Nandkishore Rathi’s research on ‘Top 10 Human Resource (HR) challenges’ has won the Mercer Award 2003 for the ‘most practical, unique, and innovative research’ specific to the Asia-Pacific region. Ranked by a panel of experts from Japan, the U.S and India, the research was selected among 100 research projects from 38 top Asian universities across 12 countries in Asia.

Rathi’s research, which spans over five years covering 1028 IT professionals across 14 companies, lays emphasis on attrition. The research investigates the issue of turnover through a person-organization fit model, develops a conceptual model to study employee turnover, identifies the factors causing employee turnover and helps understand the process of job-change in the industry.

The attrition level for almost all the leading IT services firms is hovering between 15-20 percent. This becomes even more alarming if one notes that the employee churn at the mid-management level in the domestic IT companies is also growing at a scorching pace. Rathi’s research points out that there is a significant perception gap between what HR professionals think and what software professionals feel. And hence people leave job. Hopefully, Rathi’s empirical study of employee turnover will attempt to bridge this perception gap.

The research provides a segment-wise analysis of the reasons behind turnover further enabling companies to chart a more customized solution. The research also indicates that the reasons for attrition vary for different levels of professionals and explores how the importance of money decreases with experience.