Have you ever seen a Lilly flower to a Rose plant? Or a Mango to a Coconut tree? I see a lot of them in the corporate world. Well, I am not a Human Resources Guru, but I learnt a lot in my 4-year entrepreneurial journey, that’s worth a lot.

I was talking to an entrepreneur in a domestic flight from Hyderabad to Bengaluru. Though the journey was short, we had an interesting conversation. They were in business for over 4 years with a team of about 28 employees. He proudly told me that they had ZERO attrition till date. Yes, you heard it right. I was zapped! Not because its just difficult, but its almost next to impossible.

A startup with zero attrition in a competitive industry is unheard of. So, obviously I was curious to know how on earth this could be made possible. He told me a few things, which I would probably remember all my life. Run the organisation for your employees, and just for them. Be choosy in selecting them, understand them thoroughly, and spend time with them; everything before hiring them.

Once they are on boarded, take good care of them, make them comfortable, let them open up and be free with others around, as well as with themselves. Create a culture of open communication and togetherness. Let them know that they are important to the organisation and not vice versa. Spend quality time with them.

You might be thinking that this is what your HR also does. So this is not something new. If that’s the case, then why do your employees leave? Do you think they leave you for money? Better designation? Bigger brand?

Actually, they don’t leave you. You leave them!

Every human being has ambitions, a lifestyle, few wants, some needs and a few goals. Simply put, they have EXPECTATIONS in life. All you need to do is understand and deliver those. Just that!

People who want to be heard in the organisation are not satisfied with higher incentives. Someone who desires more money cannot be made happy with a bigger role; so on and so forth. But… but, you can set their expectations by being transparent. Desires are born from expectations; so control them at the grass root level so that they are sent to back burners.

Happy people are not those who aim at either smaller or bigger goals; they are the ones with goals closer to reality. There is a subtle difference between being realistic and ambitious. As long as you know the thin red line, you know what to expect. Fortunately, this holds good for everything in life.

How much to eat, how to reduce weight, how to set your targets, how to start working on a hobby/passion/interest, etc. We give our mind too many tasks with weird logics. So what do you expect the poor mind to do? It starts working on all the tasks you ordered it to perform. The end result is obviously chaos.

You must understand that you don’t take care of your client, but your employees do. Who do you have a control over; your employees or your clients? I wish I could say the latter.

This is a great ‘1 shot 2 birds theory.’ If you take good care of your employees, not only your employees are taken care of, but also your clients.

Agree? Go, rule the world.