Employee Retention: Latest Trend in IT Industry

IT industry is very dynamic in nature. The skill set and the technology that industry use changes every five years. Moreover, it is difficult for old employees to adapt easily to the new technologies.
Until now, companies were firm on releasing existing employees if they do not perform well for a long time.
Recently however, this trend is changing. Companies today are taking efforts to retain the employees rather than hiring new people for doing the same job.
Hiring is costlier than retaining
The skilled professionals are in minority these days. Freshers passing out from colleges do not have relevant industry knowledge. As much as 70% of freshers are not in sync with the current IT trends and companies have to train them in order to make them ready for the industry.
Experts from industry claim that training current employees on new technologies is easier than training freshers.
For one thing, current employees are aware of the company culture. With little extra efforts, it is possible to shift them to new technologies.
Hiring new people needs investment of time, effort, and finance.
Hiring is a long process for most of the companies. Selecting right candidates for the company takes time. This time can be utilized on current employees to increase their productivity.
Older employees tend to stay
Companies take extra efforts to train the freshers for the job. However, once the training is over many freshers take another job with higher salary than the current one. This way, all the efforts taken by the company to make them industry ready goes in vain.
Freshers are more likely to job hop than experienced professionals.
Employees with families do not want to experience the uncertainty of job sector and are more likely to stick with one company than changing jobs for better career opportunity.
Retention Plans
Many companies usually have a retention plan for the current employees. They give employees better rewards and other benefits to keep them glued to their positions.
Employees, who do not perform up to the mark for a long time, get 4 to 6 months to improve their performance and save their jobs.
No employer wants to get into the hassle of hiring new force if the existing one is ready to perform well. Employers have also started to realise that retaining current employers is favorable for them rather than hiring new people for the same job.
This means, for you- the employee, job security is on the rise.