Attrition and Attachment

1. What are the basic necessities of humans?

Food, clothing, shelter and most importantly, 'attachment'. Let us say, the first three are taken care of by the salary component of an employee. 

2. How do we know that attachment is a basic necessity for humans (and other species)?

Harry Harlow's unethical experiments on rhesus monkeys proved this theory.

3. How can we ensure 'Attachment' at work place?

If an employee has a sense of 'belonging' to a team, there is a huge chance that he/she would stay there longer. 

Postive work environment, positive people and leadership team, work-pressure handled with 'care', job security, emotional support during personal crisis, timely encouragements and appreciations, work place harrassments and bullying taken care of effectively, lively work space, retention of energy level and enthusiasm of the team by means of innovative  methods, ensuring work-life balance, aligning personal goals with professional goals, ensuring job satisfaction are a few ways I could think of, to cultivate 'belongingness'. 

If we detach ourself from our work place (though we are talking about attachment here :) ) and think of why our team members are leaving, we can arrive at more ideas. However it is easier said than done. Detaching ourself and getting into the problem is not easy. Most of the time I have made the mistake of realising the importance of an engineer only after he/she decides to leave.

Fear, security and attachment are the aspects we often forget about, as we give more importance to salary and promotions. It is high time we start thinking about the psychological aspects of attrition.

#attrition #letstalkcorporate #attachment #workculture #leadership #workenvironment