Every organisation has its way of functioning, work culture and management process. Many of them go by established ideas, while some try out radical ideas. Some succeed; some don’t and have to be reworked. Whatever be our organizational style, we can always learn from successful best practices and implement them in our work culture. This is a compilation of some concepts developed in companies here in Bangalore.

Companies are realising the need for a focussed HR campaign to hire the best talent and retain it. Earlier it was candidates hunting for jobs, and now it’s just the opposite. According to B S Murthy, CEO of Human Capital, companies are going one step ahead in their campus interviews and are offering jobs to seventh semester engineering students. This way the candidate has a year to build competencies in that field and cuts the company’s time on training.

New channels for HR policy

Recently a small engineering design company from Bangalore, QuEST, received the nation’s most coveted Golden Peacock Innovation award. Giants like TCS, Asian Paints, Wipro, and Infosys have been awarded in this category. So one wonders how this small 600 plus staffed, Rs 95 crore turnover company achieved this feat.

IT enabled engineering design is their domain expertise and they have been providing their services to top MNCs in aeronautical, power, automotive and space research. End to end solutions is what sets them apart in various engineering design verticals. To get skilled manpower to cater to this high-end designing need is a tough proposition. When larger IT firms are struggling to find the right talent, how did QuEST do it?

“Since it was hard to find such trained manpower, we setup training centers in engineering colleges, called Center for Excellence in Advanced Design and Manufacturing (CADAM). The first one was set up in PESIT college. This distinct mode of induction of trained manpower has now become a natural progression for students in five more centers in engineering colleges in south India. As we are the early birds who choose the best talent, we build a sense of pride among students and they want to stay with us and work for our projects,” says Dr Ajay Prabhu, vice president, QuEST.

QuEST India has five CADAM centres: one each in Bangalore, Hubli, Shimoga, Manipal and Pollachi. Nearly 150 professionals have been recruited through CADAM. It is rare that an SME has such consistent focus on the academic-industry interface. But this was not the first case of such interface in India. It has already been tried by the Centre for Advanced Product Design and Prototyping, a collaborative venture between Indian Institute of Science and Tata Consultancy Services.

Challenges ahead

The BPO industry has been struggling to hold onto their employees. Despite all measures like high salary, huge perks, world class facilities, recreation options, the attrition rates are not coming down from 35-40%. In this bleak scenario, some of them like ITC’s Client Logic and 24/7 Customer are taking innovative measures to retain talent.

Boot Camp is a motivational method innovated by 24/7 Customer, in which employees are taken to the residential campus to spend their leisure time. According to V Bharadwaj, assistant vice-president, this residential training program enables a free flow of thoughts and ideas which can improve the efficiency of the company.

“It’s a new model designed for training new recruits. Instead of making them go through only theoretical stuff, we added some experiential courses too. The group lives together at the campus for three weeks and learns through experience. The exercises help in bringing them closer, fostering team building. Discipline is enforced and reinforced. Yes, it has certainly helped reduce attrition. There are many employees who want to study further; they are given the opportunity to go to business schools. We have tied up with top management schools to impart education.”

L Prabhakar, GM-HR, Client Logic, says, “Unlike regular BPO recruitment, we are open to look beyond the conventional target group of 18-25 years. We were the first to take in candidates of 50 years. Also, we took people who were not graduates for some of our projects. You have to broaden your base of potential candidates, then your recruitment hit ratio will increase. It also helps you bring diversity to the workplace and binds people together. Retention goes up, too. We have recruited 30 physically challenged people and are working with a few NGOs to tap more such talent. Orthopaedically challenged candidates have been recruited and given thorough training”

Better Ideas in Facility Management

Cost effectiveness and productivity is becoming crucial in every aspect of business. Providing facilities for employees and creating a better work atmosphere is a major concern for the management. It’s the admin manager’s concern to give best infrastructure in a cost effective manner. Titan Industries, known for innovation and productivity, is trying out a better idea in employee transport and residential facility management.

In many companies the admin dept is in charge of providing company leased accommodation to its staff. But as employees frequently shift jobs, the companies incur additional expenditure in shifting houses.According to K Unnikrishnan, Facility Manager, it is better for the rent to be included in salary (there is no difference in tax) and take the deposit amount through an interest free loan from the company which can be recovered from the salary in 12 or 24 installments. Thus the company saves money on investing on rent, while the employees are free to continue in their residences even after quitting that job.

“Similarly nowadays people tend to change their car every year.Hence, our company is planning to give interest free loans to employees to buy a car.Reimbursement of maintenance expenses and petrol bills is done up to a certain limit annually.Maintenance expenses can be increased yearly according to the age of the car.This will help employees have fuel efficient,maintenance free cars and can use a car of their choice,” says Unnikrishnan.

Practising for the future

Most of the companies, who are working on better work practices, are doing it due to needs of a global market, heightened competition, cost reduction and such compulsions. Rarely will you find an MNC investing its resources to build capability in an emerging market, because despite years of hard work there is very little return.

But in a tiny village on the Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka border, Hewlett Packard is helping people overcome social and economic barriers, while building prototype technologies for the future.

HP began its association with Kuppam, a village with a population of 300,000, two-and-half years ago. This association was part of its global citizenship vision to bridge the digital divide between developed and developing economies. According to a top company official, “On-the-ground research gave us a fair representation of the community’s needs. We found that information was one basic need, common to the entire community. There began our sojourn of creating innovative, self sustaining Information and Communication Technology based solutions, to address facets of everyday life. Our first priority however was to create an access infrastructure for connectivity across the community: we have deployed the 802.11b fixed broadband wireless network, which provides seamless connectivity and therefore access to all the technology solutions deployed at the Kuppam hp i-community.”

Issue BG45 Dec04

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