 |
 |
Corbus
GS Ahluwalia, VP & head, HR
Rank: 1 | Corbus, a wholly owned subsidiary of Soin International LLC, is a leader in global outsourcing, with high focus on IT and supply chain services. Corbus ensures an adaptable and flexible business model to help its customers develop and achieve cost-effective, key strategic initiatives.
According to GS Ahluwalia, VP and head, HR, Corbus, "The challenge to attract and retain talent has taken on a monstrous size. But, it can be summed up in one line, Challenged supply lines. While most companies struggle on this front, to get to our pick of the employees, we have internalized our strategy to respond to this mammoth challenge." Corbus recruits heavily through employee referrals, besides hiring through campus, which is 30% of the total recruitment. Currently, Corbus has an attrition rate of 15%.
 Corbus plans its recruitment strategy for long term rather than just in time deliveries. Ahluwalia says, "We also dont fall in the trap of large brands and size issues, but focus on educating the candidate on our niche and opportunity. Its not the brand on the outside, but the brand from the inside that we compete against with the large organizations."
The opportunities at work and work environment are recognized as unique differentiators by Corbus. The three most important factors that have been a guiding light for Corbus are individualization of employee relationships, HR best practices, and preserving the unique work culture. Corbus has fostered a culture as a simple strategy to retain their people that provides each of them the space and freedom to accomplish their personal best. Corbus encourages diversity and looks for people from different nationalities, having the urge to learn and improve. |
|
Marching Ahead
 |
RMSI
Gagan Jyot, head, HR
Rank: 2 |
RMSI is a CMMi Level 5 assessed and ISO 9001:2000 certified company. RMSI provides comprehensive geospatial and software services to clients across the globe, in sectors like lands and property, wireless telecommunication, disaster management, insurance, agriculture, and natural resources.
 The factors that have contributed to the good showing of the company include employee satisfaction in most areas, including perks and the appraisal system. Recognition of efforts also kept the company from losing its employees to other software development houses and companies. Policies and procedures was one area that got a clear thumbs-up from employees.
Attracting talent with the right combination of skill-sets is the biggest challenge for an emerging enterprise like RMSI. RMSI often hires fresh graduates and grooms them within the organization as they are not able to get experienced people from outside. The current policy is to train people in-house and focus on campus recruitment. Most of the recruitments in RMSI are from referrals. Campus hiring is 20% of lateral hiring.
One of the focus areas for RMSI over the last one-year has been talent management and career progression through its dual career progression plan. Last year RMSI also focused its efforts on leadership development.
Although the attrition rate is approximately 13%, the number of employees grew by 20% in FY 06-07. The current headcount is 1,245, a 26% growth from April 2007. |
| Creating an Open Culture |
 |
HyTech Professionals
Damnish Kumar,
MD & head HR
Rank: 3 | HyTech Professionals India is an ISO 9001:2000 software engineering services company that delivers services in software development, testing, and consulting.
 Freedom to speak, open culture and management connectivity with every individual in the company are the three top factors that contributed to the good showing of the company," says Damnish Kumar, head, HR. Apart from the above-mentioned factors, career growth, mentorship and training programs, awards and recognition, and anonymous surveys are some of the factors that have contributed to the good showing of the company.
In FY 06-07, the company witnessed a 205% increase in employee strength. HyTech has also maintained a 0% attrition rate at project leader/manger level for the last one year, and this is a major success for any company. The attrition rate was 3% in April 2007, which increased to 9% in June 2007, and then came down to 0% in October 2007.
Retaining talented employees is quite a challenging job for an emerging company. According to Damnish Kumar, "It is important for emerging companies to do benchmarking of compensation and rewards from time to time. This is an important factor in retaining employees."
HyTech plans training programs for performers to promote them to the next level and share challenging work with them. HyTech also provides a good learning platform to freshers; they maintain a 1:10 campus hiring to lateral hiring ratio. |
Grooming Talent
Nagarro
Manmohan Gupta, CTO & head, HR
Rank: 4 | Founded in 1996, Nagarro is a full life cycle software product and application development company that has expertise in domains like ISVs, manufacturing, and pharmaceuticals. Nagarro provides services in product engineering, application development, application integration, quality assurance, verification, and validation.
 Nagarro gives all the credit for its good showing to innovative HR processes, industry-leading training programs and a stimulating work environment. It is more difficult for an emerging company to establish a unique and recognizable brand in order to be able to attract and retain talent. According to Manmohan Gupta, CTO and HR Head "At Nagarro, we have created a unique identity of being focused on executing challenging technology projects and innovative product engineering assignments." The management is on a constant lookout for grooming their internal talent to take on positions of greater responsibility, much earlier in their careers. The effort is always to create a unique and challenging work environment by taking technically challenging projects.
Nagarro has invested heavily in putting together employee development initiatives, rigorous training along with an accelerated growth program in order to identify and mentor employees for upcoming leadership positions.
At Nagarro, 65% of employees are freshers and one in every three lateral hire is through employee reference. Nagarro also has an association with a premier engineering coaching institute. The management at Nagarro identifies students preparing for their entrance exams and who can be their potential employees. These identified students are then provided guidance and support throughout their academic life, with an assurance that they would join the company and serve it for a mutually agreed period.
All above factors contribute to the good showing of the company that is evident from the fact that the attrition is as low as 7% at Nagarro. |
Automation is the Key
 |
vCustomer
Navin Joshua, executive director, HR
Rank: 5 | vCustomer is an end-to-end business solutions provider, which provides high-quality, multi-channel customer support services that help grow sales, increase customer satisfaction, and build customer loyalty.
Complete automation of all processes, organizational development in terms of skill enhancement, continuous learning, and growth opportunities are some of the factors that have contributed to the good showing of the company.
 All the processes and departments are automated and linked to a Central Performance Management Center to drive internal process efficiencies. The company provides e-learning packages to employees for language, communication as well as process specific training. According to Navin Joshua, head, HR, vCustomer, "There is a transparent, self-paced learning program that ensures standardization of content and delivery."
Besides focusing on process-centric training, the company also provides behavioral and skill enhancement training at an average of 92 hours per employee, per quarter. The company has formed a culture of continuous learning by constructing new age methodologies and concepts for professional development.
The BPO has developed new growth opportunities that prepare employees to emerge as successful future leaders and managers. The company has a dedicated Employee Relations cell whose main motto is to make vCustomer a fun place. Regular engagements and events are conducted throughout the year to boost employee morale and keep them engaged.
Majority of the positions in vCustomer are filled through internal job postings.
All the above factors have contributed to the retention of employees. |
|
Driven to Retain Talent
 |
e4e
Sonali Singh,
GM, HR
Rank: 6 | e4e is a global business services company, offering world-class industry solutions in three vertical marketshigh technology, consumer finance, and healthcare. e4e delivers a broad spectrum of service solutions in the areas of transaction processing, customer and technical support, application and infrastructure management, and testing and quality assurance.
 This ranking is a testimony to the commitment and the investment that e4e makes in attracting, engaging and retaining the best talent. The key competencies required for each level are identified through an exhaustive competency mapping exercise and used for hiring, training and development, performance management, and succession planning. All new hires undergo training on the core competencies for their respective positions.
There is a progressive plan for training. This year, the focus has been on learning and development initiatives. It began with the Young Turks Program for the first level of leaders, which aimed at grooming high potential associates for leadership positions. The Corporate Captains Program was for the middle and senior level managers. The Commanders-in-chief program for the top management, which was a one-on-one executive mentoring program.
The total number of employees remained the same, at 3,500, for the period between March and September 2007, as no recruitment was done during this period.
Speaking on retention, Sonali Singh says, "Retention is much easier in an emerging company, because as the organization grows, it also creates tremendous opportunities for the associates to grow."
The attrition rate of the company stands at 22%, and the companys ratio of campus hire to lateral hire is 70:30.. |
|
Employee is the King
 |
Synygy
Parag A Wadhone, Manager, HR
Rank: 7 | Synygy India is an enterprise product development and IT consulting company, which deals with sales performance management solutions.
Synygy has invested in developing an open and performance-driven culture through their quarterly performance evaluation system, which provides a continuous feedback mechanism. According to Parag A Wadhone, manager, HR, "Our core values guide all our actions and hence we believe that employees need to grow professionally and personally, only then will Synygy grow. Synygy has a very successful mentoring program that helps in providing meaningful work to all employees and is centered on creating an excellent working relationship between manager and employee."
Synygy has an attrition rate of 12% and the biggest challenge is to retain existing employees and attract new ones. According to Wadhone, "Hiring is the biggest challenge for an emerging organization, as large companies have an extensive training program. Emerging companies want to hire smart talent that already have basic skills and can contribute from day one. In terms of retention, the biggest challenge is that emerging companies are generally flatter in hierarchy and the title growth is slower." In Synygy, campus hire is 25 % of total hire.
Between March 2007 and September 2007, the employee number has grown at the rate of 22%. |
|
A Caring Culture
|
|
|
Ajuba
Shankar Narasimhan
Director, HR & Finance
Rank: 8 |
Ajuba is a leading next generation healthcare BPO, offering a consultative, end-to-end revenue cycle management solution to physicians, hospitals, and for outsourcing.
Continuous training and development, trust and credibility, and a caring culture have contributed to the good showing. According to Shankar Narasimhan, director, HR and Finance, "Our HR friendly policies have been designed with a view to create an environment where every individual feels valued for the contribution she makes toward the success of the company."
In line with the companys motto "Invest in People, Invest in Process", the company has more than twenty in-house workshops and programs that run for employees at all levels, annually.
Employees are kept informed on any decision that may affect their working environment and are frequently consulted for inputs and suggestions before formulating any proposed changes. This has created a sense of belonging, appreciation, and trust among Ajubas employees. Ajuba is among the top quartile in the industry with respect to compensation and benefits.
Ajuba has hired 25% through campus recruitment this year. The annual attrition rates are 15% for non-voice and 30% for voice processes. |
Investing in People
|
|
|
Mindlogicx
Vasudevan PK,
Manager, HR
Rank: 9 | Mindlogicx Infotech is an R&D-based technology development company that provides IT consulting and end-to-end solutions in e-Governance, tele-education and recruitment process outsourcing.
Factors contributing to the good showing of the company are continuous monitoring of growth path and career design, genuine recognition for excellence, and participative project management. Every staff undergoes evaluations conducted in a scientific manner and efforts of an employee are rewarded in all forms. There is continuous monitoring of the knowledge factor of every staff member. There is space for people to evolve and the open door policy is followed in every aspect. Mindlogicx follows the three Ts as its core principles, ie, transparency, training and technology.
Transparency retains and enhances enthusiasm and commitment of the team. Quantitative and qualitative information about all the operations are communicated to the team members.
The training at Mindlogicx focuses on three areas, viz, cognitive, presentational and social skills. To achieve this goal, the company invests time, money and effort in creating adequate training resources and a learning culture.
The company has employed computerized workflow management and resource management systems with the help of its in-house development team that builds and implements software solutions to manage various departments and their process in the organization. |
Understanding Aspirations
|
|
|
Nucleus
Ravi Verma,
Head, HR
Rank: 10 | A leading global software company that provides banking and financial services spanning across solutions in the areas of core banking, retail and corporate banking, credit cards, cash management, relationship banking, financial CRM, analytics among others.
The market is highly competitive and challenges are many for an emerging company. Today, people are more concerned about the brand and are more demanding. Compared to a large company, brand positioning for an emerging company is very competitive. It has to establish itself as an organization and that requires substantial investments. Also, in comparison to an emerging company, a large company finds it easier to provide flexibility, scope for benefits, and facilities. Despite the challenges, Nucleus has faired well.
Factors that have contributed to the good showing are training and development, career management, effective communication, HR policies and processes, climate surveys, benchmarking and recreational activities.
The companys focus is on learning and development and the employees aspirations are taken seriously. According to Ravi Verma, head, HR, "We have formed a career planning and development mechanism which typically includes capturing employees aspirations and creating individual career plans."
At Nucleus, the attrition rate is nearly 20%. Campus recruitment is 15%. Employee strength has grown at the rate of 33% in FY 06-07. |
Employees as Ambassadors
Infogain is an IT software and consulting company and provider of CRM, integration and business intelligence solutions and services.
|
|
|
Infogain
Pankaj Shankar, global head, HR
Rank: 11 |
People are strongly attracted toward brand value and this becomes a major hurdle in retaining employees for an emerging company. "Though its not a defined law for the IT industry, big companies can definitely attract, especially the younger generation, by merely their brand. Wherein we need to showcase better work environment, good salaries and good branding. In our case, thankfully, our employees are the best ambassadors for us," says Pankaj Shankar, global head, HR, Infogain.
The current attrition rate in Infogain is approximately 19% and to cope with this problem, a high quality intake with checks and balances are imposed at various levels in the hiring process. The ratio of campus hire to lateral hire is 30:70. Apart from high quality intake with checks and balance, the other factors that contributed to the good showing are the blend of a good, open and friendly working environment; evaluation of human quotient and performance by studying the mindsets and current IT trends; and a strong training focus and complete employee integration program. |
|
The Human Touch
|
|
|
ValueLabs
Krishna Reddy,
Head, HR
Rank: 12 |
ValueLabs specializes in the delivery of dual-shore services in the areas of off-shore software product development, QA/testing, and KPO. the company was set up in 1997 with a vision to deliver value to clients worldwide using an effective global delivery model.
The major challenge SMEs face is that they cannot offer very high salaries to top-notch professionals. In such a scenario, the type of workforce SMEs should look at are those with a strong desire to perform and achieve. Professional skills can be nurtured and achievements can win them the highest rewards. With that in mind, 20% of the workforce at ValueLabs is selected from campuses.
Campared to larger organizations, SMEs have a lot to offer in terms of growth and recognition. SMEs should work for developing a sense of ownership among its employees
Attrition rate at ValueLabs has been traditionally low when compared to the industry averaqge of 5.5% in the year 2006, at 6% in September 2007. The percentage attrition has never crossed single digits in the 10 year history of the company. According to Reddy, "We retain the human touch. We believe that if work has to be involving, it has to be fun. We have a measure called the "Fun-Index" that measures the fun a team is having on the job. We do not believe in external pressures and targets. We believe that the desire to excel should come from within."
The employee strength grew at the rate of 82% in FY'06-07. |
Building Relations
|
|
|
Barry-Wehmiller International Resources
Jothiprakash S, head, HR
Rank: 13 | Barry-Wehmiller International Resources (BWIR) is part of the consulting group of Barry-Wehmiller Companies, a diversified company founded in 1885. BWIR provide three core servicesEnterprise Solutions, Information Technologies, and Engineering Services.
As an emerging enterprise, managing aspirations of employees and enabling the employees to adopt to the culture of the company are the two biggest challenges for BWIR," says Jothiprakash S, head, Human Resources.
In BWIR, the employees are called associates. Jothiprakash says, "The factors that contributed to the good showing of the company are the Bob Chapmans vision, belief in the basic things, doing them right, and the power of being small."
Bob Chapman is the group chairman of the company, and according to his vision "its the people who make the difference in the business. Treat people superbly and compensate them fairly".
A large company can compensate its employees by paying high salaries, but a small company can compensate the same in terms of building intimate relationship with their employees. BWIR launches an annual survey, the "Associate Satisfaction Index", and the action is taken on the basis of the results of the survey.
The ratio of campus hire to lateral hire is 1:10 and the attrition rate has come down to 14% from 22% in the last two years. The number of employees has grown at the rate of 16% in FY 06-07. |
Walking the Talk
|
|
|
GlobalLogic
Iti Kumar, AVP HR Operations
Rank: 14 | Founded in 1998, GlobalLogic is a global product development company that partners with emerging and established technology companies. GlobalLogic provides full product development lifecycle services to start-ups, emerging, and established technology companies.
Building confidence among the management is one of the biggest challenges for an emerging company. Since they are not "Brands", selling the organizations vision can be a challenge.
At GlobalLogic, there are plenty of platforms available to employees where they can interact with senior management and raise any question related to the company, its policies, and growth. According to Iti Kumar, assistant VP, HR Operations, GlobalLogic, "The biggest strength of the organization is its openness and transparency. The entire management believes in walking the talk, and even if a policy is rolled out, its first shared with employees, and their feedback is sought before a final version is rolled out for execution."
Flexible work schedules and employee engagement practices that bring fun at work are some factors contributing to the success of the company.
In FY 06-07, employees at GlobalLogic at the rate of 136%. The ratio of campus hire to lateral hire is 1:9, and the attrition rate is 18%. |
 AgreeYa Solutions (India) Pvt Ltd.
Striving for Excellence
|
|
|
AgreeYa
Rakesh Arora,
Global business head, HR
Rank: 15 | AgreeYa Solutions is a leading consulting, technology and business-outsourcing firm, which is focused on deploying technology and business solutions for clients globally.
I-CARE, which stands for integrity, commitment, advocacy, respect and excellence, is the integral foundation of AgreeYa. AgreeYa believes that people are its most valuable assets. According to Rakesh Arora, global business head, HRD, "AgreeYa strives for excellence by developing innovative initiatives such as RADAR (recruitment, audits, development, appreciations and respect), which foster continual improvements through effective benchmarks in all our HR processes and procedures."
AgreeYa has over 350 employees worldwide. The total number of AgreeYa employees in India in March 2007 was 96, which grew to 115 in September 2007. The attrition rate stands between 10-20% on annual basis.
The company adopts a highly discerning recruitment process to select the best talent. "AgreeYa believes in developing its own resources and talent pool and recruits 10% of its total strength from campus every year. The trainees are put through rigorous classroom and on the job training," says Arora. The strategy of AgreeYa is to ensure the development of highly competent professionals at all levels in the organization while nurturing the employees individual ambitions and desires for career growth. |
| |
|
