HCL - Design, Gen Y and Facebook

There have been news reports about fresh graduates protesting outside the gates of HCL Technologies against inordinate delay in onboarding, despite having received offer letters last year. This is also the first time ever that Indian IT industry has seen street-protests.


Many have seriously questioned the company’s much touted ‘Employee First, Customer Second’ motto, calling it a mere rhetoric. Personally, I think it is little harsh on the company, considering that it has had some really good HR practices in the past, especially for the women employees. But undoubtedly HCL seems to be losing the plot somewhere.

Companies delaying onboarding of fresh recruits is common. This year too other companies have staggered onboarding of some of their fresh hires. But HCL’s case has been compounded by two factors – one that the number of fresh recruits awaiting onboarding are on the higher side; and second, that the company has not given any definite date for on-boarding. The inordinate delay and growing suspense has charged-up the passions.

The Design Issue

The question then that looms large is that why were such high number of hires were made that compounded the problem? How did the manpower planning go so wrong? One understands that estimates and forecasts cannot be made accurate down to the last hire considering that market uncertainty takes its own toll, but how could so much randomness creep into the system? Was there a lack of collaboration between the business side and the human resources?

McKinsey research clearly shows and proves that most of the organizations have the outdated 20th century design that creates silo’s within the organization, obstructs the flow of intangibles like talent and knowledge and provides no incentive for people to collaborate,. As a result, people behave in a silo wised manner. Each department or function becomes a separate unit itself. Design essentially includes three elements – structure, culture and control systems (reward systems). Faulty organizational design results in 'unproductive complexity' across the organization that ultimately hinders the value-creation by the firm. The research also recommends a new 21st century designs that overcomes all these issues by ‘design’. In short, HCL seems to be a victim of the outdated 20th century design.

Gen Y

Our ongoing research on Gen Y has clearly shown two things – one that Gen Y are what, thanks to the times that they live and second that they face paradoxes in their lives. Gen Y have a sense of immediacy, they live in today and not for tomorrow. The paradoxes that they face in life put a demand on them to address mutually contradictory challenges in their lives. They are fearless (in terms of being confident of themselves; their parents have brought them up by making them believe that they can do anything and achieve just about everything) as well as have an insecurity (because of economic, political volatility & social upheavals that they have witnessed). They want it and they know they can get it! Most companies seem to be missing this point, that they are dealing with a different generation of workers altogether - the Gen Y. HCL has also been hit by this phenomenon.

Social Media

Most companies also do not seem to truly understand the power of social media. Social media is the biggest detonator discovered till date. What HCL failed to notice was that a Facebook group called HCL Technologies 2012 Freshers quietly came-up on the social networking site. This group helped the entire fresher hired by the company waiting on-boarding to come-together. Thanks to this group, the social media protest soon snowballed into a street campaign.

HCL could have done without this negative publicity and public embarrassment. Engagement is not about few policies or some random measures. Engagement has to be built & cultivated in design. For that companies need to drastically alter the way they are and they function. Else, more events like HCL may be in the offing.