Not just the Gen neXt-employees but
Gen neXt-managers too
This paper is based on actual experiments and
Human Resources interventions at Aricent Ltd. which is now
known as Aricent Systems , the #1 communication software company
in India. It describes the overall human resources challenges
facing the software industry in general and Aricent in specific,
and how Aricent is dealing with them. The first section, 'The
Background' details the scenario or the problem or situation.
'The Challenges' brings out the peaks that have to be conquered.
In the last section, "The Aricent Formula", there
is detailed description of Aricent's strategy for dealing
with these Human Resources challenges. It describes how various
systems and interventions are connected to each other and
are in fact providing synergy to each other. This is based
on the last two to three years of experience at Aricent.
The Background
Change: In the last 8 years, the company
has been growing at a rate of 60% every year in terms of revenue
as well as the number of people. Combine this with attrition
at 20% p.a. and you can immediately see a lot of change
that the company is dealing (coping up) with continuously.
In a way, the company seems to be perpetually new. At any
time, approximately 60% of the employees have been in the
company for less than a year!
Employees are typical of the Generation
neXt with 75% people in the age group of 21-26 years. They
are highly independent, mobile, intelligent, ambitious, and
have high expectations from themselves as well as the company.
They have focus on themselves and low need of communication
with others. Excessive communication through e-mail also makes
things more impersonal. Shortage of software engineers worldwide
has created a buyer's market, with engineers being chased
by scores of companies and headhunters (for jobs in India
as well as abroad, the default being USA) all the time. US-based
companies are now coming to Indian engineering universities
to hire freshers! This was unimaginable even couple of years
ago. This has made them very aggressive, almost mercenary
when evaluating career options. They change jobs like never
before. The industry trend indicates that the average stay
in a job is between 1.5 to 2 years. This has now come to be
almost acceptable by people. A closer look shows some new
details: one-fourth of the employees leave their job within
the first year, another one-fourth in the second year, another
one-fourth in the third year, and the rest over a life time!
This indicates the amount of change that the software companies
in India are dealing with.
Organization Behavior: In our industry,
and company, there is a lot of focus of the people (managers
as well as employees) on work, and a lot of their satisfaction
comes out of work-related accomplishments or activities. There
is also a lot of pressure to deliver, maintain quality, meet
tight schedules, and people are constantly under some type
of stress. Most of the interactions between managers and their
team members are work related, and they spend hardly any effort
to develop extended personal relationships with their team
members. High level of change in the teams further pronounces
this. By nature, people in the software industry generally
see any other activity, other than "work (project) as a hindrance
and try to avoid it.
Since there is a lot of change in the teams
all the time, it is hard for the team relationships to become
strong and effective. And considering the significant percentage
of people who are in their first jobs, this low relationship
orientation often gets even more acute. The things for which
they automatically combine are their frustrations or issues,
and this leads to a lot of 'crib' talk rather than anything
positive.
Managers: Most of the managers in the
software industry grow from their engineering roles. This
means that they start their careers as software engineers
and work their way up to become project managers. In the last
couple of years, high growth has forced companies to make
really young people as managers. They have not had the chance
of developing some gray (or nearly gray) hair. Being young
these managers belong to the generation neXt. When they take
the role of a manager, they almost think like engineers and
are somewhat far away from playing this role of a manager
effectively. By the time they get experienced and get some
handle on understanding their role as a people's manager or
leader, they usually get promoted to a higher role, where
they have managers reporting to them J . And they have
to now struggle (again) to learn how to manage through managers.
New "first time" managers take their roles. This
tends to create a big challenge and entropy in the system.
The Challenges
Doing anything in this fast flowing river is
very challenging. New thinking and paradigms are needed. There
is a need for "speedy" interventions that in turn
can be changed or modified quickly.
One of the biggest challenges is culture building.
In a situation where most of the employees are new, not enough
old warriors to tell war stories, how does one build culture?
Then there is this mismatch in expectations - employees are
looking for quick changes across technologies and products,
typically once every 12 months. On the other hand, managers
are reluctant to give in to change so fast, it takes them
time to groom people, and just when they are ready, the employees
want change!
Relationships do not form very easily. The major
challenge here is continuous change in teams and the tendency
of managers and employees to focus mainly on work and technical
things further heightens this. The other major challenge is
to enable young or first time managers to first understand
and then play the role of a leader and manager.
The Aricent Formula
Aricent has adopted a simple strategy to address
this. The first step is to have an ear to the ground, and
then work on employee satisfaction through leadership improvement.
And this is done by creating the right environment, providing
learning opportunities, meeting career aspirations, right
appreciation and recognition, building relationships, creating
opportunities for wealth creation and leadership development.
Ear to the Ground
This is a must in a continuously changing environment,
by the time you watch and analyze a trend to develop a hypothesis,
you may be dealing with a completely different situation.
What was true a couple of years ago may not be true any longer.
In order to have a good idea of what's going on, Aricent does
a variety of things. Here are some examples:
- Survey people who are joining Aricent to
find out what attracted them (what is working for Aricent).
Similarly, find out from those who did not join the reasons
for declining (what is not working for them).
- Detailed exit interviews to find out good
experiences, what worked for the employees and the strengths
of Aricent. Similarly, find out the bad experiences, unmet
expectations and areas of improvement (we call these 'push'
factors).
- Study of people who have stayed with Aricent
for a long time to see what worked well for them?
- Discussion groups on the intranet encourage
free discussions and bring out true feelings and issues.
There is one called 'junk', which is a typical graffiti
and crib board and provides a public vent for issues and
solutions.
- A significant number of outside consultants
and experts work with Aricent to provide consulting in the
areas of organization behavior and change, leadership development,
business strategy, etc. These people interact with large
number of employees and give valuable feedback.
- Continuous interaction with other companies
at an informal and formal level and at industry forums combined
with national and international trends provides valuable
insights too.
- Regular surveys with employees to assess
and revamp our policies and to find out that what we chart
out on papers is actually practically working for our employees.
Such an approach has enabled Aricent in getting
significant successes in understanding the changing trends
on a timely and accurate manner.
Creating the Right Environment
- Aricent's culture and value system is called
The Aricent Way. There is a special description for
managers called The Edicts for Managers. It describes
the key characteristics or expectations from every Aricentians.
- The new employee orientation program has
a significant training workshop designed around the Aricent
Way to create good understanding. Then it is prominently
featured on Anthra, Aricent's Intranet to provide constant
reinforcement.
- The performance management system has a Aricent
Citizenship Benchmark, which incorporates the Aricent
way, thus bringing the focus of the employee to do a self-assessment
as well as get feedback.
- The Leadership Development Inventory
(LDI) is Aricent's 360-degree feedback system. Through this,
all managers as well as soon to be managers get a 360-degree
feedback once every year in a confidential manner, with
no one at Aricent having access, thus increasing comfort
of managers and getting them to use it effectively for self-development.
- The Popular Awards have taken 12 leadership
behaviors from The Aricent Way, e.g., 'The Best Troubleshooter',
'Great Mentor', 'Best Communicator', 'I would like to be
like you', etc. Every quarter three are selected thus covering
all twelve in a year, and then they are repeated. Each employee
can vote for any other employee for each of these votes.
Usually, about 60% of the employees cast their votes. Top
20 employees based on numbers of votes are declared, so
are the winner, runners up. Most importantly, each and every
employee who even gets a single vote gets an automatic mail
from the system saying the some people voted for him or
her and describing the comments. This helps build strong
awareness about the Aricent Way, and creates strong peer
recognition so more and more people want to get this recognition.
Since people can actually see people with different characteristics,
it has given The Aricent Way a face that people can relate
to.
- The Integrity program establishes
a strong business ethics practice. The ethics program is
well documented and there is an ethics office headed by
a Chief Ethics Officer. All new hires are put through an
ethics workshop within four weeks of hiring and all employees
go through a refresher program every year. There is a strong
mechanism for reporting and acting on violations. Strong
and swift action is taken to set examples. This has helped
Aricent to create and maintain an ethical environment for
doing business within and outside the company.
Learning Opportunities and Career Planning
- Aricent has focussed its business in the
very high end of communications technology, and is
now expanding to the internet area. Working with international
customers and future technology gives employees great opportunities
to learn. Studies have shown that the knowledge workers
get really excited working with latest technology, and this
is really working well for Aricent.
- The Internal Jobs Postings Program
(IJPP) helps employees in choosing their own career path.
Through IJPP, the employees can apply for any job within
Aricent in a confidential manner without seeking permission
from or even informing their current manager. If they get
selected, they can "resign" from their present
job and find a new job, within Aricent. This has helped
Aricent in creating a system that gives power to the employees
to choose their own career, and lose people to other projects
within Aricent, rather than to companies outside.
- Aricent has moved towards role-based
human resource systems. Each position has a detailed profile,
and years of experience is not a requirement for any position.
The training systems are role based, i.e., they help
employees to get groomed for other positions, thus enabling
them to do their current jobs well as well as prepare for
their future career. Last year, Aricent did about 10,000
training days for an average of under 800 employees. This
includes behavioral as well as technical training.
- Employees play the role of a trainer,
mentor or buddy, which in turn helps them learn and
grow.
- Through the People Action Plan which
is steered by the CEO, managers work with employees who
have spent at least one year at Aricent, to understand their
career aspirations and develop plans to provide opportunities.
Recognition and Relationships
- Aricent has following types of recognition
programs:
- Managers give "Snap Awards"
for individual and team achievements to their teams
when they excel or do something outstanding. These are usually
given during the quarterly staff meetings where all employees
participate and this is followed by a party.
- There are Annual Achievement Awards
under four categories: Most Initiative, Best Customer Orientation,
Best Team Worker and Most Innovative. Managers send nominations
every ear and a task force of senior managers picks the
winners.
- There are Presidential Awards for
overall excellence. These are given annually and are in
four categories: Engineering, Business Development, Non-Engineering
and Engineering/Customer Support.
- There is an award for Best People and
Project Managers, given to two best managers and leaders
each year.
- Popular Awards provide very powerful
peer recognition. This is very credible and most
satisfying. The winners are then put in special roles,
e.g., the winner of "Best Leader" award is the
one who conducts the session on leadership in the development
program for managers. The person chosen as the "Best
Mentor" leads the implementation of the mentoring program.
- Employees who show capability, initiative
and interest are appointed to work and lead in several cross-functional
taskforces from time to time.
- E-greetings has been operational in
Aricent through the intranet to send appreciation to other
employees. Special cards suited to Aricent environment are
available. This provides for a good method of recognizing
and appreciating others, especially for those who find face-to-face
appreciation somewhat uncomfortable.
- Longevity is really valued: After
six months of joining employees get special personalized
baggage tags. The first anniversary is celebrated with a
Aricent wristwatch. When one completes five years, a special
plaque is given to the employee in public, honoring his/her
commitment and service, and a special vacation for the family
is given. One also gets the "green card" at this
time, these are special baggage tags that signify the freedom
to do anything at Aricent.
- All employees are covered by the Employee
Stock Option Plan and more than half the employees have
significant options. With Aricent's listing, a large number
of employees are already sitting on potential wealth and
we are hoping that more employees will get there in times
to come.
- All awards carry a certificate or plaque,
and some cash or gift. They are prominently displayed on
the intranet.
Relationships and Communities
- There are lots of events to build relationships
amongst the employees and with the family members. There
are groups lunches when the teams go together and celebrate,
several groups have customs of celebrating birthdays, all
families party every quarter and also during annual picnic
and open houses. Recently Aricent organized a painting competition
for children of Aricent employees. A special event was organized
and all kids had a good time. The New Year cards for 2001
have been made using eight of the best paintings. All the
72 paintings will be put in Aricent Kids Gallery at Gurgaon
and Bangalore. This has helped Aricent to build a more family
like environment.
- There are work-related communities,
for example, The Linux Group, that champions Linux related
activities at Aricent without having any formal responsibility.
They have done a great job, including having a free 24x7
technical support through www.Aricent.com.
- A college like annual cultural festival called
Tarang is organized every year. Then there are the
Aricent Adventure Club, Aricent Music Club, etc., that are
active and organize events like trekking, Tarang, annual
sports, tournaments with other companies, etc.
- There is a strong community development
focus. There is an annual blood donation camp. There
is an NGO called Jagriti started by Aricent employees
which facilitates basic education and healthcare for children.
HE Richard Celeste, US Ambassador to India, launched Aricent's
ReachOut program. Through this program Aricent has adopted
a school in Carterpuri in Gurgaon, and helped build
their building and set up a computer center by donating
PCs. Aricent employees have come together and made large
donations for Kargil, Orissa Cyclone, Rajasthan and Gujarat
Drought, etc. Aricent sends used paper to several societies
to assist them in their cause.
- The Green Sheen program, launched
by Aricent employees, helps conserve the usage of energy,
paper and plastic. It has been pretty successful in the
last two years.
- Through the People Action Plan, managers
are encouraged to build personal and non-work relationships
with their team members. There is special emphasis on skip
level communication. A mentoring program is being launched
for new employees. The buddy system for all college hires
already exists. The entire company is going through a two-day
team building workshop to learn team competencies and develop
relationships.
Leadership Development
- The Edicts for Managers sets the expectation
from managers: Be a Role Model, Be a Stakeholder, Walk the
Talk and Talk the Walk.
- The Popular Awards are helping building leadership
through role modeling.
- The CEO has launched the People Action
Plan to focus managers' attention to employee satisfaction
through leadership development. He has committed to spend
25% of his time on people related activities and is
asking the same from the managers. The people action plan
focuses on career planning, skip level communication, effective
performance management system and building relationships.
The CEO is personally monitoring this initiative and the
significant portion of compensation of managers is based
on success in these areas.
- Supervisory Induction Program (SIP)
and Managerial Skills Enhancement Program (MSEP)
are both 2-days development initiatives. SIP is for the
first time managers and MSEP is a refresher program for
experienced managers.
- Managers go through several training and
development programs to build leadership. Aricent also
conducts Large Group Interaction Experiment for overall
learning and development of managers and to help channelise
these inputs towards key strategic areas in Aricent
In the next few months, Aricent will start a
new project to identify and then develop competencies for
managers to become more effective leaders to face the ever-increasing
challenges of riding in the worldwide communication and information
technology explosion.
The above presentation was made by Aadesh
Goyal at The World Human Resources Congress held in Mumbai,
India from January 18 to 21, 2001.
For more details, contact one of the following
at Aricent:
Aadesh
Goyal, tel: 0124-6346666 x2111
Anupama Babbar, tel:
0124-6346666 x 2367
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Last updated :
December 18, 2006
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