Fifty four-year-old J.V. Ramamurthy, the Chief Operating Officer of HCL Infosystems, confesses to learning to dance to Punjabi music these days. It seems a bit odd when you think of his age, his south Indian background and the fact that Punjabi dance Bhangra isn't exactly a rage nowadays!
But when you consider that Ramamurthy's job is to try out and adopt newer ideas to drive growth at HCL Infosystems, his fancy for Bhangra ceases to surprise. "You have to keep innovating, keep doing different things to stay ahead of the market," Ramamurthy, alias J.V.R., says, putting into perspective the company's diverse interests ranging from software development and technology integration, computer hardware manufacture and prototype development to distribution and marketing of digital lifestyle products. In system integration, the company has successfully expanded its reach to segments like infrastructure, power, e-governance, media and entertainment and telecom, he informs.
The spirit of innovation that has made India-based HCL Infosystems into a vastly diversified outfit with 5,467 employees working from 350 locations today has also been instrumental in shapand initiatives that are now rated among the best in the industry and have placed the organisation in BT's listing of the best workplaces in India.
In the past two years, the HCL Info management has rolled out a slew of innovative initiatives aimed at its employees and the workplace, after realising that the company was getting too obsessed with numbers and growth. "We realised the need to loosen up a bit, instill some fun factor and lay stress on informality in the workplace,"J.V.R. says.
Some of the key initiatives on employee engagement and performance management functions include iPerform, an online performance management system that tracks results achieved through daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly reviews; Mindia TechXperts, which is a fast-track career growth programme launched this year to identify and groom young engineers for leadership positions in 18 months; HCL Towers, which awards houses to top performers; and the profitsharing scheme that also rewards the best. In addition, the company has now automated its HR functions and set up portals to enable faster flow of information.
The company has a simple HR mantra: Recruit the best, retain the best and reward the best. While 80-85 per cent of recruitment is done on campuses, of the remaining 15 per cent, 85 per cent is filled through referrals.
The company, which calls itself a "campus organisation", also hires from Tier II & Tier III cities. All candidates are subjected to comprehensive assessment techniques' before final selection. To create a learning organisation, the company has set up a dedicated HCL Education Center in Hyderabad, where based on individual, organisational and customer needs, employees are put through technical and soft-skills training, management development programmes, technology leadership programmes and leadership development programmes. The duration varies from three weeks for management and sales staff to four weeks. More About