Aditya Birla Retail looking at six-fold increase in employee strength; undertakes measures to combat attrition

Aditya Birla Retail, a retail initiative of Kumarmangalam Birla group, which is currently operating 300 retail stores and employing about 8,000 persons, according to Santrupt B Misra, its Director-HR and IT, is looking at increasing the total number of employees to 55,000 for its retail business. He was speaking at a seminar of the National HRD Network in Kolkata.

He informed that attrition rate for the group was at 9%. Of late, this is becoming a major cause of HRM concern, for all business groups. Incidentally, A V Birla group was recently adjudged as the best employer across the country.

Although, the rate of attrition was not very high, the group is looking at outsourcing some of its HR practices. While, overcoming the ill effects of attrition, this would also help the company to grow faster, he added. Employee grievance handling, payroll structuring, etc, are among the services that may be outsourced by the company. Employee induction and training are the services that are increasingly being outsourced by the company.

Misra also informed that to retain employees, 400 employees, were also offered ESOP, this year.

The company is also looking at recruiting employees from outside India, especially for services and expertise that people in India lack.

“In India, there are very few people trained on merchandise and large store management. People also do not know what to do with agri-products, their purchases, etc. We would therefore look at hiring people from outside India for these kind of expertise,” said Misra.

The company provided ESOP to 400 of its employees, in order to combat attrition.

Article was first published on: http://www.indiaretailbiz.com/blog/2007/12/05/aditya-birla-retail-looking-at-six-fold-increase-in-employee-strength-undertakes-measures-to-combat-attrition/