Challanges for in-house offshore development/support centres

Almost all the IT companies are struggling with attrition monster, and the worst hit are the product based financial companies where the major chunk of work is maintenance of legacy systems (yak@#$).

Recruitment, training and when organizations are ready to reap benefit from the trained resources...zap!!!! They vanish.

Looking at the alarming rate of attrition - the actual rate is much higher than the figures what management comes up with, remember to be a part of manager's inner circle you need to master the art of blunting the sharp edges.
The calculation should be not by number of people resigned /total number of employees.
Rather it should be number of resigned people*avg number of years with the organization/total number of employees * average number of years with the organization. weighted average would give a better picture.
90% or more of the IT companies bread earner is maintenance jobs. So the attrition is badly hitting their basic revenue.
We will try to analyze the attrition related to maintenance kind of jobs.

A typical maintenance projects has a life-cycle of 4-5 years or more. After one/two years of honeymoon period -onsite visits, appreciation from customer blah-2,the limited challanges and less opportunites to grow within same team and same customers gives a claustrophobic feeling and a strong desire for a change.

After inital unnoticed mild requests, there is a threat and then a sudden exit..!!!

Then managers rush in to have brainstorming sessions in big hotels, outside locations- after all they are on an important mission, enjoy life. They will come back as if they have come up with some prototype for the next space mission.
Root cause
The market is HOT - the pull factor
Type of work - low end jobs

And the quick fix is - create a euphoria called - feel good factor. Some typical themes are best place to work with, Best employers, employee satisfaction survey.....the list is not endless but big enough to cover all in this write up.
Guess the execution startegy.......again a no brainer- Some slogans, some quizes, small gifts and outings.
And the outcome, again a no brainer - the company gets success in retaining 10-20% in-decisive, less confident and anxious guys. This is an eye wash.
At the end of the day who is the loser?
The companies who are paying heavily for inapt managers who could not retain experienced people.

But are these the sole reasons and there is no solution to it?

By and large for younger generation, it can be true. Since their aspirations are different.

The miraculous rise of IT drew media attention, and everyday a new concept jargons are being coined.
Success story of wiz kids are hyped - 24-25 years of CEOs came into lime light.
But did anybody cared to look deeper and give it a serious thaught?
The young college freshers come-out with starry eyes, dreams without any boundries and wild imaginations.
Initially their sole focus is, which technology is hottest in the market, which project can send them to the onsite fastest and they want to be one army (teamwork, what's that?)

For them, some of the major reasons for leaving an organization are -
1. Always looking for some technical challanges, rush of adrenil - Mundane job 1*n numbers of years
2. Age old technology
3. Working on latest domain
4. Technology driven rather than domain
5. Market pull

Most of the time we can survive with younger workforce shifting - as their replacement is relatively easier to find.

But the major pain area is attrition of experienced guys - for them it is hard to find a quick replacement.

And this blog is focused on this issue - which is a BIG pain, though senior managers would like to maintain the euphoria of replacing anyone with any damn one (remeber KT, processes..:))

And surely for experienced lot, with 5-6 years and more, the issues are different.
As they prefer a set life - remember they are married now, so monotony is not an issue.
They are wise enough to understand benefit of domain knowledge, another good reason to stick to one company.
Comfort zone - known evils. Now people around him know him and

As popularly said - there is no magic wand... but if organizations are serious, this attrition menace can be brought under control.
Typically the onsite management start with sweat shop attitude - all the mundane jobs are thrown at offshore. No Problem - they are paying so they are the masters.
But this is OK for a short term only.
The Indian management is reluctant to communicate with customers and make them understand the scenario and make them understand the necessity to rotate people, if high end jobs are not possible.
Instead management chooses to make false promises or dilute the grievences by creating onsite opportunities, which is may delay the decision but does not solve the problem.
And the frustrated work force, quits the job - even though that means different location, different faces and different working environment.
Solutions to this typical scenario can be -
1. Pro-actively Educate Customer - India has emerged out as a majot IT force and now we are in position to sit with a customer and educate them on the difference in work scenario, career aspirtions and hunger for rapid growth.
Surely this will give better results than expecting middle managers to put their point to onsite senior managers. In fact the onsite managers do not want to acknowledge/admit the offshore Managers..so hearing them seriously is a far fetched thing :(
2. Keeping people's manager rather than technical expert managers who are unable to connect with the team on soft issues.
3. The exit interview, which is taken by the HR, should be recorded and shared with onsite HR/senior managers.

Inviting more suggestions in this line.