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BEST RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES

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ACCENTURE:

Type Public

(NYSE: ACN, ISIN: BMG1150G1116)

Founded 1989 as Andersen Consulting

Headquarters Accenture Ltd. Hamilton, Bermuda (registered)

Key people William (Bill) D. Green, Chief Executive Officer

Industry Management consulting, technology services and

outsourcing

Revenue ▲ $19.7 billion (2007)

Net income ▲ $1.24 billion (2007)

Employees About 178,000 (2008)

Slogan High performance. Delivered.

Website www.accenture.com

History: Formation and early years

Accenture originated as the consulting division of Arthur Andersen, which Arthur

Andersen and Clarence DeLany founded in 1913 as Andersen, DeLany & Co.

Accenture's origins are in a 1953 feasibility study for General Electric. GE asked

Arthur Andersen about the feasibility of automating payroll processing and

manufacturing at GE's Appliance Park facility near Louisville, Kentucky. Arthur

Andersen recommended installation of a UNIVAC I computer and printer, and GE

agreed, which is the start of what became the first-ever commercial computer in the

United States. Joe Glickauf was Arthur Andersen's project leader for the GE

engagement and was responsible for the payroll processing automation, launching

commercial data processing in the United States. Considered to be the father of

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computer consulting, Glickauf headed Arthur Andersen's Administrative Services

division for 12 years

Emergence of Accenture

On January 1, 2001 Andersen Consulting adopted its current name, "Accenture". The

word "Accenture" is derived from "Accent on the future". Although a marketing

consultancy was tasked with finding a new name for the company, the name

"Accenture" was chosen by an employee from the Oslo office named Kim Petersen,

as a result of an internal competition. Accenture felt that the name should represent its

will to be a global consulting leader and high performer, and also intended that the

name should not be offensive in any country in which Accenture operates. The choice

of name also means that the company appears closer towards the top of any

alphabetized lists, and retains the AC letter sequence of its previous identity.

It is also rumored that while the idea came from someone in the Oslo office, the

thought that started that idea came from the training regime that almost all new

employees to AC were put through, where many of the classes were called "Accent on

C", a reference to the C programming language.

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HR STRATEGIES

Accenture is the world's leading management consulting and technology services

company. Committed to delivering innovation, Accenture collaborates with its clients

to help them realize their visions and create tangible value. With deep industry

expertise, broad global resources and proven experience in consulting and

outsourcing, Accenture can mobilize the right people, skills, alliances and

technologies.

Great Place to Work for Women

Multinational companies face unique challenges in addressing the importance of

women in the workplace. Since they go to market globally and share people across

borders, they need to develop global leadership strategies to address the women‘s

issues in a complex organization, while allowing for customized implementation at

the local level. Accenture is one company that has learned how to successfully meet

these challenges. The company developed and implemented the Great Place to

Work for Women global strategy to create a culture in which all employees,

regardless of geography, can achieve their personal career aspirations. To ensure

the strategy‘s success, the company has implemented a variety of innovative people

management processes. These processes include metrics, such as geographic

scorecards, a Global Leadership Survey, Global People Survey, and performance

appraisals. It also includes programs such as career counseling, mentoring programs

for women, and events that foster networking and relationship building. Although the

initiative is managed globally, local offices focus on the diversity issues most relevant

to them. Accenture likens its approach to a spider web, with global leadership at the

center, linked to the operating groups and geographies in a complex set of

interrelationships. Managers share initiative results by unit and geography throughout

the company. In addition, in a unique approach for a professional services company,

Accenture has made flexibility an integral part of doing business. At Accenture, going

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part-time or working a modified workweek are not career limiting moves. All of these

efforts have resulted in increased success for women at Accenture.

History and Launch of the Initiative

The global initiative grew out of Accenture‘s US Diversity program, which was

created in 1994. The US Diversity umbrella includes nine programs, one of which is

the US Women‘s Initiatives program. Developed in 1995, it focuses on four areas:

1) External relationship building;

2) Building program awareness;

3) Customized mentoring programs

4) Work balance initiatives, such as the US Working Parent‘s Discussion database

and back-up dependent care.

The success of the US Diversity program paved the way for Accenture to expand its

diversity work to the United Kingdom in 1999, and then to the global level, where the

Great Place to Work for Women initiative was born. In 2000, Accenture Chairman

and CEO Joe Forehand specifically endorsed global women‘s initiatives as critical to

Accenture‘s ongoing success.

Accenture‘s Strategy

The Great Place to Work for Women initiative focuses on four key areas:

1. Provide global direction, vision, and coordination; customize and implement

locally.

2. Aggressively and proactively attract women to the organization.

3. Develop women over the course of their career lifecycles, and create an inclusive

work environment that maximizes commitment and retention.

4. Help women advance in the organization.

Detail on Global Strategy and Local Customization

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Accenture‘s global women‘s initiative operates worldwide in twelve geographic units

and five operating groups, and is accessible to all 75,000 employees. Key elements of

the global strategy, with examples of local customization, include:

1. Provide global direction, vision, and coordination; customize and

implement locally.

Accenture‘s initiative is co-sponsored by the company‘s Chairman and CEO, Joe W.

Forehand, and Gill Rider, Chief Leadership Officer and Managing Partner-Human

Resources, who also manages the program globally. Ms. Rider and her team provide

the direction and vision for the initiative and coordinate the global network of

women‘s initiative leaders in each of the company‘s operating groups and geographic

units. Using the global initiative as a template, each operating group and geographic

unit is responsible for creating a local action plan, which is reviewed twice yearly by

Accenture‘s Executive Committee.

Examples of Local Strategy Development and Oversight Approaches

Japan: In December 2001, all Accenture women in Japan were surveyed to determine

what needs women had. Based on the survey results, the women‘s initiatives team put

in place action plans that included increased access to mentoring opportunities,

improved welfare programs, quarterly meetings for women and men, and more

external events for networking. Japan has also created a confidential dialogue

database for all employees to use in discussing how Accenture can provide a better

place to work for women.

2. Aggressively and proactively attract women to the organization. These efforts

begin at the campus level but also focus on experienced hires.

Global Strategy:

Establish strong relationships with colleges and universities by developing

and teaching courses, delivering presentations, serving on discussion panels,

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and participating in campus women‘s associations, such as the Society of

Women Engineers.

Create recruiting campaigns targeting both campus and experienced hires.

Profile Accenture‟s top female executives in the media and in the careers

section of accenture.com.

Anticipate, shape, and stay current on trends affecting women in the

workforce to put Accenture at the forefront of these issues, through

involvement in such forums as the World Economic Forum and Women

Future Main Event—an empowering daylong series of discussions among the

world's leading business and thought leaders exploring the topic of

leadership—sponsored by Accenture.

Examples of Local Customization:

United States: “Sisters Supporting Sisters Day” at Spellman College, a

historically black college in Atlanta, Georgia. Austria, Switzerland, and

Germany: Accenture sponsored the ―World Women Work‖ conference in

Berlin in February 2002, during which company leaders presented a research

study on executive women in Europe, entitled ―Women and Power.‖ Keynote

attendees included Federal Minister Dr. Christine Bergmann, leader of the

Federal German State of Schleswig-Holstein, as well as numerous

representatives from politics, science, and the media.

3. Develop women over the course of their career lifecycles,

and create an inclusive work environment that maximizes

commitment and retention. Accenture works with women to proactively

address issues that may lead them to drop out of the workforce, move to different

parts of the company, or leave Accenture.

Global Strategy:

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Create, support, and provide opportunities for flexible work

arrangements across multiple career levels. These flexible arrangements are

often innovative and have been a significant factor in the retention and

promotion of women. Opportunities are provided for part time, flextime, job

sharing, modified or compressed workweeks, telecommuting, and leaves of

absence. Innovations include:

o The 3, 4, 5 Schedule allows consultants to be away from the client site

for three nights, work four days at the client site, and spend the fifth

day either at the office, working from home, or off.

o The Part-time Partner Policy allows partners to work part time.

There are currently 14 partners on part-time schedules. In addition,

employees on part time schedules have been promoted to partner.

o Sponsor local women‟s development forums, which create a sense of

community and enable women to share ambitions and achievements in

an informal setting.

o Promote continuous learning opportunities through formal training

and on-the-job experiences.

o Leverage performance appraisals and partner selection/evaluation

criteria to emphasize the importance of employees and managers

becoming ―People Developers.‖ To be considered a successful ―People

Developer,‖ Accenture leaders must be able to work with a diverse

group of people, help their team members address work/life balance

issues, build an open and collaborative team, and understand how to

use the unique perspectives of a diverse workforce to the fullest extent

possible. Partners at Accenture are required to embrace diversity,

create an environment that is respectful and accepting, and be a leader

that others will want to emulate.

Examples of Local Customization:

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Working Parents‟ Discussion Databases are in place in several geographies.

This tool gives individuals the opportunity to exchange information, resources,

and stories about parenting in the interest of balancing the demands of

parenting with a career at Accenture.

“Career Pause”/Balanced Workforce Programme – This UK- and Ireland-

based program allows managers who need greater work/life balance than that

typically afforded by the traditional ―up or out‖ consulting work style to take a

―career pause‖ of up to three years. This ―career pause‖ helps employees

continue to work at their current level without assuming the more intense

activities (selling/thought leadership, among others) required to reach partner

level. This pause can help employees facilitate the transition to parenting, cope

with elderly parent care, or deal with other family issues. When the ―pause‖ is

complete, the employee can resume the full scale of responsibilities needed to

advance to the next career level.

Accumulated Work Model – Developed in the Austria, Switzerland,

Germany region of Accenture, this model allows employees to work full time

for a mutually agreed upon reduced salary (70 to 90 percent of their full

salary). They can then take an extended leave, while still drawing on the

―saved up‖ portion of the salary (the 10 to 30 percent remaining).

Networking Forums – Accenture in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the

Netherlands pioneered monthly large group discussions for women facilitated

by three senior women and focused on defined themes. Norway created a

―women in technology‖ initiative that provides a forum for discussing the

challenges and benefits of working in a male-dominated environment. These

discussions also provide an arena for personal and professional growth.

Community of Interest Groups – Grassroots groups have come together to

provide support and information for and among their members. The groups

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develop around a particular topic of shared interest—for example, a

Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual Community of Interest Group.

4. Help women advance in the organization. Efforts to move women

into leadership roles include:

Global Strategy:

Provide career counselors. Each Accenture employee is assigned a career

counselor who advises his/her assignee on career growth opportunities, areas

of development, and future career goals and objectives.

Create and implement the Visible Career Progression Model. Critical

information on what it takes to advance at Accenture, every step of the way, is

shared with each employee from day one at the company.

Institute the Global Leadership Development Seminar. The inaugural

seminar, led by Joe Forehand and members of the Executive and Management

Committees, was a three-day event designed to further train Accenture‘s top-

performing women for senior leadership roles. The seminar is now being

delivered to a larger audience, which includes men, with guidelines in place to

ensure a diverse group of attendees.

Assign HR representatives/engagement schedulers to match staff with

appropriate projects based on relevant skill sets and experience. An employee

can initiate the staffing process by presenting her profile.

Examples of Local Customization:

Mentoring Program for Women – This program was developed in the US to

improve the advancement and retention of Accenture‘s experienced female

managers by pairing them with partner and associate partner mentors (male or

female) outside their direct reporting relationships. In 2001, the program was

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transitioned to the global operating groups and now has a presence around the

world.

Minority Mentoring Program – Originally launched in the US in 1996, this

program facilitates mentoring relationships with senior executives to improve

the retention and advancement of minorities—defined as individuals of

African American, Hispanic American, Asian American, and Native American

descent. Accenture‘s business units are responsible for customizing the

Minority Mentoring Program to their unique challenges and may make the

program more inclusive and expand eligibility where applicable.

Catalyst Award Criteria: Change Drivers

Accenture‘s approach also includes components that address the criteria Catalyst has

identified as necessary for a successful initiative.

1. Integrate the Initiative with the Business Strategy. The Great Place to

Work for Women global initiative is part of one of three strategic priorities for

Accenture. Accenture has articulated a concise business case that links its

diversity efforts directly to its business strategy, as follows:

―We are an organization of ideas, and recognize that the best idea creation comes in

teams rich with diversity of opinion and perspective. It is imperative that Accenture

nurture and develop all top talent in order to achieve business objectives, lead in

innovation, and truly differentiate ourselves in the market. We believe that promoting

an inclusive work environment will:

Generate creativity and innovation

Increase productivity

Foster stronger employee commitment

Meet/exceed client expectations on diversity and gender issues

Reflect Accenture‘s stature and standing as an organization of ―best people‖

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2. Demonstrate the Commitment of Senior-Level Leadership. Great Place to

Work for Women is the only company-wide initiative sponsored by Chairman and

CEO Joe W. Forehand. The initiative is co-sponsored by Gill Rider, Chief Leadership

Officer and Managing Partner-Human Resources, who manages the program with the

Global Women‘s Initiative Team. Mr. Forehand asked members of his leadership

team, chairs of geographic units and chief executives of operating groups to spearhead

the initiative in their respective geographies and organizations. Ms. Rider led the

development of a formal leadership statement, which was sent to all employees to

formalize the role of leadership at Accenture. The leadership statement articulates,

―The sum of the whole is greater than its individual parts;‖ supporting a diverse work

environment is explicitly defined in the document.

3. Effectively Communicate the Strategy. Programs and communications are

tailored for three target audiences: women at the consultant through senior manager

levels, all executives, and all women. Accenture communicates its commitment to the

initiative through a variety of channels, including a home page on Accenture‘s main

intranet portal. Any employee can access information about both global and local

women‘s activities via this portal. Other communication channels include the global

online newsletter Dialogue, the HR-focused online newsletter Horizons, orientation

programs for all new employees, and two-day new executive seminars for all newly

promoted managers.

4. Create Accountability Systems.

Global Accountability

Business results are not the sole measure of success at Accenture. The chairs of each

of 12 geographic councils are accountable for progress on the Measures and Metrics

Package. This includes a detailed breakdown of headcount, recruitment, attrition,

performance, chargeability rates, and associate partner/partner promotions by gender,

level, business organization, and geographic region. These results are shared during

the quarterly updates presented at Management and Executive Committee meetings.

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Geography/Operating Unit Accountability: Geographic Scorecard

A scorecard is used to measure each geographic unit on a variety of metrics including

net revenue, sales growth, supply demand gap, etc. This scorecard has now been

expanded to measure the percentage of women at the senior manager, associate

partner, and partner levels.

Accountability through Performance Management

The Global Leadership Survey was designed to provide those in leadership roles

with a self-assessment tool and upward feedback for performance management

purposes. In order to advance, senior leaders must score well on the section of the

Global Leadership Survey that indicates a manager‘s ability to embrace diversity. In

the ―People Developer‖ section of the performance appraisal, both partners and

prospective partners are evaluated on their ability to successfully manage a diverse

workforce and develop their people. Because being a good ―People Developer‖ is a

core evaluation priority, poor performance in this area affects compensation.

5. Create Tools to Measure Progress. In addition to the quarterly review of

measures and metrics described above, Accenture has also instituted an annual

electronic Global People Survey that helps measure the success of the overall

initiative.

The Impact of the Initiative

Together, these efforts have resulted in increased success for women at Accenture.

The percentage of female partners has increased globally from 5.8 percent in 1994 to

10 percent in 2002. In 2002, women comprised 14.1 percent of all promotions to

partner globally and 19.0 percent of all promotions to partner in the United States.

Women currently comprise 17 percent of Accenture's Management Committee, the

company's senior leadership group. Furthermore, women represented 41.3 percent of

U.S. promotions in 2001, an increase since 1994 when women represented 31.3

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percent. Finally, in 2001, women of color represented 23.8 percent of U.S.

promotions, up from 10.5 percent in 1994.

Learning while working and earning

One of the key challenges faced by organizations in today‘s dynamic world is to keep

pace with changing technologies and systems. Further to this, it is vital that the

Intellectual Capital that differentiates one organization from the other is kept abreast

of these changes to retain a competitive advantage. Organizations these days are

investing heavily into skilling needs of employees by imparting training of various

kinds.

The concept of training as a serious business is underlined that it is not limited to in-

house organization efforts, but includes tie-ups as well. For instance Tesco Hindustan

Service Center‘s (HSC) ―Tesco Retail Certification programme‖. This is aimed at

developing knowledge of contemporary retail management issues among the

employees of Tesco HSC. The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore will provide

academic input and integrated retail management consulting will conduct workshops

to reinforce the learning.

Accenture - XLRI HR Academy

It is the first of its kind training academy dedicated to the human capital management

needs of the growing information technology and business process outsourcing

industries. This is a 24-month programme for recent university graduates who have

joined Accenture as trainees in the HR department. Trainees who complete the

programme will receive the ―Accenture and XLRI Certification in Human Capital

Management.‖ ―We also have a partnership with LIBA and run a two year PG

programme, a prerequisite for graduate engineers to join Maveric,‖ adds Ranga

Reddy, CEO, Maveric Systems.

In fact most organizations organize two types of training programmes that can be

broadly classified as technical and non-technical. Yahoo offers programmes in 4 key

development arenas to hone technical, professional, life and leadership skills. ―We

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have internally designed a leadership programme ‗Leading Big‘ as well as a variety of

coaching, mentoring and executive development programmes in conjunction with

leading Indian Business Schools,‖ explains Phil Quigley, Manager, Talent

Development, Yahoo! India R&D.

Specifics

These courses are both instructor facilitated classroom courses and on the job (OJT)

delivered by a manager in the form of coaching. Kotak Mahindra does refresher

courses for the mandatory training for product knowledge and positioning, enhancing

selling skills, recruitment and selection, goal setting and train the trainer programmes.

At Perot Systems, employee training is done through ‗Perot Academy‘ that primarily

looks into technical and domain specific training, learning and development training,

soft skills, compliance and performance management programmes. Says Ashok

Waran, Senior VP, Perot Systems and Head, Perot Academy, ―These are of various

levels to best suit the needs of our associates. Depending on the participant profile and

nature of the programme, some are offered in classrooms, while some can be taken

through e-learning.‖

“my Learning”

Accenture uses an internet-based tool called ―myLearning‖, serving as a starting point

for employee‘s professional development. Infinite‘s mandate is that every employee

needs to complete 8 days of training in a year. ―Infinite has tied up with various

training institutes in line with its requirements and also invites external speakers or

industry experts to conduct special sessions on a regular basis,‖ says Prashanth L J,

AVP & Global Marketing Head, Infinite Computer Solutions. The Training and

Development activities at Infinite involve both the on-the-job as well as the classroom

training. As part of classroom training, we have the ―Hire-Train-Deploy‖ model

where individuals undergo extensive training for a couple of months on generic skill

sets. ―Our comprehensive training in Monsanto called ‗Building Excellence‘ aims at

enabling employees with skills and competencies required to compete,‖ says Ernest

Louis, HR Director, India Region.

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The training and capacity building at CRY provides opportunities to individuals to

realize their full potential. ―Experiential training on the other hand helps an individual

gain hands on experience. Employees get involved working in a specific area or a

project and learn the job better. In exploratory learning individuals explore their

current personal stances, ideologies, values and iron out similarities and

dissimilarities,‖ says Shehkar Manelkar, Director, and HR & ADMIN.

Locations

Trainers first do the training in classrooms. Subsequently, the reporting managers

along with the trainers do on the job coaching (not training). This is the only

combination that works explains Arun Patil, Head - Sales Training & Management

Development, Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual life insurance Company Ltd. Mumbai. At

Yahoo, teambuilding and specialty courses are also held in offsite locations like Goa,

Mumbai and Singapore. In fact sessions out of office have a positive effect, advocates

Pramod Jajoo, MD, Xora Software Systems Private Ltd. ―These sessions help in

bonding of the team and recognize each other's strengths,‖ he added.

Most organizations use a combination of on the job training and classroom sessions.

Says Ravi Shankar, Director, Natural Search Internet Solutions; ―The Company‘s

target is to see to it that every employee is involved in training for at least two days

every quarter. The resource persons interact with the target group a week before the

session and elicit information on the areas that needs to be specifically addressed.‖

Classroom sessions are an effective method to introduce a new subject to a participant

while on the job training gives the learner the flexibility of exploring any facet of the

subject in depth at one's own pace and requirement. Team building types of

programmes as well as leadership that are generally outbound. ―We have a program

called ‗Triumph Through Teamwork‘ which is a two day residential programme

conducted in the outskirts, places like Banerghatta jungle resort in Bangalore or

Corbett Park for Delhi associates,‖ explains Mr Waran.

―CSR has been driving its training initiatives on both technical and behavioral front.

CSR engineers also attend trainings on other sites like for technical seminars given in

the UK,‖ says Saritha Radhakrishnan - Manager HR, CSR.

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―We also find outbound training to be very effective when it comes to building better

teams or enhancing the interpersonal skills and to empower people to face challenges

and increase their risk taking capability,‖ says G S Ramesh, Sr. VP - HR, Hyundai

Motor India Limited. Adds Shankar Narasimhan, Director - HR, Ajuba International,

―We have found that classroom training is highly effective when we have to transfer

knowledge. Various tools and methodologies such as, Computer Based Training,

instructor led workshops and intranet supplements this. We have our own in-house

intranet training portal called Skillworx.‖

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COGNIZANT

Type Public (NASDAQ: CTSH)

Founded 1994

Headquarters Teaneck, New Jersey

Key people

Lakshmi Narayanan, Vice chairman

FranciscoD'Souza, CEO

Chandra Sekaran, President and MD

Industry IT Services

Revenue 2.14 Billion USD (Dec 2007)

Employees 55400(Dec 2007)

Slogan Passion for building stronger businesses

Website www.cognizant.com

History

Cognizant started in 1994, as Dun & Bradstreet Satyam Software (by Sushant Gupta)

- the in-house technology development center for the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation

(D&B) and its operating units. Initially a joint venture between Dun & Bradstreet

(76%) and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. (24%), it soon became a 100% subsidiary

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of D&B Corp. In 1996, the company became a division of the Cognizant Corporation,

after the split-up of Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.

In June 1998, Cognizant Corporation was again split into independent companies, and

Cognizant Technology Solutions was formed as a division of IMS Health, a provider

of information solutions to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. The same

year, the company completed its initial public offering and was listed on the

NASDAQ. In November 2002, IMS Health divested its majority interest in Cognizant

through a tax-free split-off.

Operations

Although it is headquartered in New Jersey, USA, most of Cognizant Technology

Solutions' employees are based in the city of Chennai, India. It also has offices in

Bangalore, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune and Cochin and

development centres in Shanghai, China and Amsterdam. Cognizant has over 55,000

employees. It became the first company in the world to be certified for CMMI-Level5

per the latest model.[3]

Cognizant has aligned its businesses vertically and has clients in

Banking & Financial Services

Healthcare

Manufacturing & Logistics

Information,Media & Entertainment

Telecommunications

Insurance

Life Sciences

Retail

Hospitality

Technology

In addition to vertical focus, Cognizant also provides specialty technology services

through its horizontal expertise such as Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence,

CRM, ERP,ITIS,BPO etc

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Financial Health

Cognizant's revenue for the fourth quarter of year 2006 is up 65 per cent from $256.9

million for the corresponding quarter the previous year to $424.4 million, and the

company ended the year 2006 with $1.424 billion in revenue. During this quarter the

company added a net total of almost 4,500 employees and more than 50,000

employees in 2006 overall. The company has a debt free balance sheet. Its income has

seen a compounded 40% annual growth in the last few years. For the five years ended

Dec. 31, 2006, CTSH has grown its revenue by an average of 58.1% every year.

After the close of trading on November 16, 2006 Cognizant moved from the mid cap

S&P 400 to the S&P 500. On March 5th 2007 Cognizant became first American

company to ring the NASDAQ opening bell remotely, from the Company's Chennai,

India techno-complex.

HR STRATEGIES

Employee referral programmes at CTS.

They have this programme for the last four years, much before it became a buzzword

in the IT industry. Over the last two years they have been constantly fine tuning this

programme and They got excellent results because of this. It provided 40% of the

total number of people who joined us. The total number of people who joined us last

year was 1,500. The employee referral programme is therefore the single largest

source of employees for CTS. They obviously use head-hunters, consultants,

advertisements and they have unsolicited walk-ins also. And when it said fine tune, it

is not about money alone. The money has been more or less constant over the last 36

months. But they have seen the results of this programme increasing in terms of

percentage over the last three years. So with money being constant, and results

increasing, it means that something else is happening. And one of the biggest things

that are happening is communication. Communication within the organization across

all levels. And remember, all this is without diluting any standardized process. They

are a CMM Level 5 organization and recruitment process is as good as any customer

interaction or software development process. They are also ISO 9000 certified. This

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means basically that a referral doesn‘t entitle a person for a clean or an easy walk -in

to the organization. It means following exactly the same process that one would have

to follow if he were to come from any other source. So they maintain the process

integrity and I maintain my cost base, which I have not increased over the past 36

months. But I get increasingly larger and larger returns and that is why they are very

proud of our employee referral system.

CTS PREFERS FRESHERS

CTS goes for fresher, when a majority of software development companies are

going in only for experienced programmers

See, it is a very complex decision. But there are a couple of important things, like the

cost of the search. So you are talking of a person with three or four years experience.

What is my cost of search for this person? There are about 60,000 to 80,000 fresh

engineers coming out every year into the market and it is quite a big task to search

and find out whom you want and who wants you. So the cost of search is the first

parameter that they are looking at. Secondly, they are looking to leverage our internal

training capability. Having already invested in and built up an in-house training

center to train young science and engineering graduates into mature software

professionals, gives me another reason to move and look at the model from another

angle. Lastly, our experience is that software (and by 'software' here I mean coding,

programming, system analysis and design) is not a major 'rocket science' that has to

be gained obviously at someone else‘s cost.

They have done a lot of research into what makes good software professionals from

the technical side. There is a set of data coming out which says that if these things are

present, sooner or later, with the right kind of input, the context and the kind of work

he does, he will become a software professional. So why should I then take a long

and devious route to figuring out where that one unique individual is (which involves

the cost of search), when I am not using my current capability to train in- house. And

I have seen it work because clarity of thinking, data rationality ...if they are there,

within six to 12 months I have a very good software professional in my organization.

If you spend a couple of weeks in our organization you will find out why this model

works best for us. Depending upon how the context changes, they change our

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system. It need not be the only model and there could be other models, which could

do equally well for other organizations. So someone who wants only people with

three to four years of experience, I hope has a business reason behind that. It is not to

say that this is a better model over that or this is better over that. In our business

scenario this works and therefore it is good for us.

SKILL SETS THAT CTS LOOKS FOR IN ITS POTENTIAL

EMPLOYEES

The principles, the fundamentals and its application are what they look for in a

candidate. Clarity of thinking, transparency in dealings (honesty) and the ability to

learn and learn continuously. It is a combination of ability, desire and attitude to

learning.

There's what they call ‗learning to learn'. I mean, in this fast-paced industry, change

itself is changing. Another aspect that they look for is, when you are learning a new

method are you able to focus and learn? It not only learning, but also stepping out of

the process to find out how you learn, whether you learn well by doing or by seeing

others do or by reading how to do. These are all different ways of learning and it is

important to know by which method they learn. Then they know by which way they

learn best. From my experience across industries and cultures, by the age of eighteen

this trait is either well established and one‘s preferences are concretized.

CTS calls work „Celebration‟

Like all good things in life, this did not come from one source; be it the

Communications department or from my CEO‘s brainwave at midnight. It comes

from experiencing fun in actually what they are doing.

You know this concept of soaking the rice. To make your dosa or idly, you soak the

rice before grinding it and then the batter is fermented after which only you get your

dosa or idly. Now what was happening over the last 36 or 48 months was that they

were getting soaked up in the fun atmosphere and then They realized through our

ability of ‗learning to learn‘ that what was happening over here was that they were

having fun. Then they went into how it happened. But it was not like - suddenly the

23

posters came out ‘Celebrate Work’ and they were having fun. That was just when

They decided to say to the world that for us fun and work are not two separate things

of the same continuum, but that they are part and parcel of each other. That is how it

happened.

Flow of information within CTS has added value

It has added the value by helping us make the transition. If this were not there, there

would be no transition. If they were a Y2K company still in 2001, They would have

all gone home, because this flow of information is core to the business. This flow of

information across all levels has added value to the organization and created openness

in sharing.

WHAT IS YOUR APPROACH TO IN-HOUSE TRAINING?

They say that every person should be trained for ten days in a year. Our total revenue

spent on training should not be less than 4% of the total turnover. That is a huge

amount of time and money. If there are transitions and if the context in which you

work, (the market, the environment) keep changing, what do you have to do? You

have to re-skill. What does it mean to re- skill an organization? You have to re-skill

individuals who are the final unit of analysis. Then you re-skill the team, the project

and the organization. This is not something that is done to make the annual report

look good or because it is good. They do it because it is core to the business. If they

don‘t train, they would be dead. It is as simple as that. I don‘t think they do anyone a

favor by training our people.

24

INFOSYS

Type Public NASDAQ: INFY

BSE: 500209

Founded July 2, 1981

Headquarters Electronics City, Hosur Road, Bangalore, India

Key people

N. R. Narayana Murthy (Co-founder, Non Executive

Chairman and Chief Mentor)

Nandan Nilekani (Co-founder and Co-Chairman)

Kris Gopalakrishnan (Co-founder, CEO and MD)

S. D. Shibulal (Co-founder and COO)

Industry Software services

Products Finacle (a financial software package for the banking

industry)

Services Information technology services and solutions

Revenue ▲ $3.1 billion (in FY 2006-07)

Employees 88,601 (As on December 31st, 2007)

Slogan Powered by Intellect, Driven by Values

Website www.infosys.com

INTRODUCTION

Infosys technology, a leading software company based in India, was voted as the best

employer in the country in many HR surveys in the recent years. The company is well

known for its employee friendly HR practices. Though Infosys has grown to become a

US $ 2 billion company by the year 2006, it has still retained the culture of a small

company. Infosys attracts the best talent from across the country and recruits

25

candidates by conducting one of the toughest selection process. Infosys was one of the

first companies to offer ESOPs to its employees. The company followed variable

compensation structure where the employees‘ compensation depended on the

performance of the individual, the team and the company. It also very tackles the

challenges faced by the company to retain its talented workforce.

THE HR PRACTICES

Most of the HR practices of Infosys are a result of the vision of its founders and the

culture that they have created over the years. The founder advocated simplicity and

maintained the culture of the company. The employees are encouraged to share the

learning experience. Infosys was the first company to provide the employees with

world class facilities for training and working. The company‘s head office at

Bangalore is located on a 70 acre campus with multi-cuisine food courts and

recreation facilities like swimming pools, a gym, and a golf course for employees.

Since its inception, till the early 1990s, Infosys recruited employees from

engineering colleges. The training imparted to them was largely informal and consist

of on the job training. In the early 1990s it experienced a shortfall of skilled

manpower in the organization due to which it could not realize its growth plan. The

company during that time developed the policy of recruiting personnel with generic

analytical skills and high learning potential and of

imparting them with specific skill required for the job offered in the company.

Infosys international business strategy revolves around 5 elements:

World-class operating model.

Focusing on human resources.

Providing managed software solutions.

Exploiting a well established off shore development model. Maintaining an

equitable client and business mix.

The company believes that in order to succeed in the competitive environment it is

necessary to recruit, train, and retain talented employees. Infosys aims at recruiting

26

the best available talent, training them according to the industry demands and

retaining them in a culture that promoted informal learning and free flow of ideas.

The career model that the Infosys created emphasizes on individual growth along with

organizational growth. The employees can identify their career path and the additional

skills they would have to obtain to move ahead in their career. Infosys identifies the

structural requirement of the people at different levels and creates a demand for the

roles. If the employees fulfill those demands they would inspire for that role. Infosys

adopts a role-based structure, which ensures an employee career growth through

different streams, customer interface stream, and domain consulting stream. In each of

the streams, the role of the employee is defined and for each role competencies have

been identified and created. Recruitment, training, performance appraisal and career

progression are carried out based on the roles.

RECRUITMENT

Infosys takes adequate steps to recruit people on the basis of various factors to

identify the right candidate. The following are the main factors that are considered

while recruiting new employees.

Learnability:

Infosys give more emphasis on learnability, it means the ability to derive

generic knowledge from specific experiences and apply the same in new

situation.

Competency: I

Infosys give more importance to professional competence and academic

excellence.

27

RECRUITMENT PROGRAMS:

Instep:

Infosys Edge

Infosys' IT consulting and software solutions address the mission-critical needs of

Fortune 500 corporations as well as emerging corporate leaders. Located across the

globe, Infosys handles a variety of exciting multi-million dollar projects for clients

including Adidas-Salomon AG, Apple Computer, J. Sainsbury PLC Group, Nortel

Networks, Salomon and Taylor Made and Toshiba Corporation through its pioneering

Global Delivery Model. Infosys offers a stimulating and challenging, yet informal and

campus-like work environment.

InStep - Venture, Discover, Achieve

InStep is an internship program for undergraduate, graduate and PhD students from

top academic institutions around the world. As part of the Infosys family, you are

given an opportunity to work on high-quality, customer-facing projects. While you

venture into new and emerging technologies and business opportunities, you will

discover your untapped potential and achieve the impossible.

Projects Unlimited

This program provides a platform for you to work on live technical and business

projects, ranging from application development to business consulting in Infosys'

offices worldwide.

Time Schedule Flexibility

InStep runs through the year, to suit academic calendars across the globe. The

internship assignment ranges from 8 - 24 weeks.

Global Exposure

InStep interns gain not only experience in the dynamic Information Technology

industry but also global exposure by working in a multi-cultural environment.

28

Interaction with Senior Management

Infosys' senior management is regarded as a pioneering synergy in the Indian IT

industry. Mr. Narayana Murthy (Chairman and Chief Mentor) and Mr. Nandan

Nilekani (Managing Director, President and CEO) were voted Fortune Asia's

Businessmen of the Year 2003.

As an InStep intern, you will get an opportunity to interact with top management

when initiated into the company.

Constant Support

A student mentor will help you settle into Infosys' international working environment,

while a project mentor will guide you through your internship assignment.

Benefits

You will receive a monthly stipend. The stipend is structured according to the cost of

living in the region that you are based in during your internship period. Infosys will

also pay for your airfare. Owing to our large infrastructure in India, we will also

provide accommodation in a fully furnished apartment, free food and cab

transportation within the city for students working from our offices in India. What's

more, you will also have an opportunity to experience India during the 'intern

excursion'.

Infosys offers internship to student from foreign universities, through a program

called Instep.

The duration of the Instep program was six weeks. Instep receives around 9,500

applications and chooses around 100 students as interns. The interns are from reputed

universities and business schools like MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Wharton, Carnegic

Mellon, Oxford, London Business School, Munich, Damstadt, INSEAD, and Royal

Melbourne Institute of Technology.

The students are exposed to live projects during their internship with Infosys. The

students undertake a study on a wide range of topics like equity based compensation

in the HR department, the telecom industry in Europe, and new services that could be

offered there and other topics such as work ethics, working hours, and employee

motivation.

29

As a part of this program, Infosys conducts a seminar through which the interns are

given a basic idea about Indian culture, cuisine, working styles, etc. in order to guide

and help them during their internship, the interns were assigned to mentors who

guided them on project related activities.

Global Talent Program:

The Global Talent Program is Infosys universities level recruitment program outside

India. Trainees recruited under the program undergo a customized education and

training program in Mysore, where they are trained on technical skills, client facing

skills, and the global delivery model of Infosys. In 2006, 126 students from 85 US

universities are offered employment in Infosys. Infosys are also looking at UK and

other European countries besides Australia and China and planned to recruit 300

trainees from the US in 2007.

Campus Connect:

How many times have IT companies‘ employers complained about fresh recruits from

engineering colleges not being ―industry ready?‖ Enter Campus Connect (CC) to

bridge this gap!

Launched by Infosys in May 2004, CC is a unique academia-industry initiative to

―architect the education experience‖. Our goal is to build a sustainable partnership

with engineering education institutions in India and abroad for mutual benefit;

producing ―industry ready‖ recruits

Our objective in launching the CC programme is to enhance the quality and quantity

of the IT talent-pool; sustain the growth of the IT industry itself. We don‘t want to

increase the number of engineering colleges, or the number of graduates. We intend to

increase the employability of students. We want to have a consistent output,

irrespective of all variables involved. It doesn‘t matter where the college is located

(big city or remote town), the kind of faculty, or students. However the conditions

may be, with the help of our partners, we want to achieve a high-quality, constant

product.

30

As per predictions, by the year 2040, Asia, especially the Indian subcontinent will

have the maximum number of working professionals in the world! Doesn‘t this throw

up huge possibilities your way? Clearly we have a plethora of opportunities staring us

in the face. The future looks bright and promising…all we need to do is work towards

it.

Currently we have more than 300 engineering colleges under our wing, and the

numbers are growing steadily! As a part of the CC programme, we have launched this

portal. The portal will provide a digital platform for academia-industry interaction

anytime, and anywhere.

What do they do?

We align the college curriculum with the industry's requirements, and work with

educational bodies towards implementing it. We organize sem ina rs and training

sessions for the faculty to give them an industry perspective, enabling them to train

the students accordingly. We design industry-oriented topics, and provide the

courseware to students; we give them projects to do, and also provide sabbaticals for

the faculty. The Infosys courseware is published on our portal, to be viewed by

member colleges.

Foundation Programme (Generic)

We have a different approach when it comes to learning and teaching. The Foundation

Programme aligns technical competency to a student's individual needs. Our

methodology goes beyond teaching what is available in the books. It comprises real-

life case studies, and insights into application of technology. These unique teaching

aids go a long way in ensuring that the students are ―industry ready.‖

Faculty Ennoblement Programme

The Faculty Enablement Programme introduces to the faculty the 9 generic courses,

CC teaching methodology, and prepares them to roll out the Foundation Programme

in their colleges. Through this programme we aim at a paradigm shift in the learning

and teaching methodology at an accelerated pace, to increase effectiveness. The way

the faculty train the students, assess them and put technology to use undergoes a

31

major change. It exposes faculty to the Infosys way of professional training and

sharing industry best practices.

Soft Skills Programme

We want students to acquire behavioral skills that will enable them to live by

principles. We believe that a person who has strong principles, and is trustworthy, is a

better team player than the others. This programme aims at grooming individuals into

excellent team players, who will have strong communication skills, and will adapt to

the corporate work culture easily.

Student Industrial Visit

A student- faculty group from different engineering disciplines visits one of the

Infosys DCs, and spend half a day there. The purpose of this visit is to demystify the

image that students would have on the working of IT business enterprise. The well-

planned event exposes them to corporate work culture, learning environment, Infosys

background, services offered to global customers, and learn about leading edge

technologies through short lectures.

SABBATICALS

CC sponsors sabbaticals for the faculty, involving them at Infosys' Development

Centres for 2-3 months. We want to expose the faculty to real-life customer project

experiences. This is very important, as the experience that the faculty gains here is

further transmitted to the students.

Deep Dive Technology: Train the Trainer Programme

It is a technical workshop for engineering college faculty, conducted at one of the

Infosys' campus. Train The Trainer (TTT) covers an assorted set of industry oriented

topics for a chosen focus area and latest trend of technologies in IT. It involves team

discussions and analysis of real life case studies/projects. TTT is the ideal setting for

faculty to interact with su bject matter experts, and impart the knowledge acquired to

their students.

32

KEEPING IN TOUCH!

• Conclave : The CC Conclave brings IT managers and college management on

the same platform to discuss the need and actions for academia-industry collaboration.

• Regional Meets: Regional meets are an attempt to bring all the partnering

colleges on the same platform with the CC team. In the meet we acknowledge

excellent performances by partner colleges, motivate other colleges in the region, etc

Contests

Aspirations 2020: We want to create an exciting and appealing learning environment

in the CC partner colleges through knowledge events . As a part of this initiative we

are conducting a series of contests, clubbed together as Aspirations 2020. It will include

an IT-related quiz, a paper presentation contest, and a ―distinguished engineer‖

contest (will involve problem solving, crisis management etc).

Campus Connect

In July 2004, Infosys launched the Campus Connect program that focuses on

grooming the students in engineering colleges and transforming them into industry

ready professionals. Infosys invested Rs.100 million in the program, and published its

in house courseware on its website. The program is aimed at reducing the burden of

training at Infosys, as the students of Campus Connect program would have some

amount of training imparted to them. The program also aims at solving issues such as

outdated courses that are taught in some of the engineering colleges and the absence

of industry orientation among the engineering colleges and students.

As a part of Campus Connect Program, Infosys launched a portal to connect students

and teachers of engineering colleges with the company. The portal contains

information and courseware related to IT industry that can be used by the students and

faculty. The portal also contains online tests to help students assess their capability.

Other Programme:

Infosys uses Recruitment Management system (RMS) developed by Blueshift, an

online solution provider based in Chennai, India. It has different modules for

33

candidates who applied directly, for employees‘ referrals, for staffing agencies which

submitted the profile of suitable candidate and for application submitted by campus

placement coordinators.

Candidates who are not selected can reapply after nine month. In 2005 -06, more than

14, 23,000 candidates applied to infosys for employment, of these 48,750 were

interviewed and 16,878 joined the company. Last year, the company had more than

1.3 million applicants for full-time position and hired only 1% of them.

Recruitment Procedure

Each year, out of the total recruitment infosys plans to hire 70% college graduates and

30% lateral workers. In the first quarter of 2006-07, 4,200 freshers were recruited

while lateral hires were at 2,140.

The Steps in recruitment procedure:

Sources:

The Company uses different sources like Campus Interviews, advertisements in

newspapers and from applications received through the company website.

Short listing of candidate:

Initially the candidates give the initial screening test based on their academic criteria

and experiences. Short listed candidate are called for a written test which comprises of

arithmetic reasoning, analytical thinking and English language skills. Candidates who

scored the cut off marks in the selection test are called for an interview.

Interview Stage:

The interview panel consists of personnel from HR department and technical

manager. During the interview a candidate‘s communication skills, presentation skills,

flexibility and aspiration level are tested.

34

TRANING NEW RECRUITS

Infosys conducts a 14.5 weeks technique training program for all new entrants. The

company spent around Rs.2, 00, 000 per year on training each new entrant. The new

recruits are trained at the Global Education Center (GEC) in Mysore, which has

world-class training facilities and the capacity to train more than 4500 employees at a

time.GEC,which was inaugurated in February 2005 is spread over 270 acres and was

the largest corporate training center in the world with 58 training rooms and 183

faculty rooms at that point of time. Other facilities at the GEC included the largest

gym in India, a cricket field a volley–ball court,22 tables tennis court, swimming

pool, six lane bowling alley, four screen digital auditorium, meditation hall, and a

library. Commenting on the training facility, fortune wrote,‖ Indeed, the $120mn

Infosys center, which opened last year, is an odd combination of Disney world, club

med, and a modern American university. It‘s enough to make you forget the poverty

outside and believe you‘re in a first world fairy tale‖

The new employees are trained on the culture and value system of Infosys and also on

technical and managerial skills. The first three days of training comprise of

orientation about the culture and values of Infosys, and about the company‘s

customers. This is followed by five weeks of foundation courses on programming,

systems development, and inter-personnel skills. In the following seven weeks, the

new entrants are trained on technology courses like C++, UNIX, and HTML.

The training program equips the new entrant for a challenging career in software and

comprises of generic conceptual courses, platform specific courses, a mini project,

and an end term project, which is designed in the form of real life projects. The new

entrants are also imparted training in communication skills, interpersonal skills,

customer interaction, management development, and quality systems.

Care is taken to ensure that the necessary technical skills are provided along with soft,

interpersonal and communication skills, and quality-related competencies. There is a

feedback mechanism to ensure continuous improvement in the training program.

35

TRAINING PROGRAMS FOR EMPLOYEES

Infosys also conducts training programs for experienced employees. The company has

a competency system in place which takes into account individual‘s performance,

organizational priorities and feedback from the clients. According to the system,

every employee is to have a training plan based on the identified competencies. The

training interventions are organized in four areas-technical training, managerial and

skills training, domain training, and training on quality processes. Technical training

accounts for half of the total training efforts.

The E&R department conducts training courses which are mainly project-specific.

Most of the training is class-room based while the training through e-learning is

limited. Employees can nominate themselves for the training programs. For each of

the streams –project management, customer interface, technical, program

management, and domain consulting, the behavioral and technical competencies

require to be outlined. Training is also imparted in other streams including quality

process training, personal effectiveness, and managerial development. Every quarter,

over 100 technical training courses are offered. The technical training is imparted for

eight days.

The quality process training is also conducted on a regular basis. For software

engineers, quality process training includes courses on configuration management,

defect prevention, and an introduction to CMM, for the programmer analysts, the

quality training comprised defect prevention training and an internal auditors training.

At the program manager level, the quality process training included implementing

CMM and statistical process control.

The need for the managerial development programs was assessed through the

performance appraisal process. During performances appraisal, the employees are

asked to choose, in consultation with their superior, areas in which they need training.

Then the required training is imparted and during the next appraisal the improvement

is tracked. The E&R department takes complete responsibility for imparting the

36

training to the employees. It also conducts research on emerging technologies and

designs the training programs according to the trends in the industry.

Infosys conducts over 160 middle level training programs. The training needs are

determined depending on the business needs. The management determined the

upcoming technology requirements and communicated these to the E&R department.

The senior executives of E&R and other departments decide on the content and

duration of the course. Another way of determining the training needs was during the

process of planning. At the planning meetings, expected projects are forecasted along

with the required skills to arrive at the training needs.

Apart from technical training, Infosys conducts several other training programs

including soft skills, communication, building competency, and personal

effectiveness. Personnel effective training is imparted through the Infosys finishing

school, where employees are trained on business etiquette, business communication,

assertiveness skills, and customer skills for a period of eight days. A milestone

program-PRAVESH addresses the needs of the employees when they assume higher

positions in the organization. For employees schedule to travel abroad for the first

time, a program called ―first time traveler‖ is conducted, which aims at sensitizing the

employees to new cultures and workplace. The training is spread over six modules

and is conducted over a span of three days. It includes personal trait understanding,

culture and projects elements appreciation, customer interfacing, communication

skills, corporate etiquette, and social interfacing.

Another training program called ―chips‖ {cultural highlights and international

practices sensitization} is targeted at employees traveling to the US, EUROPE, and

the Far East countries. A one-day program, which is meant for employees traveling to

different countries. For employees who are to stay in another country for long time

periods; Infosys conducts language training. Infosys believes that all employees have

to ultimately serve the customer, and conducts a program called C-enabled, or

customer-enabled. This program helped the employees to interact with the customers

37

COMPENSATION POLICIES

Infosys compensates its human assets in three ways. Infosys adds learning value

through training and development and appraisal practices. Infosys adds emotional

value through initiatives directed towards supporting employees with their work and

personal needs, and we adds financial value through monetary compensation.

Although Infosys faces strong domestic and international competition for its human

assets, through enticing offers from competitors, the compensation level at Infosys

equals the average industry level for each country. It is neither above market nor

below the market level.

Infosys is one of the first Indian companies to offer stock option plans to their

employees. Currently Infosys offers three option plans that cover all Infosys

employees:

1994 Employees Stock Offer Plan:

Established in September 1994, the plan provides for the issuance of 6,000,000

warrants to eligible employees.

1998 Stock Option Plan:

Infosys 1998 Stock Option Plan provides for the grant of no statutory stock options

and incentive stock options to employees. A total of 1,600,000 equity shares are

currently reserved for issuance pursuant to the 1998 Plan. Unless terminated sooner,

the 1998 Plan w ill terminate automatically in January 2008. All options under the

1998 Plan w ill12 Please see Appendix C for description of one such scale.13 ―The

Lightening Spark,‖ Silicon Technology and Business Magazine, August 1998, 50-

51.9 be exercisable for ADSs represented by ADRs.

1999 Stock Option Plan:

The 1999 Plan provides for the issue of 6,600,000 equity shares to employees. A

compensation committee comprising a maximum of seven members administers the

1999 Plan. Options are be issued to employees at an exercise price not less than the

FairMarket Value. Under the 1999 Plan, options may also be issued to employees at

exercise prices that are less than Fair Market Value, only if specifically approved by

the members of Infosys in a general meeting.

38

In addition, such statutory benefits as pension, medical and leave, Infosys also offers

a loan program that employees find very attractive. Loans may be taken for pursuing

a degree program Such as an MBA, or to meet such personal needs as purchasing a

car or a house. The interest rate varies (4% for a car purchase and 0-4% for house

purchase). To date, almost all loans have been repaid.

How Infosys grooms its future leaders…

Great companies can neither be built nor their greatness sustained without great

leaders. A Reliance would not have been possible without a Dhirubhai, nor an Infosys

without a Murthy.

But on August 20, 2006, at the age of 60, when N R Narayana Murthy retires as the

company's chief mentor and chairman, Infosys Technologies Ltd is not really chewing

its nails anxiously.

A succession plan has long been put in place and the smooth transition of authority

and leadership ensured. Murthy will also continue as the non-executive chairman of

Infosys.

Of the seven original founders of Infosys, one of India's greatest corporate success

stories, only four will remain at the helm of affairs at the company from August 21:

Nandan Nilekani, S Gopalakrishnan, S D Shibulal, and K Dinesh. N S Raghavan

retired in 1999, while Ashok Arora had quit the firm much earlier, in 1989, to settle

down in the United States.

While Infosys continues to be in very good hands to take on any challenge, the IT

major has already identified a pool of 400 leaders who will steer it in the future.

Especially, since the founders of the company are in their early- or mid-fifties and due

for retirement at 60.

So how does Infosys groom its future leaders? The process is long-drawn, meticulous,

and in consonance with the company's stated vision: 'To be a globally respected

39

corporation that provides best-of-breed business solutions, leveraging technology,

delivered by best-in-class people.'

This is where the Infosys Leadership Institute at the company's Mysore campus comes

into the picture. The 162,000 square feet structure, built at the cost of Rs 41.1 crore

(Rs 411 million), is where the next generation of Infosys leaders is being primed.

Says S 'Kris' Gopalakrishnan, chief operating officer and deputy managing director,

Infosys: "The company has identified 400 'leaders' on the basis of several parameters:

their performance throughout their tenure with the company being a prime criterion

for selection."

Gopalakrishnan, who will take over as the company's President, COO and Joint MD,

on August 21, spoke to rediff.com at Infosys' Mysore campus during its 25th

anniversary celebrations.

"Great performance puts employees on the fast track to growth within the

organisation. As does their commitment to surpassing customer expectations, setting

standards in business and transactions, and being an paradigm for the industry and the

company," adds Gopalakrishnan.

"Creativity, devotion to being ethical and sincere in dealings, and the commitment to

strive relentlessly in pursuit of excellence are also major considerations while

identifying future leaders at Infosys," he points out.

The charismatic Narayana Murthy, speaking about his retirement, said: "I do feel sad,

but am happy too. It is a mixed feeling. It's like getting your daughter married: you are

sad that she is going away, but happy that there is someone younger -- and stronger --

to take care of her."

"The company is now in the hands of the youngsters. It is necessary to recognise the

power of youth and to nurture it. We must respect youth and create opportunities for

them to participate in everything. Which is why at every function, we have the youth

participating. I am about the past. I am gone. They are the future," says Murthy.

40

"The pool of 400 leaders," says Gopalakrishnan, "that Infosys has identified is from

across the globe and does not comprise Indians alone. It is in keeping with the

company's multi-national, multi-cultural image where excellence is the most

important condition."

"There is a three-tier mentoring process at Infosys.

Tier-1 of the Infosys Management Council, which consists of the company's board of

directors, mentors Tier-2 leaders who in turn guide the Tier-3 group.

About 45 executives are a part of the company's Tier-1 of the management council.

And each of the leaders undergoes exhaustive and sustained training through the

company's personal development programme -- PDP.

Infosys training programmes are designed to enable company professionals enhance

their skill sets in tune with their respective roles," says Gopalakrishnan.

The management council is an advisory body that takes strategic decisions on the

company's businesses and was set up by N R Narayana Murthy, with the idea of

building an outfit that is built to last and is ably "geared to handle the uncertainties of

a global market, the high and lows of business cycles, and to power the company

towards strong growth in the future," says the Infosys COO.

When Murthy first set up the council, he found that the young go-getters in the

company were diffident to air their suggestions. It was then that the idea of an in-

house leadership institute was born. Encouragement from the top management has put

an end to the fears of transgressing the chain of command, and young Infoscions are

now urged to give vent to their creative talent and come up with their ideas and plans.

The faculty at the ILI has in a note spelt out the rationale behind the institute and

charted out the manner in which it operates.

The ILI was set up in 2001 to prepare Infosys to manage its exceptional growth; to

prepare its executives to handle the external and internal business environment; and

through 'thought leadership' create better customer value.

41

The leadership development programme at Infosys takes after similar processes

followed by many global mega corps. It has been refined to suit the particular needs

of Infosys and is termed as the 'nine pillars for leadership development in

Infosys.'These nine pillars form the backbone of the PDP and each leader can choose

from these pillars for personal development. "Depending upon the individual's need to

grow and the company's sensitivity to these needs, every (short-listed) individual is

groomed to lead the company in the future," Gopalakrishnan says.

The chosen few -- 400 of the 58,409 employees -- identified as 'high potential

Infoscions' undergo a three-year 'leadership journey' that includes training,

astonishing personal development programme, interacting with other participants,

understanding the company better and resolving real business issues.

The note prepared by the ILI faculty enumerates 'the nine pillars for leadership

development' as:

1. 360 degree feedback

This is the mechanism through which the company gathers data about an individual's

performance and abilities. This information is collected from coworkers, including

peers, subordinates, managers and customers. Personal development plans are

prepared on the basis of this feedback. Then, each of these individuals is assigned an

ILI faculty member to help prepare the PDP and to follow it.

2. Development assignments

Identified high potential Infoscions are trained at various functions of the company

through job rotations and cross-functional assignments. This helps employees to

acquire new leadership skills outside their own areas of expertise and experience.

3. Infosys Culture workshops

These workshops are designed to fortify the Infosys culture amongst the participants,

help instill better communication skills through sustained interaction amongst

themselves, and identify with the values and processes involved in leadership

development.

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4. Development relationships

This includes one-on-one interaction in actual on-the-job work climate and leads to

better sharing of knowledge and camaraderie amongst individuals. Mentoring forms

an integral part of this exercise.

5. Leadership skills training

The 'Leaders Teach Series' are workshops that the company's Tier-1 members,

including Narayana Murthy and Nandan Nilekani (CEO and MD), hold to acclimatise

the next rung with leadership roles and to groom them through their own rich

experience.

6. Feedback intensive programmes

These are akin to 360 degree feedback, but based on formal and informal feedback

from employees that an individual interacts with.

7. Systemic process learning

This helps individuals to gain an overall view of the company and its diverse and

complex systems, business, operations and processes. It is a continuous process and

helps improve the individual and also the systems.

8. Action learning

This exercise constitutes solving real problems in real-time conditions, but as a team.

9. Community empathy

The company stresses the need to give back to society through involvement in various

developmental, educational and social causes. This programme helps nurture a social

conscience amongst its leaders.

"The last 25 years for Infosys have been successful. And we are ready for the future.

Yes, our growth rates will change, the business cycles will change, our ability to

influence the business environment will change, even our leaders will change.

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SATYAM

Type Public (NYSE: SAY)

Founded (1987)

Headquarters Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India

Key people Ramalinga Raju , Founder & Chairman

Rama Raju, MD

Industry Information Technology

Revenue ▲ 2.1 billion USD (2007)

Employees 49,200 (2007)

Slogan What Business Demands

Website http://satyam.com//

Satyam Computer Services Ltd. was founded by B.Ramalinga Raju in 1987;Satyam

means "truth" in Sanskrit. The company offers a variety of information technology

(IT) services spanning various industry sectors, and is listed on the New York Stock

Exchange.

Satyam's network spans 57 countries across six continents. The company employs

54,000 IT professionals across development centers in India, the United States, the

United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Hungary, Singapore, Malaysia,

China, Japan,Egypt and Australia. It serves over 489 global companies, 156 of which

are Fortune 500 corporations. Satyam has strategic technology and marketing

44

alliances with over 50 companies. Apart from Hyderabad, it has development centers

in India at Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur, Delhi, Kolkata,

Bhubaneswar, and Visakhapatnam.

In October 2007, Satyam announced a collaboration with Cisco to enhance Health

Management Solutions. In November 2007, Satyam is announced as the official

Information Technology Services Provider for the FIFA World Cups to be held in

2010 and 2014. Satyam partnered with arvato systems to provide innovative solutions

for medium-sized enterprise market in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Satyam has been ranked consistently in the top Employers list released by surveys

done by leading groups such as Business India. The company has massive expansion

plans to penetrate across the globe especially Europe. Satyam is poised to cross $2

billion in Annual Revenues for the year 2007-2008.

On Jan 21, 2008 Satyam announced the acquisition of a Illinois based boutique

consulting firm Bridge Strategy. This is yet another acquisition by Satyam after

Knowledge Dynamics and Citisoft. "Satyam has the largest overall ERP practice and

the heaviest commercial focus on packaged enterprise software" - Dana Stiffler,

Research Director, AMR Research, ―Indian Service Provider‘s ERP Practice Grow

up,‖ January 26, 2007.

Satyam is focusing its expertise around NGN transformation. The Company is

investing modestly in developing solutions assets in the areas in which it has chosen

to specialise. This is untypical; most offshore companies are poor at making this kind

of investment and keep margins high by focusing development around specific

projects in order to get an immediate payback. - Eirwen Nichols, Principal Analyst,

Ovum

On February 23, 2008 Satyam completed 20 years of existence. It is considered as

India's youngest software consulting company to exceed $2 billion in annual revenue.

The way they do it at Satyam

SATYAM Computer Services treats its employees as associates of the company. This

speaks a lot about its work culture. About 13,000 associates of Satyam are involved in

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providing IT services to more than 300 customers across 45 countries. In such a big

organization, human resources (HR) practice plays a critical role, not only in the

decision-making process but also in employee welfare and development activities.

The company never wanted to be the best paymaster, but it wants to keep its

associates, customers and investors delighted.

Satyam broadly categories its focus area of responsibility and accountability into three

segments; associates, customers and investors. The vision of the company aims at

delighting these segments. Earlier it used to be satisfaction, but with the increasing

competition in providing cost-effective IT solutions, and the poaching of people, it

has become a major challenge for IT companies to retain employees. This trend

prompted software companies to design various attractive policies and incentives to

retain their staff. Satyam therefore adopted the strategy of winning the hearts of its

associates rather just confining them to the satisfaction level. Satyam's strategy is to

keep all its associates, customers and investors happy. Though the task is not easy, the

IT major has been pioneering with its HR practices that keep them happy.

Increasing salaries is not the right method to retain associates. No company can keep

its employees in its grip infinitely, and there is no end-point in this game. We strongly

believe that money alone cannot bring loyalty; hence our strategy is that while we

maintain competitive pay structures, our HR practices focus on emotional

involvement, on getting attached to the company. Satyam also provides stock options

to all employees even at the entry level. Moreover, performance-based stock options

and incentives are being given every year. These measures have been successful in

making our associates loyal to the organization. We encourage our associates to have

passion…delight with entrepreneurial skills. Our core value is entrepreneurship and

every Satyamite is a leader," A S Murty, the director and senior vice president of HR

at Satyam told IT People.

The company critically evaluates its functioning style in executing projects in time. It

aims to make the customers and associates happy at the same time. Within the

organization, each department also considers others as customers, and every project

leader is a business manager for his team. It has formulated an Associate Delight

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Index (ADI) to measure key parameters such as performance, job satisfaction,

commitment towards the organization, etc., and it is linked to incentives. The higher

the ADI, the more will be the incentives. There is no cap on variable salary, and for

business leaders, there is no cap on incentives.

Recruitment process

Identifying the right candidate and retaining him is crucial for any company to

withstand global competition. Satyam follows two recruitment methods-at entry

and lateral levels.

For entry-level recruitment, it has tied up with about 70 reputed institutions in the

country. Usually this is done at the end of the examinations of engineering courses.

During the year, off-campus interviews are conducted.

1. Entry-level recruitment consists of an aptitude test, group discussion and

technical interview. Satyam believes that hard factors (revenue) and soft

factors (attitude) are both critical in assessing candidates.

2. After the recruitment process is over, candidates are placed in different

business units for about 10-12 weeks. Each unit has a HR wing and works in

a partnership model.

For lateral recruitments, interviews are conducted at two levels.

1. Usually, candidates having 2+ years of experience are considered for lateral

recruitment. During 2003-04, Satyam has recruited about 4,000 associates,

with 40 percent coming from entry-level recruitment. (Internal Search)

2. Of the total headcount, 30 percent of Satyamites are overseas at any point of

time.

3. Orientation: For those Satyamites who are about to travel abroad, an

orientation programme is organised to brief them about the country they are

going to visit. As part of this orientation, Satyamites will be briefed about the

culture, language and etiquette.

47

Help desk

In order to make its associates free of house-related work such as payment of utility

bills, reserving tickets for trains, etc-without any service charge-Satyam evolved the

Help Desk concept, which takes care of all house-related work at product cost only.

The objective of the Help Desk is to create an environment for associates to

concentrate totally on their projects. For those associates who have been transferred

from a different city or country, assistance is also provided to help them find school

admission for their children. For this, Satyam has also tied up with about six schools

in the city. Help Desk Satyam has eight centres in Hyderabad alone, apart from six in

Chennai, five in Bangalore, three in Pune and one at Bhubaneshwar. All these centers

are electronically connected.

The Samanvay concept aims at involving the families of associates in the learning

process on various issues such as health, personal finance, IT education, etc. Only the

parents and spouses of associates are allowed to participate in this scheme, which is

conducted once every two months. Satyam Learning Centre takes care of this and

coordinates the activities. It also conducts cultural and social entertainment

programmes for children of the associates.

Every year in early January, a Satyam Utsav is organised at all the centres where the

families of associates are involved.

Corporate social responsibility

When it comes to social responsibility, Satyam is at the forefront creating awareness

about health, education and environment activities. Satyamites and their spouses have

been actively taking part in such initiatives of the company. Every Satyamite

contributes Rs 20 per month to the Satyam Alambana Trust, and the company

contributes an equal amount. This trust mainly focuses on urban areas.

The Bairraju Trust is a personal foundation of the promoters, and focuses on rural

areas. It trains children below 15 years in IT with an aim at bridging the digital divide.

48

Other activities

Breaking from the routine is very important for everyone, particularly those who are

part of the creative think-tank of Satyam. In order to re-energize its associates, it

provides recreational and entertainment facilities at nominal charges at the Satyam

Technology Centre spread over 128 acres. Here cultural events are organized on every

occasion for every age group. The company also lends a hand to its associates for

their financial needs.

Leveraging its brand value, Satyam has been able to arrange finance facilities for its

associates at reduced interest rates. It has tied up with a few financial institutions,

shopping malls and retail companies for offering discounts on shopping. To keep up

the tempo and enthusiasm among associates, Satyam strongly believes in learning and

offers an opportunity for them to learn different technologies in various countries.

Earlier it was a matter of prestige for parents to say that their son/daughter was

working in the US. Now the more countries they travel to, the more pride for them.

As part of these initiatives, many associates working in maintenance have been

shifted to development and vice versa; associates also move from one package to

other. The best example is Murty himself. A B Tech from the regional engineering

college, Warangal, and M Tech (computer science) from the Indian Institute of

Sciences, Bangalore, he is now looking after the HR department after working on

hardcore technologies for about eight years.

Every Satyamite is a leader. To make Satyamites friendly to each other and create a

no-boss environment, Satyam follows a trendy practice of calling each other-

irrespective of designation-by the first name. The company also follows an open door

policy. Every associate can directly access the chairman and e-mail him too. This has

broken the barriers of the hierarchy system and brought all Satyamites together. For

high-caliber young professionals, age is not a constraint for allocating major tasks

to them. "We have young professionals in their early thirties who are managing big

projects," Murty says. Telecommuting has been growing, and saves a lot of time and

stress for Satyamites. The company believes in virtual leadership, real-time leadership

and delegation of accountability. As part of this, every head of a business unit acts as

a chief executive officer, with great freedom to run his unit successfully.

49

Finally, at the end of the day, everyone needs relaxation from the day's hard work.

The company organizes yoga, meditation and other personality development classes

like the Art of Living for Satyamites.

50

TCS

Type Public BSE: 532540, Public

Founded 1968

Headquarters TCS House, Raveline Street, Fort, Mumbai - 400 001

Key people

Ratan Tata, (Chairman of the Board, TATA Group)

S Ramadorai , (CEO & Managing Director)

Industry Information Technology Consulting

Services Information technology Services and Solutions

Revenue ▲ $4.3 billion (in FY 2006-07)

Employees 110,000 (As on Jan 31st, 2008)

Slogan Experience certainty

Website www.tcs.com

Tata Consultancy Services was established in the year 1968. It began as a division of

the Tata Group, Tata Computer Centre, whose main business was to provide computer

services to other group companies. However, the potential of computerization and

computer services was realized early on, and an electrical engineer from the Tata

Electric Companies, Fakir Chand Kohli, was brought in as the first General Manager.

Soon after, the company was named Tata Consultancy Services.

TCS's first software export project was undertaken in 1974 when it converted the

Hospital Information System from Burroughs Medium Systems COBOL to

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Burroughs Small Systems COBOL. This project was carried out entirely in TCS

Mumbai on the ICL 1903 Computer. In 1980, TCS and a sister Tata firm accounted

for 63% of the Indian software industry exports, $4 million shared by 21 firms. In

1984, TCS set up an office in the Santacruz Export Processing Zone (SEEPZ) –

Mumbai.

The early 1990s saw a tremendous surge in TCS's business, which also resulted in a

massive recruitment drive by the company. In early and mid-1990s, TCS re-invented

itself to become a software products company. In the late 1990s, to accelerate its

revenue growth, TCS decided to employ a three-pronged strategy – developing new

products with high revenue earning potential, tapping domestic and other fast growing

markets and focusing on inorganic growth through mergers & acquisitions. In late

1998, the company decided to concentrate on new revenue opportunities including

Y2K and Euro conversion. E-business was a major area of focus in the late 1990s.

TCS started a project aimed at eliminating illiteracy in India with a pilot project in

Andhra Pradesh. In 2001, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) commissioned the latest

64-bit zSeries eServer from IBM, thereby becoming the first organization in the

ASEAN and South Asia region to adopt the latest technology in mainframe

computing. In 2004, TCS became a public listed company. In fiscal 2006 the

Company's profit before taxes and exceptional items aggregated Rs.3,074.35 crore as

compared to Rs.2,308.65 crore in the previous fiscal 2005 - a growth of 33.17%.

Tata Research Development and Design Centre

The Tata Research Development and Design Centre was established in 1981. TRDDC

is today one of India‘s premier R&D centres in software engineering and process

engineering.

Research and development work at TRDDC is focused in different groups, each

specializing in a key area of work. Projects of an interdisciplinary nature are also

carried out. With expertise in process engineering, software engineering tools and

technologies, advanced techniques, and in systems engineering methodologies,

TRDDC provides solutions within TCS and for major clients. There is also an

ongoing effort to integrate the products into the Eclipse Integration Framework.

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The process engineering group of TRDDC focuses on modeling and optimization of

industrial unit operations for steel and automotive sector.

In addition, TRDDC is also involved in the areas of language processing, formal

methods, and research on Artificial Intelligence and Decision Support.

On account of the ongoing diversification effort, the other centres situated in India

have also begun R&D facilities; the centre in Hyderabad is called Advanced

Technology Centre (ATC) carries out work on e-Security related issues and

bioinformatics.

Recently TRDDC celebrated its Silver Jubilee at its Headquarters in Pune in a

function presided by former president Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and with the launch of

the Co-Innovation Network. Students of the winning schools of the TCS IT Wiz, Pune

were also invited. They included Aditya Ramani, Gautam Sondur, Gyanish Kakati

and Anshul Singhle.

TCS Innovation Labs

TCS currently has 19 labs spanning across 4 countries. Many of the labs are located in

India. The most recent lab however is the TCS Innovations Lab, located in

Peterborough, U.K. This new lab works as a central hub to the other 18 TCS

Innovation Labs, making use of the ideas and innovations created in those labs and

bringing them to one collaborative location.

Indian branches

Currently (2006), TCS has branches in the following Indian cities: Hyderabad,

Bhavnagar, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram,

Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Pune, Nagpur, Jamshedpur, Gandhinagar, Coimbatore, Kochi,

Gurgaon, NOIDA, Bhubaneswar, Nabadwip and Goa.

Global units

Africa: South Africa,Morocco

Asia (outside India): China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia,

Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, UAE

Australia: Australia,

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Europe: Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland,

Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United

Kingdom

North America: Canada, Mexico, USA

South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Uruguay

HR STRATEGIES:

TCS hires more from smaller cities.

India's largest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services on Monday said it will

hire up to 5,000 employees in northern region this fiscal and 70 per cent will come

from smaller cities.

"The company is set to hire 3,000 at trainee level and 2,000 positions will be filled

through lateral hiring in the northern region. We plan to hire over 70 per cent

candidates from tier II and tier III cities due to quality talent present in these places,

which we don't want to miss out on," Thomas Simon, vice-president, HR, TCS said.

The company believes that the knowledge base of these candidates is as strong as

their counterparts belonging to bigger cities. However, imparting training in areas of

language, soft skills and etiquette is essential to give them a finishing touch, he said.

The compensation and rewards for employees across centers would be similar, Simon

added.

Eligibility criterion for trainees would be a minimum 60 per cent score in all the

degrees attained. As for hiring experienced professionals, the cut-off has been kept at

50 per cent, Simon said.

The hiring would be taken up for positions based in the NCR region apart from

Lucknow. While experienced professional hiring would be done for pre-mapped

positions, the trainees would be sent to Thiruvananthapuram for initial training.

The company had earlier said it planned to ramp up head count by 32,000 across India

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this fiscal. TCS has witnessed an attrition rate of 11.5 per cent overall, with 11 per

cent attrition rate in the IT services business and 16.7 per cent attrition rate in BPO in

the first quarter of current fiscal ended June 30.

"We managed to keep a check in the attrition figures this year," Simon added. The

total employee strength of the company was 94,902, from 67 nationalities at the end

of first quarter. There was a gross addition of 8,706 employees, of which 2,898 were

trainees and 4,795 experienced professionals in India and 1,013 employees in

overseas subsidiaries and branches in Q1.

The net addition in the quarter was 5,512 employees. The company is expanding the

talent pool beyond engineering students through its 'Ignite' programme aimed at

science graduates as well. TCS recently completed a seven-month on-the-job training

programme for science graduates.

It also plans to reinforce its new brand image though increased branding activities,

newsletters, blogs, campus portal and interacting with training and placement officers

and institutional heads of technical institutes through its existing forums 'Sparsh' and

'Sangam'.

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WIPRO

Type Public (NYSE: WIT)

Founded 1945 (Pre Independence)

Headquarters Bangalore

Key people Azim Premji, Chairman and Managing director

Industry Information technology services

Revenue ▲$5.0 billion (2008) USD

Net income ▲$677 million (2007) USD

Employees 79,832+ (2007)

Slogan Applying Thought

Website www.wipro.com

Wipro Tech (NYSE: WIT) is an information technology service company established

in India in 1980. It is the global IT services arm of Wipro Limited (in operation since

1945, incorporated 1946). It is headquartered in Bangalore and is the third largest IT

services company in India. It has more than 79,832 employees as of December 2007,

including its business process outsourcing (BPO) arm which it acquired in 2002.[1]

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Wipro Technologies has over 300 customers across U.S., Europe and Japan including

50 of the Fortune 500 companies. Some of its customers are Nortel, Boeing, BP,

Cisco, Ericsson, IBM, Microsoft, Prudential, Seagate, Sony, HP, Windriver, Airbus,

Toshiba and Wal-Mart. It is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is part of its

TMT (technology media telecom) index testing.

With revenue in the excess of US $5 billion, Wipro is one of India's major IT

companies. It has dedicated development centers and offices across India, Europe,

North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. The current Chairman, Managing

Director and majority stake owner is Azim Premji, who has headed the software and

hardware divisions since Wipro's inception.

HISTORY

Wipro was set up in 1945. Primarily an edible oil factory, the chief products were

Sunflower Vanaspati and 787 laundry soap (a by-product of the Vanaspati

operations). The company was called Western India vegetable Products Limited

(WIPRO) ; it had a minor presence in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. In the

1970s and 1980s, it began to expand and made forays into computing. In 1975, Wipro

marketed India's first homegrown PC.

Wipro was the sole representative for Sun Microsystems in India, before the Sun

liaison office was set up in India, in the early 1990s.

Wipro is the highest-ranked Indian IT provider by International Association of

Outsourcing Professionals.

Wipro and its success in handling outsourced information technology from US

businesses is detailed in Thomas L. Friedman's best-selling book The World Is Flat

and Steve Hamm's Bangalore Tiger. Wipro's offshore model is considered 'unique

among the larger players in the security consulting space' according to an independent

report by Forrester Research.

57

HR STRATEGIES

The unique HR practices at Wipro especially in terms of attracting and

retaining talent that set it apart from other companies. Considering the number of

spin-offs that have originated from Wipro, the environment in the company appears

to be particularly conducive to the entrepreneurial spirit.

Among several attributes is the fact that Wipro leaders develop a complete

business perspective early in their career.

Wipro leaders get early general managerial/CEO responsibility to get a good

rounding, and exposure to all aspects of the organization: finance (e.g. P&L),

operations (process, quality, cost etc.) and people perspective

This helps them develop the ability to see the big picture early in their careers. The

feeling of ownership is built through higher responsibilities early in the career. We

strongly believe that strong ownership feeling and multiple opportunities lead to a

passion for hard work.

Our leadership development programmes play a major role in developing leaders.

We have several life-cycle leadership programmes like the

Early Leaders Programme

New Leaders Programme

Wipro Leaders Programme

Business Leaders Programme

Strategic Leaders Programme

Each being targeted at a particular stage in the life of a leader. Finally, it is the self-

confidence to stand up for one‘s view that builds entrepreneurial leaders.

Our 360-degree feedback process helps personal development and builds

confidence. Wipro is a meritocracy competing with some of the best people builds

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tremendous confidence. I believe ESOPs are a good way of sharing wealth with

employees.

Azim Premji‟s View

Premji believes in creating teams of highly charged individuals to deliver superior

performance, investing significant time as a faculty in leadership development

programmes. He was the prime mover in making Wipro the first Indian company to

embrace Six Sigma, the first software services company in the world to achieve SEI

CMM Level 5 and the world‘s first organization to achieve PCMM Level 5. Premji

equates quality with integrity – both being non-negotiable. Premji shared his formula

for a successful company, and the way Wipro has developed entrepreneurial leaders

with a firm commitment to the company's values.

Azim Premji Foundation, a not-for-profit organization established in 2001. Sustained

by his personal financial contributions, the aim of the Foundation is the

universalisation of elementary education.

Wipro has been perhaps the most successful adapter among Indian corporate,

evolving with increasing success from soap and consumer care to computer hardware

and then onto software and services. The principal strength that has enabled Wipro to

make such successful moves are Values combined with a powerful vision can turbo-

charge a company to scale new heights and make it succeed beyond one‘s wildest

expectations. Add to that our ability to attract and retain the best talent and our

continuous pursuit of quality, and you have a high-performance organization that can

continuously re-invent itself and succeed.

Employee Ethics @ WIPRO

It is believed that values should be driven from the top. Wipro was perhaps the first

Indian company to articulate a set of Beliefs that guided our business conduct, way

back in the early 70s. Today, the four Core Values encapsulated in the Wipro Promise

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(Human Values, Integrity, Innovative Solutions and Value for Money), form the

foundation of our organization.

They have Value Booklet and the Integrity Manual

They guide Wiproites through the tough choices they may be faced with. They have

also introduced a help line known as ‗Wipro SOS‘; comprising senior members of the

company who have helped mould our values. They are always available for guidance

on any ethical issue that a Wiproites may face.

The Azim Premji Foundation

The Azim Premji Foundation has been active in the field of education. They are

engaging with the Indian education system in two ways:

Firstly, through the Foundation, our mission is to catalyze the Universalisation of

Elementary Education (UEE).

There are today nearly 50 million children who are out of school in India. The

dropout rate between standard 1-4 is 42% and between standard 1-8 as high as 58%.

A significant percentage of third standard children do not know reading and writing.

At the Azim Premji Foundation we believe that sustained UEE is possible only

through the improvement of learning levels in school and dramatically improving all

that happens inside the school. Working in partnership with the government, the

Foundation focuses on rural areas. The theme that we are working around in the

identified geographies is ‗Guaranteeing Learning‘. Our approach has the following

essentials: l Partnership with the government l Partnership with the community l

Large scale initiative l Focus on improvement of learning l Time bound plan for

withdrawal and handing over responsibility to relevant stakeholders. Currently, the

geographical coverage of the Foundation is 3500 villages in Karnataka and 2500

villages in Andhra Pradesh. The Foundation is also supporting school learning

improvement initiatives in three cities in Gujarat. In the first year of its operations, the

Foundation has facilitated the process of mainstreaming for about 50,000 children

through bridge courses, supported remedial teaching for 35,000 children who required

60

special attention, and imparted computer based curricular education in about 35 rural

schools covering about 10,000 children. The Foundation also conducted a specialized

training and development programme for 100 top education officers across Karnataka

state.

The second initiative is the „Wipro Applying Thought in Schools‟ programme, the

aim of which is to transform the education system to deliver a high quality of

learning. The knowledge economy demands people who can think creatively and

critically, solve problems and make decisions, and are self-directed lifelong learners.

Such individuals are really the output of an education system that delivers high

quality of learning. The building blocks of our approach to transforming the education

system are: l Transform the teacher into a ‗reflective practitioner‘ who is herself a

thinker and learner l Help school leadership see their role as leading this

transformation l Help parents change their view of the true purpose of education in the

knowledge economy l Help education administrators change the curriculum from

being content heavy to ability enhancing, and transform the examination system from

focusing solely on testing memorization skill to also assessing abilities such as

creative and critical thinking and problem solving. Currently, the programme has

reached out to 700 teachers in 40 schools across Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

Work Culture @ WIPRO

Wipro work culture is characterized by:

- Openness

- Absence of politics

- Non-hierarchical (no visible symbols of hierarchy)

- Hard work

- Meritocracy (completely professional work atmosphere)

- Middle class Values - non-flashy.

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Recruitment process @ WIPRO

Recruitment in Wipro is not just an event but is a part of a complete leadership

development process. Most of our recruitment is done from the campus. We began

recruiting people from premier institutes since 1970 and have developed some of the

best leaders of the Indian industry.

However, we do not hire people at senior levels unless it is absolutely required. Policy

is such that even if an insider is 60% ready for a given internal vacancy; he will

be preferred over an outsider.

The recruitment process is extremely important to Wipro and involves a significant

application of the senior and top management time. The assessment of the campus

panel is supported by an assessment of the candidate's performance in group

discussions, psychometric tests and an in- depth reference check.

Reward high performing staff

They have a comprehensive performance management system, which has been

institutionalized over three decades ago. It has been well accepted by the employees.

The human resources department does the review and planning is the high point of

our performance management and employee development process. The HRRP serves

the following purpose:

1. Identifying top 10% and bottom 10% of the employees

2. Identifying talent that we should not lose under any circumstances

3. Succession planning

4. People in the same job for five years and more

As for attrition, we are significantly below the industry average. That is more

important than numbers.

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Training programmes

Development of employees is one of the most critical processes in Wipro. There are

broadly two categories of development programmes:

1. Life cycle management programme

2. Individual development programme against individual development need

They cover the following under the Life Cycle Management Programme:

a. Entry-level programme - this consists of both elaborate technical exposure as well

as exposure to issues related to how to be a good productive employee in the

Company. This is in addition to a common induction programme that employees go

through on joining. b. New leaders programme - For employees who become leaders

for the first time. c. Wipro leaders programme - for employees who start leading other

managers. d. Business leaders programme - for those who become business managers

for the first time. e. Strategic leaders programme - for top management who are

responsible for strategic inputs.

Besides the above, a detailed action plan is made on completion of performance

appraisal for the individual employee. The action plan can include the following:

a. Specific need related development programme

b. b. Efforts on the job by the employee c. Supervisor coaching guidance etc.

Career progression @ WIPRO

Due to its growth (23% CAGR in sales and 50% CAGR in PAT for the past 11 years)

career growth has never been an issue at Wipro. Various options are available for an

individual - ranging from being an individual contributor to team leader to

technological contributor. People can progress vertically as well as horizontally.

Employee grievances

All supervisors are responsible for addressing the grievances of their team members.

They may in turn seek help from their supervisors, human resources people or

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business heads. Due to the company's open culture, employees are free to

communicate with any other individual within the organisation after having exhausted

the options of speaking to the supervisor.

Mr. Dileep Ranjekar’s View (Corporate Executive Vice-President HR, Wipro)

Changes and trends in HR in the near future

The last five years, HR functions have undergone significant changes due to a large

proportion of employees being knowledge workers or from the service industry. The

Internet and communication explosion has erased all boundaries of culture,

knowledge and sharing of practices among professionals. As a result, the paradigm of

leadership has changed completely, with team members knowing more about their

work than their supervisors. There is a great need for leadership, especially with a

complete breakdown in hierarchy at the workplace as well as at home. Therefore, the

only important issue is how a leader is able to add value to his/her team members.

You have employee groups that are fiercely competitive, have a lot of stress early on

in their career and whose world revolves only around themselves. That they also

contribute to the organization is incidental and not the main purpose.

It is very important for employees to constantly develop and enrich their resume and

become more valuable in the market place. This trend will continue. In addition, HR

people have the responsibility of boosting employee morale due to the economic

downturn.

What qualities and attributes, in your opinion, epitomize a good HR professional?

* In-depth subject knowledge

* Business knowledge

* Ability to see newer, different dimensions and possibilities

* Tremendous awareness of the global environment

* Resilience, high energy and stamina