Employee Aspirations

Today, the HR fraternity is facing new challenges everyday, finding new solutions and undergoing significant changes. The modern HR has revolutionized the employer-employee relationship. The organisations and HR experts have realized that no organisation can be successful without the success of its employees. According to various HR experts and professionals, one of the prime reasons of present high attrition rates in all the sectors is the rising and unsatisfied aspirations of the employees.

Employee's Aspirations
As an individual, every employee has a will to succeed, has some goals and needs in every aspect of his life. The majority of today's
workforce is young, savvy, knowledgeable, mobile and ready to cove the extra mile for their careers. High on aspirations, goals and ambitions, they know what exactly they want. Employees have also become conscious and demanding than ever before. Employees look for an opportunity where they can apply and also hone their skills over the time, want to feel needed, important, and contributing to the organisation, a challenge and opportunities to prove their credibility; and go back home with a sense of accomplishment.

Facing the brunt of the high attrition rates and instability of the workforce, HR fraternity has been forced to look beyond the traditional ways and tools of motivating employees and performance management. The modern HR management is making an effort to identify and manage the aspirations of the employees, so that performers don't move on to the greener pastures (other companies) at the other side of the fence. Managing employee aspirations has emerged as the latest retention tool for the organisations.

Different people, different aspirations:
Basically, an employee's aspirations can range from career aspirations i.e. the responsibilities, authority and position, to the economic aspirations in terms of the money or the compensation involved. But, an important issue or point which cannot be neglected in this regard is aspirations differ from person to person. Different people have different perspectives and different aspirations.

Today employees want to move up the ladder of success very fast. But where some people long for the vertical growth, some strive for the lateral growth. For example, an assistant manager can have entrepreneurial aspirations and might aspire to become the VP or head the department, whereas an employee engaged in some technical job might want to achieve mastery in his skill or craft.

The worst effected are the employees at the junior level, where the employee aspiration levels are at all-time high but the jobs have rather very low scope of growth.

Taking care of employee aspirations:
No employee wants to limit his/her growth and learning. Employee dissatisfaction leads to poor performance, low productivity and eventually high attrition rates. Therefore, the organisation should take care of the employee's aspirations to retain employees and making them with the organisation. People leave an organisation when there is a disparity between the employee's desired career path and the path provided by the organisation. There needs to be a match and alignment between them.

Complications involved:
"Employee aspirations and organisation" is a sensitive and complicated issue, and definitely not without the frills. One of the most practical problems faced by the organisation is the fact that many-a-times the employee aspirations fluctuate or increase at the most opportune or suitable time. Technically speaking, understanding employee aspirations is not an easy task. Employee satisfaction, employee engagement, employee expectations and employee aspirations are all inter-related. Therefore, it would be appropriate to say that this issue carries an excess baggage.

Solutions:
An organisation can take care of its employee's aspirations in various ways, and by doing so it tells it employees that it cares for them and is committed to their growth and welfare. A company can go a long way in understanding their aspirations, needs and requirements, and provide them opportunities within the organisation to grow. In organizational terms, it is known as "Aspiration Management".

It can provide the employees responsibility coupled with authority and accountability, transparent system and procedures, various resources and facilities, accommodating and motivating work culture etc. Most importantly, the organization should align the aspirations to its overall goals via their responsibilities.

The organisations need to identify the stabilizing factor of its employees. Identifying employee's core competencies and making them do what they actually want to and enjoy doing. The organisation can give the employees opportunities of growth in their same job through keeping them abreast with the developments and trainings on their latest technologies and methods. Job rotation can also help to cater to the issue.

Infact, the organisation can actually make the employee aware of his own aspirations and help them to shape their aspiration and walk on the right path and accomplish them.

Conclusion:
Employee aspirations can take them places and can is creating severe problems for the organisations. Therefore, organisations have the challenge of conjoining its goals with the employee aspirations, in order to successfully overcome the problems of high attritions and attracting and retaining the best performers.