If you are a Human Resource professional working in the Indian market, you would be all too familiar with the deadly menace of absconding employees. Attribute it to the booming job market, lack of professionalism or plain mercenary opportunism, there is no denying that this is one of the biggest challenges which you probably face today. And the experience is probably quite uniform across the size of the company which you may be hiring for, although the largest companies and the so called \u2018best employers to work for\u2019 may have been spared the worst of this menace. Since becoming the largest company in your industry or becoming the \u2018best employer to work for\u2019 is generally not a very feasible solution, most of us are left wondering how to beat this \u2018Gone with the wind\u2019 challenge.<\/p>\n
The impact of absconding employees is not trivial and manifests itself in many ways:
\n\u2022\tSudden disruption in the business continuity for that team, group or department. The higher the abscondee in the food chain, the bigger is the disruption.
\n\u2022\tIncreased work pressure on other remaining members. For startups and small firms, this can definitely become a killer as all the members are generally already over-loaded with work.
\n\u2022\tThe entire time period – in which you discover the act of absconding, confirm it, begin re-hiring, wait out the notice period of replacement hire, on boarding, training and reaching reasonable levels of productivity – can stretch from weeks to months in some roles. All this time, energy and effort could have been unleashed in other more productive directions.
\n\u2022\tA nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach \u2013 did this employee take confidential material, customer list details, source code, vendor list, contract copies among other with him? Agreed that even employees departing in a cordial, mutually agreed upon situation can do so, but with the absconding employee, this risk appears to be much higher.<\/p>\n
So is there any solution for this menace?<\/p>\n