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Attrition rates high among HR professionals Smita Joshi Mumbai, Apr 18  Human resource (HR) professionals in companies, who are expected to play a crucial role in healthy management practices that will help lower attrition rates, are themselves witnessing one of the highest attrition rates of nearly 70-80%, according to industry experts. Mudit Mehrotra, project leader, Grow Talent Company, an HR consultancy firm, gives an instance of high attrition rates among HR pros. “Of the students who graduated in HR from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) in Mumbai in 2003, 90% have changed jobs already in the past three years. Just four of them, in a class of 30, are with companies they originally joined from campus.” The primary reason for this is the severe dearth of HR professionals. The number of HR professionals graduating from various institutions every year is just about 1 to 2% compared with other professionals like chartered accountants, management graduates and engineers. This has led to new businesses poaching heavily from established companies that possess experienced HR teams. Says Arunima Sharma Sehgal, head, INX Executive Search, “Acute shortage of talent is one of the important reasons for attrition among HR professionals. Hence, there is a need to increase the supply of talented and skilled HR professionals in India.” Moreover, it is only since the past two years that companies have understood the importance of HR and are implementing HR practices in a professional manner in their organisations. Head Hunting • 2% No of HR professionals graduating from various institutions every year • 70-80% Attrition rates in HR • Dearth of skilled professionals The HR function failed to attract the career-oriented “Earlier, HR was considered a back-end support in organisations,” Sehgal adds. Employee retention today is an important issue not just for HR pros but for the top management as well. “Attrition among HR pros will continue if there is no substantial investment in growth, knowledge and expertise of an individual,” said YVL Pandit, MD, and SHL India. Till recently, the HR function failed to attract the career-oriented, another reason for the dearth of skilled professionals. Moreover, an average tenure of 3-4 years with a company is today taken as acceptable among junior and middle band HR professionals. “However, people from finance, sales and operations are now getting into HR, and companies are investing in training and developing their skills,” said Raj Bowen, CEO, Dale Carnegie Training, on a positive note.

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