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The IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior

The Influence of Job Characteristics on Attrition in the IT Industry

Article Details

Pub. Date	: October, 2021
Product Name	: The IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior
Product Type	: Article
Product Code	: IJOB61021
Author Name	: M Showry and Ravi Dasari
Availability	: YES
Subject/Domain	: Arts & Humanities
Download Format	: PDF Format
No. of Pages	: 14

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Abstract

The attrition of employees has emerged as one of the unyielding human resource challenges confronting the IT industry. Brutal cost-efficiency, intense competition, relentless innovation, and persisting rate of attrition of employees would threaten the organization's ability to accomplish strategic goals. Hence, organizations in the IT sector have made substantial efforts to reduce the rate of attrition by implementing diverse HRM practices. Despite the implementation of innovative human resource practices, the attrition among IT professionals remains unabated and threatening the competitive advantage of the organization. Hence, the managers have shifted their attention to examining the influence of the job characteristics on employee attrition. The current study examines whether or not an employee's subjective evaluation of job characteristics influences attrition by using Hackman and Oldham's job characteristics model. The findings of the study conclude that skill variety, task identity, task significance, and autonomy influence attrition.

Introduction

Studies show that employee attrition in the IT industry is significantly higher than in all the other industries. According to the research firm Gartner, the attrition rate has seen a steep rise from sluggish 10% in 2020 to alarming 20% in 2021, and some are even battling with higher rates of up to 30%. According to Business Standard, the attrition rate at top tech majors like Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech touched a new high of 20.1%, 20.5% and 15.7%, respectively. The research studies indicated poorly designed tasks, lack of appreciation in the job and task ambiguities that triggered an intention to leave the organization. Employees are the most indispensable resource of any organization, especially the IT industry, as they are responsible for delivering the projects on time and fulfilling the specifications of the clients which are the key to accomplishing the objectives of an organization. To achieve this, an organization should design a job environment that stirs up efforts to acquire and utilize skills, and importantly allocate specific tasks according to the skills that they deliver on the job. However, many organizations in the