Work Culture

At Sun, HR policies unite geographies

Sun Microsystems, which operates largely as a virtual organisation, takes great pride in its homogeneous HR process across different countries, writes Vinutha V.

US-based Sun Microsys-tems operates in India with its engineering centre, sales and support offices. Sun Microsystems India employs 1,050 people of whom 800 are in the engineering centre and the rest are in the non-engineering category. The engineering centre develops software technologies such as Java, Solaris and some of the chip hardware.

Homogeneous HR initiatives of Sun are maintained across 47 countries including India, Australia, Germany, Latin America and Canada. The company operates as a virtual organisation with its standardised and globalised HR policies. Such initiatives across the locations help the company in several ways. Hemant Sharma, HR Head, Sun Microsystems India, says, “For instance, the performance management system is done uniformly across different geographies of Sun. This system consists of goal setting, developmental plan and performance assessment of all the employees. By this we can evaluate the growth and the needs of the company as a whole. This helps in strategising the company’s plans in a better manner. However, the HR processes adhere to the legal and compensation aspe-cts in the respective locations.

From ‘arriving to thriving’

While recruiting, Sun looks for candidates with an in-depth knowledge in the required domains. But a candidate’s fitment to the culture of the organisation is never neglected. Of the total employees hired, 30 percent are recruited through the referral system. The reward scheme for employee referral scheme ranges from $750 to $1,000, based on different postings for which the existing employees refer. ‘Arriving at Sun’ is conducted on every Thursday to welcome new recruits and on the same day they are informed about the Sun’s HR policies, IT policies and security policies. This is followed by ‘Serving at Sun’, an online coaching programme on Unix. Each new recruit undergoes a session to get acquainted with the cultural aspects and history of Sun through an initiative called ‘Thriving at Sun’. For about 20 days each new employee is assisted by a Sun Wiser.

Workforce Profile

Sun University

Sun has a virtual concept—Sun University, which takes care of the training needs. In fact, Sun U manager identifies the different areas where training is required. The training analysis is usually done in June every year, which is the beginning of the year for Sun. After identifying the areas for the development, regular training programmes are conducted on both technical and behavioural fronts. The company encourages individual need-based training too. The company is planning to move towards Web-based training programmes in knowledge-based areas such as business conduct, Sun IT security policies, etc. This initiative is in order to achieve complete coverage, as the employees of Sun are dispersed across different geographies.

Freedom with responsibility

Sharma says flexibility and openness are the main ingredients of the retention strategy for a company. Flexibility at Sun is based on “feel free but be responsible.” Employees take breaks in between their work; play games such as cricket, table tennis and carom. They can even watch movies every Friday shown in the company. Madhu K R, a member of technical staff of Sun Microsystems has been working in the company for the last five years. He says, “It is like a college atmosphere with complete freedom. The open culture that we have is something all the employees love. We can communicate without any barriers. I keep in touch with the ex-employees of our company and they still miss the work culture of Sun.”

Enthu is a team that organises events on every last Friday of the month. The event celebrates employees’ birthdays and rewards outstanding performance of the selected employees. People selected for the reward scheme can even vary from mailroom to highly qualified people. It’s not only the senior manager who can refer somebody but even peers are authorised to select for the reward scheme on a monthly basis. The Enthu team also arranges for picnics, mountaineering and other activities.

At Annual Kick Off, the annual event of Sun, recognition awards are given away to outperforming employees.

vinutha@expresscomputeronline.com