Why Are We Losing All Our Good People - When Steve Becomes Stephanie

Write 2 learnings from the cases and apply them to improve the situation in your organization

Learning #1

The first learning is from the case “Why Are We Losing All Our Good People” and it is as follows: “You cannot always rely on rules for making every decision. Rules can never replace human judgement.”

In my previous organization, Aristocrat Technologies, a number of employees left the company due to lack of opportunities for promotion to managerial positions. When the company wanted to hire for a managerial position, they would recruit people only from the premier institutions like IITs and IIMs because they felt this would enable to position themselves as a premier organization to attract new clients. They also did so to achieve a place in “Great Places to Work” ratings. However, the internal employees who aspired for managerial positions felt very dissatisfied about this. The opportunities for them were limited to rise in technical positions and gave rise to a lot of attrition.

To deal with this, the company should put a policy in place wherein they take care of the career aspirations of individuals and be flexible enough to promote them in different career paths if they have the talent. If company recognizes the talent, they should intervene and support the employee with all the required managerial training to enable them to set foot on that career path. The company could also alter the current process to have a fixed proportion say 80% of the promotions internally and rest 20% hiring from outside. Such steps would ensure that the employees feel that the company wants them to grow with the firm and thus would reduce attrition. To make the process more streamlined, the company could ask employees at the start of every assessment year to fill a form asking questions like “What are your short and long term goals”, “Where do you see yourself in five years from now” etc. and then have a mentor to assist every employee in pushing them in that direction.

Learning #2

The second learning is from the case “When Steve Becomes Stephanie” and it is as follows: “You and your company’s values may not always match. But you must learn to adjust and work in accordance with your company policies.”

In my previous organization “Aristocrat Technologies”, there were a number of policies that were different from my first organization “Amdocs”. Though the nature of work itself was very satisfying, the company did not allow to make outside calls from the office phone provided. They also did not allow employees to “work from home” or to take client calls from home. Also, there was biometric (fingerprint checks) at entry and if you missed that you would be penalized by missed attendance for that day. Your leaves would get cut. There was minimum 8.5 hours when you were required to stay in office and if you did not, you had to explain to your manager the circumstances. Also, we were not allowed to access every social networking site from within office.