AceNgage was engaged by a leading IT company to conduct a study of employees who left from a particular department in the last 6 months. The organization was facing serious client dissatisfaction as attrition was high.

1. - A CASE STUDY
ATTRITION REDUCTION
AT AN
IT SERVICES COMPANY
AceNgage

2. The client is an IT Services company with a headcount of 6500
employees spread acorss 4 locations .
AceNgage is an HR company working with several Organisations on ares of engagement & retention.
Established in June 2007 , we currently work with several leading IT , ITES, Retail, Pharma, Banks &
FMCG Companies.
Our insightful analytics help managers take evidence based actions and also monitor the
implementation of these actions

3. OBJECTIVE
AceNgage was engaged by a leading IT company to conduct a study of employees who left from a
particular department in the last 6 months. The organization was facing serious client
dissatisfaction as attrition was high.
METHODOLOGY
AceNgage deployed its trained behavioural psychologists to speak to the sample size of
employees provided by the organization. These interviews were conducted over the phone and
take around 30 to 40 minutes. As part of the Exit interview the counsellors capture feedback
from the employee on the different stages of his/her life cycle and identify the root cause of
attrition

4. FINDINGS
80% of attrition was due to “leaving because
of my manager”
·About 45% of those “Leaving because of my
manager” left within 4 months of joining and
the remaining after 2 years of service
·Verbatim also indicated, some of the exited
employees escalated the issue to the
manager’s manager. Post these escalations,
the particular manager became even more
difficult to bear and lead to others in the
team leaving
0
10
20
30
40
50
Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Item 4 Item 5

5. 80%
Eighty percent of the employees who stated that they left because of their Managers, felt
that they were also not able to communicate effectively and would tend to pass the buck
when confronted with a challenging situation

6. Employee 1:
Richard (name changed) would never listen to what I had to say. There was no point
of having team meetings when he ended up doing only what he felt was right.
Whenever I would give my opinion regarding any strategy he would say ‘I have more
experience than you so don’t teach me what I should be doing”.
Employee 2:
He was very rude. He would often insult me and pinpoint my mistakes in front of the
entire team. He felt my performance would improve if I started fearing him, instead I
was completely demotivated to work”.
Employee 3:
As a reporting manager I could never depend on my manager. Whenever I would ask
him for any help or request him to come with me to a client/customer he would say
“Will you give me a part of your salary if I do your work”.
Employee 4:
“I was reporting to Richard for 4 months only. I felt extremely uncomfortable working
under him. I was a fresher in the team, but he would always make me believe that the
management did the biggest mistake by hiring me. I have graduated from one of the
top B schools but I did not have any prior work experience. He would often tell me
‘you are getting paid so much even though you know nothing“
SAMPLE VERBATIM

7. ACTIONS TAKEN
Manager sensitisation
The first step to bringing the focus on retention is to let Managers realise the impact/ damage
they can cause. Sharing As-Is understanding of why employees leave is the first step
Skip levels & 1-on-1's
HR conducted skip levels with the team and 1on1's with the high performers to validate the
feedback received from exit interviews and to also assure them that employee retention is
top priority
Coaching/Training
Need based programs were conducted to help managers with their people skills with special
attention to their ability to conduct more effective discussions with their teams
Leader ship team involvement
The Business head initiated Monthly meetings with the team
·A revamp of the existing R&R program was done

8. $83,000
The Dept witnessed a 3% attrition reduction in the first 3 months since the actions were
implemented and by the end of the year they were at 6% lower attrition than the previous year
translating to a revenue saving of $83,000

9. THANK YOU
For information write to us at: tellmemore@acengage.com
visit us at : www.acengage.com