Perfectly manicured lawns, well maintained playgrounds and modern architecture... You cannot help but feel good as you enter the campus of Agilent India - an arm of the California-headquartered measurement technology companyin Gurgaon near Delhi.
But the salubrious surroundings alone couldn't have been a major factor in making Agilent one of the best companies to work for, you conclude, as you proceed to check out from the managers what is it that the company does to earn that ticket.
You amble past meeting rooms named after places and people such as Corbett, Everest, Amartya Sen, Mother Teresa until you are ushered into the one named Kaziranga for a rendezvous with Venkatesh Valluri or Venky, the President and Country General Manager of Agilent India. You goad him by sounding a bit skeptical at first about this whole bit about the best workplaces.
How is Agilent any different from other tech companies? After all, they all operate in a very competitive global market and have no choice but to be nice to their techie employees who are in short supply globally?
Even when the economy is growing as greatly as India's, you have to create products that are relevant to the market you are serving. So you need a team that not only understands the market dynamics but also has a culture of innovating something for that market. And remember you are operating in an economy where dozens of other technology companies are chasing the same market," says Venky.
So the inescapable challenge before a company like Agilent, Venky says, is to put in place a team that will not only build innovative and market-relevant products for the company but also be greatly happy working for it. "Even if you are a great, global company, you still have to painstakingly build competencies and constantly try to remain at the top of your HR practices," says Venky.
You have to agree with Venky, especially when you consider the pace at which the company's workforce has been growing. By the end of October 2008 (the company's fiscal year is November to October), Agilent India will have 2,000 workers spread over multiple campuses in Chennai, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh. This year it hired about 350 people.
Ashuma Sachdeva, Learning Specialist at Agilent, says one of the philosophies of the company is to give people the right tools and resources to develop themselves, so there is an accent on learning. "Whether you talk about class room interventions, simulations or leaders teaching other leaders, you will find people investing time in others and ensuring that they get developed," she says.
The company's succession planning also ensures that all employees have a go at realising their leadership potential. All employees are communicated what is expected of them and their performance monitored through the My Accountability and Performance Standards (MAPS) programme, says Sunil Pathak, Senior Manager, Human Resources, Agilent.
"The area where leadership (top management) really comes into play is in making the HR processes highly effective," says Pathak. Adds Venky: "If you ask me what is the leadership of this company doing in its working hours, I'll tell you they are spending 80 per cent of their time engaging with employees - coaching, developing, innovating - and only 20 per cent in managing their operational beats. That really makes the big difference."
It's time to confront Venky with some of the survey findings. Why has Agilent slipped considerably this year - from 70 to 60in the HR metrics quadrant, resulting in a down-rating from 6 to 7? "In our internal Be Agilent surveys, between 2006 and 2007, we have actually advanced by about 5 points in HR metrics. And our annual survey has shown that India has been the number one performer in HR metrics among all Agilent subsidiaries globally.
So it's difficult for me to believe that somehow things like employee satisfaction levels have gone down. But certainly we will take a look at our ranking this year."
Since last year, Agilent is very actively pursuing the work-life balance issue. "The way this organisation is moving, I see the company increasingly supporting its employees' ability to work from home," Venky says. The great challenge before the company is to increasingly allow people to work from home and yet maintain its culture, he adds. More About