Make your apples taboo to keep them

It is a known fact that many of the employers face a challenge to keep the talented workforce with them and control the attrition, especially during the times of the company's disability to reward their employees as per the industry standards. Today I would like to share and idea while i was surfing online and talking to friends from different organizations. I gained this knowledge with some constant interaction with some HRs of different companies on social networking sites such as facebook, linkedin and also through a live discussion with them.
The first thing you should do is during their annual review identify those whom you think can be convinced to stay if you give them a counter offer after they got an offer letter from another company and pay them the minimal hike or rewards for that year. This is true regarding almost all the employees so if you cant identify them then assume that all can be convinced with a counter offer since people often would like to stay with a long term well known devil than an unknown entity. When you pay the minimal hike to all, then you can be sure that not more than 40% of the people will try out irrespective of the amount of hike that you have given that year, may it even be 0%. Most of them would like to stay with the false notion and hope that their loyalty might be counted next year and since this year they are rewarded less, then the next year they will be compensated or may be when others go they will be the most tenured and senior and they can grab the opportunities in the company but they fail to consider the other possibility that it it is less likely that they will respect someone who doesnt have the courage or capability to get a job outside even with such blatant negligence of their talent is done to them and their colleagues.
Counter them with counter : Let us say an employee is getting 4k p.a. as his salary and you give him a raise and his salary now becomes 5k p.a. and then he will get a job outside and based on his salary the new company offers him atleast 6k p.a. and he resigns from your organization then you will be at a double loss since you gave him a hike of 1k (from 4k to 5k) and instead you might have given that to another employee who is bound to stay. If you want to retain him now you have to give him 6k or more p.a. (per annum) then you (Boss or organization) will be spending 2k to 3k extra on him now. Many companies are countering this with a counter offer tactic. Instead of giving any annual hike to their employees, you don't give them any hike or give them a minimal hike of 1% or 2% of their current salary. So, as discussed in the above example an employee of 4k with 1% hike will still have an approximate p.a. salary of 4k and with disappointment and frustration he will go out and get a job but now since his salary is 4k and based on that he will get a raise of 1k so he will get a 5k p.a. salary in the new organization and when he resigns you can tell him how great, awesome and efficient contributor he is and how you want him to stay in the same company and for that you are willing to do anything. You will tell him that you will try to get the same salary to him in the present company by talking to the upper management since you like him very much. After this when you offer him the same salary as the new company he is more likely to stay with you than the new company because
a) he now believes that his boss likes him a lot and thinks so highly of him
b) he has his friends, colleagues with whom he has a comfort zone.
c)its natural human tendency for anyone to choose to be with something or someone whom they know for a long time than someone or something new.
When the management uses the same technique on many of its employees the recruiting team of other companies stop considering the job applications from the employees of your company or they will consider them only at the last since now you have branded your employees as unreliable and made them taboo to the recruiting teams of other companies by deceitfully creating a negative impression about your employees in their eyes.
One of the many other advantages of keeping your employee's salary low is the fact that if they now go out no company will give them industry standard pay but they will only give them a % of hike based on their existing salary. Job or employment may depend on a person's talent and skills but his salary always and only depends mostly on his current salary. If you increase an employee's salary who is underpaid then it is most likely that you will lose him instead of retaining him since now he has a new higher pay check on which he can bargain more in the market. If your engineer's pay is 6 lakhs and if you make it 7 lakhs then another company gives him 10lakhs (30% hike) but if you dont raise his salary then he is most likely to wait till it is raised to a level where he can have a good bargain, meaning he will wait and stay in the same organization till it becomes 7 or 8 lakhs because out side for the same skills as his others are getting around 13 or 14 lakhs. He do not want to go out for a pay which is less than the industry standard (most likely) but by the time you make his salary from 6 to 7 or 8 lakhs p.a. the market might have moved to 16 or 17 lakhs p.a. so the cycle of him staying in the same company will continue. you may keep doing this till the demand for his skills in the market reduces or you have enough lesser paid manpower with you to replace him.
These are my personal views based on my readings, experiences of my friends working in many different companies, online articles, HR forums and it has nothing to do with any one particular place of work of which i might be a part of. I like where i work and this post isn't related to that.

Best ways to check out an employee !!!

"Make sure you tell them how great they are, how great their work is but how and why you can't and don't reward them for their greatness or contribution"
you can always tell a person to go out of a company if you are the boss, at-least that is how it was few years ago in almost all the companies and now that situation is still there in many companies if not not in all the organizations.
Over a period of time people have realized that it is messy to tell someone to go and you don't need them anymore. It can be because of their low performance or low efficiency or they have become a luxury or a white elephant. A white elephant is someone whose is an overkill for your need. A white elephant is someone who is very good at what he or she does but also have become and expensive and luxurious commodity. If you have job that can only by done by an elephant then you can get any elephant but a white elephant is rare and super expensive and it does not make sense to hire or keep it for its color or rarity. If you have a task which has to be achieved with with X amount of efficiency and someone over a period of time becomes an expert in it to achieve it at 2X or 3X amount of efficiency even though that is not your requirement. His achievement of course comes with some cost, you might have to pay him a lot more than others where as, as per your requirement of only X amount of efficiency you can always replace this white elephant with some regular elephant who can do the same task at same required or a little better efficiency but less than half of the cost to the company in terms of salary.

1. The best way to tell someone go is not telling them go but to tell them how important you are to them and you do not wish them to go but in the mean time do nothing about it. 
2. You can stop giving him raise, bonus. Make sure for the first few months or year or the terms he appears on the top of the list but let him know that how much the company appreciates his effort and how much you value his work but make sure you don't value it with rewards in terms of money or hike in his pay. This is the first and most important discouragement that as a member of the management you can do to let him know that it is time for him to go elsewhere. If you tell him to go out instead he will fight back with all the statistics about his performance, how he is better than others and it will take a long time and at the end you might lose since he knows his work and contribution better than you as a manager would do since you have to know your entire team members performance where as he has to be worried about just his.
3. make him ask or fight for something which others might get it easily, almost as easily as something which is granted. If you have to approve his business trip travel allowance then take time to do so where as for others you take less time to do it and also make sure you show your sincere regret for the delay that is being caused.
4. Rig his stats if you can to make sure he is not highlighted as the topper and also at the same time let one of his juniors or sub ordinates shine but always make sure to let him know that how highly you think of him as a senior and a performer. If he comes to you about his statistics about his performance being incorrect or not shown correctly and show your sincere sympathy and regret but do it again after some time. If he finds again then you will get a chance to tell him how you regret it and tell them how the other department or someone else is responsible for it and how much you value his work and performance and make him aware of your good intentions where as in actuality you are trying to discourage him since there is always some or the other time they will get tired of trying to find errors in your reports or they will miss and they will start believing that their actual performance is what the card or the rigged stats show.
5. Always have a small talk with them and make sure all your discouragement towards them is channeled indirectly and discreetly. It is also very important for you to believe and know that you will actually be doing him a favor to him by making him go (usually said as letting him go) since for his talent he is sure to get a job outside for a much better pay and perks.
6. If the above are not that effective enough, even though they are effective then find a way and time to tell him that how much you wonder why you are not venturing outside and see the world or work abroad or not exploring the excellent opportunities which are thrice as rewarding as his current role or job can offer since he is way too talented and  more worthy than for his current role and designation and the rewards that come with it.
   
   
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