How to build companies that last when their employees don’t
- April 16, 2025
- Posted by: AscentHR
- Categories: In the Press, Industry Story
Published in
• Indian companies are facing a stability issue—they’re seeing young employees quit within one to two years of joining work
• For companies, losing employees, even at the lower rung, means all the resources and effort on grooming them have gone down the gutter
• Spending more money and time in hiring and training fresh talent is like putting a band-aid on a fracture, as employees have different priorities
• So, how can companies innovate and meet the younger generation’s demands to ensure their business lasts for a few more decades?
In the golden age of cubicles, employees did not ask questions. Their bosses told them where to sit, when to leave, and how many decades they’d be doing it. The workers—boomers, Gen Xers, and millennials—nodded along. You didn’t negotiate with the institution. You retired from it. Today, the tables have turned.
Take engineering conglomerate Larsen and Toubro, for instance. Its 65-year-old chief executive, SN Subrahmanyan, started working there when he was 24; his predecessor, AM Naik, now 82, joined even younger. It’s been a company of loyalists. And now, the same company’s senior leaders are engaging with young talent through what’s known as chai pe charcha (translation: tête-à-tête over tea).
So, when a management trainee, just nine months into the grind, speaks of quitting, the contrast is evident.
“I’ll start looking for other jobs with a 40–50% hike in the next few months,” said the trainee, who isn’t satisfied with his annual pay of Rs 10 lakh ($11,600). Besides, there are “many constraints to learning,” he claimed, citing how freshers aren’t deeply involved in decision-making or ideation.
Of the nearly 50 other trainees who joined with him in June 2024, one-fifth have already quit. Several others are planning to, he claimed. L&T refrained from commenting on this specific cohort but said, “92% of all of last year’s hires” were retained.
Zoom out, and it’s not just an L&T thing.
Young employees are now seeking “a job, not a career”, according to Murali Santhanam, chief human resource officer at Ascent HR Technologies, an HR tech firm providing staffing services. Demanding a 30-40% hike in salary with every jump, their approach to life itself has changed: “I want to grow fast, retire at 40, and then start something of my own.”
To read the full article, visit:
https://the-ken.com/story/how-to-build-companies-that-last-when-their-employees-dont/