback on areas of improvement. Other tools that can be used are Web-based management tools for centralised visibility.

Is a different strategy needed?

The question is, if a different retention strategy is needed to retain the staff who are sitting thousands of miles away in distant customer locations?

Acknowledging that it is not easy keeping up the motivation levels of team members from different cultures and time zones who lack face-to-face interaction, Subramanian adds, “The camaraderie and spirit that makes such a difference to teamwork is also missing. Hence, organisations need to formulate specific strategies to enable greater bonding between team members scattered across, to keep them motivated and instill a feeling of loyalty.” For this employers should restructure schemes for remote employees as most of the retention strategies churned out is limited to employees working within the country.

The difference, Jaisha-nkar asserts, is more in terms of aspirations. Some employees working onsite want to get the green card, and if the organisation is clear that they need to work for an extended time then it gets worked out.

A matter of loyalty

It is not an easy task to instill a sense of loyalty among remote staff, but it is a necessity for most organisations. Patni organises ‘Values Workshops’ as a part of the training or orientation, and makes sure that senior people travel often between India and the US. “We are structured BU style. Wherever the BU head might be, they need to be connected with all employees,” adds Jaishankar.

Focus Infotech has launched initiatives like conducting orientation programmes for employees, regular counselling and discussion sessions with flexi-employees. “N-vistas, meaning new vistas, is an employee contact forum to cover new areas of experience and knowledge that help each employee improve their skill sets,” states Subramanian. Then there is the virtual HR Web service portal that provides complete employee management services to maximise efficiency and improve solutions for offsite consultants. This virtual HR module enables quicker and better processing of HR functions that allow for flexible talent management. “We have received an overwhelming response to this interactive HR module from our employees. Our onsite employees are now better informed and managed with respect to their salaries, leave status, benefits, etc. The virtual HR module has helped integrate HR processes and build employee confidence and loyalty,” says Subramanian with apparent pride.

The future will witness interesting trends. Subram-anian predicts that many of the senior consultants will look for flexible employment opportunities where they have scope for working on projects of their interest, “Flexible careers are increasingly appealing to professionals because they are continually challenged and can choose to take breaks between assignments and projects befitting their capabilities and experience.” This is also an outlet to satisfy the entrepreneurial thirst of most mid-career professionals.