After the group settled into their rooms, we visited the Infosys
headquarters in Hyderabad. Infosys started in 1981 with seven people
and a grand total of $250. Today, it is a global leader in consulting,
technology and outsourcing services. Their revenues exceed 7 billion
dollars and work for 22 of the fortune 500 companies.
Our talk today us that one of the biggest problems with growing a
company that fast is managing employees, both in terms of keeping them
busy and happy.
As of Sep 30th 2012, Infosys and its subsidiaries had 1,53,761
employees. When a departments or an individual employee achieves their
goals they can become obsolete. To prevent this from happening Infosys
has resource management group dedicated to reallocating under-utilised
associates. They manage and develop a centralised database of employee
skills and projects so that different departments can reallocate
obsolete staff when they need their skills.
When employees have been listed on the centralised system and a new
department does not pick them up they automatically resume training and
skill development. This keeps employees sharp and focused for when they
need to return to work. Infosys has now started encouraging generalist
training and multi-skill development so that employees can assume
various roles in the organisation.
The second biggest challenge when growing a multi-billion dollar
company from the ground up in less than a generation is to keep your
work force happy.
The Human Resources department takes charge on staff satisfaction and
employs a range of processes and policies to keep spirits alive.
One of the most effective policies that the Hyderabad office has
recently employed is implementing an instant reward system so that
managers and employees can reward each other for good behaviour. This
way each employee has the power to instantly reward good behaviour with
points. These points can then be exchanged for merchandise and online
products.
Another policy to have an impressive impact in the Hyderabad office
was to make the incentive for good performance transparent. The HR
departments makes is clear to people that they are in a specific pay
grade because they possess certain skills. They then show them which
skills they need to acquire to jump to the next pay grade. Employee
skills and their corresponding pay grades are transparent for everyone
to see. This way when someone makes the jump from one grade to another
it encourages everyone to stay determined.
The next stop on today’s trip was the Indian School of Business. The
Indian school of Business’ prime focus is to develop business solution
for the ailments in our society.
It’s history dates back to 1990 when India was forced to liberalise
its economy. Although the economy had a colossal workforce of over a
billion citizens it needed educated CEOs, Vice presidents and Directors
to lead India into the future. This need gave rise to the India School
of Business.
In twelve short years the ISB has grown to become the youngest ranked
school on the financial times’ Top 20 international business schools
and it is the only south-Asian management school get accredited by the
association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).Only 5% of
the schools in the world get accredited by the AACSB.
The day ended with a short tour of the ISB campus just before it got
dark and a long ride back to our hotel. The bus was filled with laughter
and music blaring out of cell phones as the students settled into their
new city.
If you would like to see more pictures from the day please log onto the ASEAN student exchange facebook page.
Links and resources:
Infosys in world top 10 greenest companies- http://www.infosys.com/sustainability/green-innovation/Pages/top-10-green-companies.aspx
ISB becomes the first south east-Asian school to be accredited by AACSB
http://www.pagalguy.com/news/aacsb-accreditation-forced-us-measure-our-performance-teaching-isb-hyderabad-dean-a-21840
http://www.pagalguy.com/news/aacsb-accreditation-forced-us-measure-our-performance-teaching-isb-hyderabad-dean-a-21840