THE ACHIEVERS 50 MOST ENGAGED WORKPLACES™ AWARDS

The Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in the United States, 2012 have been announced. This annual award recognises top employers that display leadership and innovation towards engaging their employees. The award is judged by a panel of judges which evaluate each applicant based on the eight elements of employee engagement:

1.Communication,
2. Leadership,
3. Culture,
4. Rewards and recognition,
5. Professional and personal growth,
6. Accountability and performance,
7. Vision and values, and,
8. Corporate social responsibility.

'The award understand these practices are not only good for employees but also the bottom line. Companies that focus on employee engagement tend to perform better financially, attract and retain the best talent and enjoy improved customer service and client retention.'

Indian Companies in the THE ACHIEVERS 50 MOST ENGAGED WORKPLACES™ AWARDS list -

• Infosys Limited
• Tata Consultancy Limited

Strategic Disengagement

When Mohandas Pai quit Infosys in April last year, it came as a shocker to many. Mohandas Pai had a long stint at Infosys and as the CFO, he played a strategic role in transforming Infosys into one of the world’s most respected and widely known software services companies. Mohan was an integral part of the Infosys team that enabled the first listing of an India-registered company on NASDAQ and the first sponsored secondary offering of American Depositary Shares by an Indian company. He was voted ‘CFO of the Year’ in 2001 by IMA India. He won the ‘Best CFO in India’ award from Finance Asia in 2002, and ‘Best Chief Financial Officer in India’ in the Best Managed Companies poll conducted by AsiaMoney in 2004. Hence when Pai left Infosys, many rumors were floated. Although both Pai and the Infosys management denied any differences, Pai’s decision was largely seen as a discontent over the company’s strategy in choosing the CEO of the company. The idea of musical chair for the top post open only to the founders of the company, saw other deserving aspirants like Pai losig hope. “Pai should have been in line for the COO's post but the prospect of waiting out Shibulal's term with no guarantee that he would be elevated in his mid-50s to the CEO's post might have been the trigger for the decision.” Losing a seasoned player like Pai was definitely ‘no gain’ for the company.

Something similar is now blowing over HUL. The exit of three of the eight executive directors in the last 18 months, as well as managerial-exits at other levels has begun to ring alarm for the company. The FMCG giant once considered the ‘impregnable vault of top-notch talent, is now beginning to look vulnerable’. The exodus of top executives of HUL is being linked to the strategic changes affected by the Unilever CEO Paul Polman. Paul, the first outsider to assume the company’s CEO position in the last 77 years, besides consolidating the HUL business into our divisions, has brought about some changes like –

• Centralizing much of the decision-making globally.

• Forcing company to consider outside talent for every senior management role.

• Roles have become fewer, more functional, and narrower.

• Longer tenures for managers, at every level including CEO.

The impact of such changes have been reportedly –

• Lesser operational freedom for managers.

• Managers feeling stifled with paucity of growth options.

• Internal candidates unsure of their career progression.

• Global posting no longer attractive.

The company on its part claims such changes to be a part of their talent management strategy and an effort to invest in young, diverse and high-potential individuals. But even that does not explain the curbing of managerial freedom in decision-making, decline in growth opportunities even though the company is growing and career opportunities losing their panache. A competitor is reportedly netting many HUL executives.

Many years back when Indian public sector banks rolled-out VRS (voluntary retirement scheme) to allow the mediocre to have an honorable and attractive exit route, it ended-up losing its most talented employees, instead. The loss of the PSU banks, was the gain of many foreign and private banks entering the Indian scene at that time. The proposed ‘golden handshake’ turned out to be a ‘thorny-handcuff’ for the banks that were left grappling with loss of intellectual capital, high customer discontent and a stronger competition from the new players (whom they help unknowingly).

Does this mean strategic changes are not required? No, at times changes have to be affected at a strategic level, however a good strategy shall never lose its connect and sight with its people (especially talent) and with its priorities. Besides such changes should never lead to an advantage for the competitor, when in the first place that was meant to be a competitive advantage for the company itself.

Cases for Strategic Disengagement?

The 'Buffalo Model'

Interested in buying a Buffalo that gives 20 litres of milk per day? Well! It’s not me asking you that question, it’s actually Indian e-commerce Web site eBay. ‘A seller had listed a “milk giving black young buffalo, 20 litres per day.” The “Item condition” was described as “Used.” Delivery would be free, by national courier. There was even a seven days' exchange offer thrown in.’

Although, eBay India did not want to talk about where the listing was posted from as the company did not want “a prohibited item to portray the rural penetration” that the Web site has made, however, the fact that awareness of e-commerce has grown to the extent that a livestock-owner somewhere in the country chose to put up his buffalo for sale on an e-commerce Web site is both amazing and indicative.

Indicative in the sense of new business models taking shape and the need to innovate in times when the going seems to be arduous and demanding. The other day Mr Kris Gopalakrishnan, Executive Co-Chairman, Infosys remarked – ‘Cloud computing, mobility, big data and analytics are new entrepreneurship models for India to pursue.’

Innovative business models require grassroots innovation. Such innovations happen through a culture of innovation that an organization creates where employees find greater engagements then there mere jobs. Google & Facebook have done it better than Yahoo; Titan has done it better than HMT; Microsoft has done it better than any other companies…

Such innovation culture shall have essentially four core elements –

1. Freedom – to think radically, to express, to differ, to experiment, to act…

2. Commitment – from the top, for planned resources; to take risks.

3. Develop – contemporary skill inventory; expertise; talent.

4. Network – for networking and facilitation; with clients/customers.

You may call it the 'Buffalo Model.'

The Vacation Phobia

"Others goof off work, Indians, says new study, goof off holidays."

The latest study by Expedia, an online travel firm, shows interesting stats reflecting Indian behaviour towards vacations:

• Indians leave 20 percent of their vacations unused. 29 percent of Indians couldn’t plan their holidays due to work pressure.
• Fifty-three per cent of Indians regularly check in on their emails and work status even during vacations.

• 28 per cent Indian respondents said they would prefer getting paid for unused vacations.

(Source: Business Line)

The study concluded –

• Europeans and Brazilians treat holidays as necessity

• Japanese and Koreans treat holidays as rare treasure (since they hardly get it).

• And Indians view holidays with guilt habit.

Worrying symptoms as stress and burnout are reported among all categories of Indian employees. Now you know where it is all coming from! Recently when I did a session on ‘health and Stress Management’ for the Chief general Managers of Reserve Bank of India at Chennai I equated such symptoms with the parable of a boiled frog. The frog’s body cannot detect slow changes in temperature and hence if it is kept in a beaker containing water at room temperature and the water is slowly brought to a boiling-point the frog stays and doesn’t jump-out. The frog stays, stays and dies in the same water. Stress & burnout is also similar. It is a silent killer. Most of the times slow and gradual changes in stress-levels are not detected and suddenly one day the lid just blows-off.

Strangely, many times the organizations can do very little about it. I remember when Mr. Narayan Murthy of Infosys wanted his employees to go back from their office early, the employees themselves objected. Recently I have met so many people willing to work more and earn more in a very less time (even encash vacations!). There seems to be a mad-rush.

Talk about employee’s contribution to engagement? The cost of rising prosperity is too high.

Tuning into Engagement

'Infosys has launched yet another HR platform to reach out to its employees, a radio station exclusively for company employees. InfyRadio, currently running as a pilot experiment in Bangalore, will be launched on other Infy campuses in the next three months.



On his last day at work on Friday, Mr N R Narayana Murthy's interview was aired on InfyRadio. According to sources in the company, Mr Murthy spoke of his personal life and is said to have ‘requested' for retro Hindi film songs.


HR sources at Infosys said “it was important for the management to use innovative means of communication that employees relate to as well as enjoy.” Infy Radio was born as a result of this need for communication and employee engagement.

Ms Nandita Gurjar, Executive Vice-President and Global Head of HR, Infosys, said that employees just need to download an application on their iPod and other handheld devices and listen to music on demand.


This radio service will run for six hours a day, five days a week and will be a combination of music (Hindi/English), RJ Talk, Infy-related communication, leadership interviews, song requests as well as interactive contests. The plan is to involve employees and some celebrity guests in the running of this station, said HR sources.

The company has a special Web site for the radio station, where employees can request songs, participate in contests, download the InfyRadio jingle as well as provide feedback about the shows.'

(Source: Business Line, Aug. 20, 2011)

Bubble to thwart trouble

Infosys recently launched 'Infy Bubble', an internal social networking site is supposedly a platform for disgruntled Infoscions to vent on. The site mirrors Facebook and allows employees to connect across borders with colleagues as well as bicker about anything they want.The IT giant seems to be learning its lessons finally. Troubled with a very high attrition-rate (some 7000 odd employees have reportedly left during April-June 2011 period) and unimpressive performance ending quarter June 2011, the wisdom seems to be prevailing finally.

Comparative Financial Performance of TCS and Infosys (quarter ending June 2011)*
	TCS		Infosys
	Quarter ending June 2011 (figures in Rupees Crore)	Percentage Growth YOY	Quarter ending June 2011 (figures in Rupees Crore)	Percentage Growth YOY
Net Sales	10797.02	31.39%	7485	20.8%
Operating profit	2824.92	25.67%	1952	11.23%
Consolidated Net profit	2414.76	26.69%	1722	15.7%
Total Employees	198614		133560
Attrition Rate	14%		17.5%

*Data are to the closest approximation, based on published open sources.

Not too long back there was a huge issue of infoscions baring their feelings in the social networking sites over the controversial iRACE. At that time the company took a strong exception and went to the extent of introducing a social media rule book to tell employees what they can share and what not on the social media (read my extensive article on this Policing social media isn't a smart policy). However the company has perhaps realized that this way cannot be for long in today era of  competitiveness.
And so this bubble (an attempted internal PR exercise) for a change is expected to thwart the trouble that the company finds itself in today.

Note Worthy!