It's Friday and a "thank God it's Friday" stress buster session is underway at the Covansys India campus in the Tambaram suburb of Chennai. Twenty teams of five participants each are engaged in a contest to draw an elephant in the quickest possible time.
All the participants are full-time employees of the company and the seniormost is Executive VP (Global Delivery) Shankar Vishwanathan. "TGIF takes us back to our college days. It fully charges us, helps us think out of the box and keeps us quick and creative. We do better at work after this," says Kala Perumal, 28, a Team Leader.
Fun and games aren't the only reason why Covansians think their company is a great place to work in. Covansys has recently established an Employee Structure Framework to foster growth and excellence. The framework, which was formalised in January-February this year, works at two levels. It encourages individuals and teams to overcome their tential to the fullest; and at the organisational level, it softens those controls that prevent the free flow of creativity within the company.
Six task forces were created as part of the framework in the areas of enhancing business growth; recruitment; building centres of excellence; raising delivery capability; enhancing resource management; and leadership development.
Anybody can participate in any task force subject to being voted in by the task force manager who is chosen by the senior management team. These task forces don't follow hierarchies; the leader of a task force may actually have his regular boss reporting to him in a particular area. And just to make sure that everybody takes this programme seriously, Sambamoorthy Natarajan, VP (Projects), receives reports from all the task forces every week and reports on the progress to Raj Vattikutti, President & CEO, Covansys Corporation.
The pay-offs from this programme are already evident. Says Natarajan: "There has been an increase in business referrals; we have booked orders worth $2 million (Rs 8 crore) based on informal tips." Then, employee referrals grew from 8 per cent to 15 per cent; and job rotation was taken up more sensibly—198 were sent on onsite assignments and 38 people were moved around different projects offshore.
"We have introduced a formal structure that allows everybody to participate in the growth of the company. The programme empowers employees to give free rein to their creativity while creating greater value for clients," says K. Subrahmaniam, President and CEO, Covansys. Adds S. Kandasamy, VP (Projects): "Glass ceilings were broken, and we brought in pride in the workplace."
Covansys also improved "Compass", a tool used to detect and leverage individual capabilities and aspirations. It uses non-intrusive methods to detect sources of dissatisfaction among employees and addresses them, thus, facilitating longer tenures in the company. The reasons can vary from disturbances on the home front (for example: a spouse getting transferred to another city) or a wish to embark on a different area of operations.
"Over the last year, Compass helped us retain at least 12 people who would have otherwise left the company," says Jayanthi Vaidyanathan, Director (HR), Covansys India. "Many of them were pleasantly surprised that they got what they wanted without asking for it."
That these initiatives are paying off is evident from one simple figure: Covansys has an attrition rate of 18.25 per cent compared to the industry average of about 25 per cent. Promotions take 2.1 years, and greater numbers are being promoted. Compensation, too, is well above the market median rates on average - but for top performers there is no glass ceiling, assures Vaidyanathan. "We have progressed well, but we could do more to satisfy people's aspirations," says Subrahmaniam.
The takeover of Covansys by the US-based Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) has also helped; it has catapulted the former into the league of Tier-I IT companies in India, thus, increasing its draw both among existing employees as well as with potential recruits. "We will adopt the best practices of each of these companies as we evolve further," says A. Sruthi Sagar, Senior VP & Head (Global Recruiting), Covansys.
And when that happens, Covansys's draw among employees will increase further.