Work Culture

Looking beyond the pay package

HCL Infosystems takes great pride in its work culture that has been able to retain people even though the company does not offer the highest salaries, writes Atanu Kumar Das.

HCL Infosystems was incorporated on 30 August 1975 with six employees. It stood for Hindustan Computer Limited. Today, 30 years later, the group has revenues of $2.2 billion and over 25,000 employees. HCL Infosystems alone employs 3,800 people presently, with the growth of employees increasing by 400 every year. HCL Technologies, the other arm of HCL, employs the rest, 21,000. With such a vast number of people working for them, the human resource (HR) division is focussed on excellence so that the company experiences a lesser attrition rate.

According to Vivek Punekar, Associate Vice-president, HRD, HCL Infosystems, “The key to our success has been the work culture we have in the company. We believe that everybody should be involved in making the company succeed. The key mantra at HCL is working for the growth of both the individual and the company.”

HCL Infosystems is today a leading brand both in the enterprise as well as consumer space. One crucial fact is that it does all its business in rupees; this prevents the company from being the best-paying IT employer in the country. “We know that there are many IT companies paying more to their employees, but we can’t be the best paying because of the restriction on us to do all our billings in rupees. Nevertheless, we offer our employees a fixed salary as well as a variable salary. The variable portion is decided according to the grade of the employee. It basically means that we share the profits of the company with our employees. For example, this time we are giving 1.75 times the variable salary we promised to HCL employees as this year our results have been very good,” states Punekar.

Retaining the best

What distinguishes HCL Infosystems from other companies is its ability to retain employees for a long time. More than 300 employees who joined the company as trainees have spent 20 years with it and are today among the top management. “There is no shortcut to success, and HCL respects those who have been delivering results for the company over the years. The fact that 300 people have 20 years experience in HCL indicates that once a person spends five to six years in this company he or she usually sticks around,” Punekar adds. Attrition is maximum at the entry-level since today there are numerous companies that are offering better salary packages. “There is a 16 percent attrition rate in the 0-5 years experience segment. For those who have 5-10 years of experience the attrition rate is 5 percent. In the top management though, HCL can proudly say that they don’t have any attrition rate,” he declares.

Employee assessment

There is no shortcut to success. HCL respects those who have been delivering results for the company over the years Vivek Punekar Associate Vice-president HRD HCL Infosystems

Assessment for sales and services personnel in the company happens every month. This is to ensure that since the company is more into customer satisfaction, sales and services employees are the key people for the company. For other employees, assessment takes place every three months. “Marking the performance is very important and we do it judiciously. The average salary growth that took place this fiscal is 10 percent in the fixed salary format...the variable salary differs every year according to the company’s performance,” Punekar reveals.

Extensive training

The best part for any person joining HCL Infosystems is the training focus. For sales staff it is a three-week cycle, for the services employees it is a six-week programme. “We get the best of people to speak in the training programme on varied topics; this enhances the picture of the industry for the new employee. Moreover, 10 of our top management guys also speak on different topics and make them get a feel of HCL’s culture, which we think our employees should be familiar with. As the IT industry is getting more competitive, we believe that it is important to give the right training to our employees to enable them to stay ahead of the competition,” Punekar adds.

The flip side is that after getting trained, some new employees leave for better packages, which, HCL points out, is helping the competition. “We train our employees with the sincere purpose of making them the best of the breed. But as the IT industry is growing I guess attrition is going to remain. Frankly, we don’t want to be in the rat race of getting employees by increasing their salary packages as we believe in the overall growth of the individual,” states Punekar. The average attrition rate in the IT industry is around 25-35 percent, so HCL Infosystems is happy that its attrition rate is still around 16 percent.

Mindindia project

HCL Infosystems prides itself on being an Indian company and is doing its best to enhance its image. They have a project, Mindindia, to enhance the importance of Indian companies in the country. “We want people to feel proud about the country. We have had 15 roadshows in different cities in the first phase and we expect to touch another 10 cities by the end of this fiscal. In these shows we get a prominent personality from each city to speak or perform and make the audience feel that we have many Indian personalities whom we can be proud of,” Punekar sums up.

What is the benefit of such a project for HCL? Subtle brand recall.

atanu@expresscomputeronline.com