Promotion cycles, special salary hikes: India Inc does its best to retain top performers

As attrition soars across corporate India, companies are focusing on putting strong employee retention strategies in place, particularly for top performers and those with in-demand skills.

Quarterly promotion cycles, special salary hikes/off-cycle pay-outs, hybrid work/work-from-anywhere options, sponsored higher education programmes, upskilling and career development opportunities are some of the avenues companies such as Cognizant, Persistent Systems, Tata Steel, RPG Group and Mercedes-Benz among others are looking at to keep attrition in check.

Recent research by Microsoft showed that almost 62% of India’s workforce have intentions of switching jobs this year, compared to an average of 41% globally. Attrition is at its highest level in a decade at 20% this year on an average for all sectors in India, according to the Aon India Salary Increase Survey.

At Pune-based Persistent Systems, which had earlier flagged concerns about attrition in the IT industry, in addition to annual increments, an annual quota is being provided to delivery leaders to make salary changes for people they consider important for the project. There’s a quarterly HR connect with top talent to ascertain and address any attrition risk, and a hybrid approach to working in keeping with new employee expectations.

“For special projects, for the key employees, we are relooking at compensation and providing additional bonus that is also tied up with retention. Compensation is being relooked and changes made for some other special skills as well,” said chief people officer Sameer Bendre.

“Most companies realise the need to create some form of programme to stem the attrition of talent from certain critical areas. Companies are doing this through either creating off cycle pay-outs or creating retention bonus structures. They are being more structured about it now than in the past,” says Anandorup Ghose, partner at Deloitte India.

Cognizant, which hit a record attrition rate of 31% in the June quarter, says it in investing in the career growth and development of people more than ever. It has introduced the Job Moves & Promotions Program enabling associates to target higher level roles as well as launched the Cognizant Higher Education Program in India to help people pursue advanced degrees while remaining on the job. The firm is also shifting to a quarterly promotion cycle.


RPG Group is giving higher salary increases to tech talent or those with in-demand skills who are at a greater attrition risk. Tata Steel recently implemented an AI-based Internal Talent Marketplace named “Step Up” to enable employees to engage in cross functional assignments of their interest.

“Overall, we are working on improving employee experience through various people-centric interventions and have formed a dedicated team for the purpose,” said a Tata Steel spokesperson. Barring some niche areas, they have not faced any abnormal attrition among critical talent.
Mercedes-Benz India has, among various other initiatives, offered job rotation and international assignments as development and retention measures. It has also rolled out a flexible hybrid working model which allows, based on job profile, approximately 50% work from home.

“Mercedes-Benz India has one of the lowest attrition rates, both for blue- and white-collar employees, in the automotive industry in India. Our people policies provide ample learning and development opportunities across functions,” said director and CEO Martin Schwenk.