Work Culture

The test for excellence

At AppLabs Technologies, the focus is on hiring people who are truly interested in making a career in the field of software testing, says Tanu Talwar.

AppLabs Technologies, a global IT services company, is one of the leading players specialising in software testing and development with special focus on quality assurance, performance, certification and hardware testing. With organisations increasingly realising the importance and the need for quality assurance and third party verification, the company has carved a niche for itself by developing and offering three primary services—quality assurance, development and KeyLabs certification services, to enable enterprises and independent hardware and software vendors improve the quality of productivity throughout their business specific development cycle. Focussing upon these services, the company caters to a large number of technology companies as well as business leaders in healthcare, life sciences and financial services industries. Besides constantly adding leading industry names to its strong list of over 400 customers.

Founded by Sashi Reddi, a graduate in computer science from IIT, New Delhi, who went ahead and earned a doctorate in Finance and Marketing from the Wharton School, University of Pennsy-lvania, AppLabs was incorporated in April 2001. With software testing by independent players emerging as the next big global trend, the company has embarked upon a strong growth path and is poised to become a global testing powerhouse in the next 12-18 months, attracting more and more people to join the company.

After starting out with 25 people at the time of its incorporation, today the company has grown to employ 1,800 employees working across its varied departments engaged in testing, developing and assuring the quality a software comes with.

One of the key factors zooming the growth of the company attracting more and more people to become a part of the AppLabs brand, has been the unique work practices followed across the organisation aimed at promoting and encouraging, friendly, enthusiastic and an energetic learning environment that contributes to the development of each and every member of the AppLabs team.  

The DNA factor

As an organisation, AppLabs considers its employees to be at the core of its DNA. The importance that the company attaches to its employees clearly reflects the its philosophy that it is they who represent the organisation and provide a direct insight into its dealings. Consequently, unless they are not respected, valued or empowered with adequate authority to take key decisions, the company also cannot achieve the results it targets.

Arun Rao, Vice-president, HR, AppLabs Technologies, states, “We consider our employees to be our greatest assets. There is absolutely no way we can grow at the expense of our staff members. Our growth is in direct relation to the growth experienced by our employees across the world—be it in terms of better skills, better roles or better titles. Then again, an employee who knows he is valued by the organisation strives harder to work to the advantage of the company.” These are the beliefs that have equipped AppLabs with an engaged and dedicated workforce that has further led the company on a fast track to success.

Recruitment and induction

The key importance that AppLabs attaches to its recruitment cycle becomes clear from the fact that the company has a dedicated team of 17 members engaged solely in the task of bringing in the best possible talent available. Out of these 17 members, 12 look after the entire recruitment needs of the organisation, two focus upon the immigration part and three are engaged in the post-recruitment activities. For AppLabs, recruitment is not just a mere initialisation of the hiring process but it’s the most significant part of the employment cycle as a lot depends upon the kind of personnel an organisation endows itself with.

It is for this reason that AppLabs trusts in maintaining an in-house recruitment procedure. Highlighting the reasons for in-house recruitment, Rao states, “The primary reason for the entire selection process to be planned and carried out by the internal team is that the in-house team has a better idea of an origination’s functioning and special requirements in terms of mindset, culture, values, skill set and the attitude required among the employees in order to gel well within the company.”

In order to get the best available talent, AppLabs considers every avenue there is to find the right set of candidates. The company not only considers employee referrals, campus recruitments, placement agencies and advertisements, but also looks at its database, besides exploring suitable profiles from the various job engines. However, a major bulk of its recruitment comes from the database that it actively studies and maintains. Though the company values the references made by its existing employees, unlike other companies it does not believe in encouraging this practice by attaching financial incentives to these references. “The idea is not to get maximum references, but to get people who are truly interested in making a career in the testing domain,” asserts Rao.

Though there is no direct incentive attached to these references, they do affect an employee’s performance review on the basis of which his salary hike and other incentives are decided. Rao explains, “The evaluation form of each employee has a separate category that talks about his organisation contribution. One of the factors deciding this contribution is the reference that he has made to the vacancies open in the company. Based on the rating received in the evaluation chart, his future course in the company is decided and the corporate contribution chart plays a vital role in affecting an employee’s ratings.”

Going beyond technical knowhow

Till now the company had been recruiting people with engineering as the minimum qualification, in an attempt to address a wider talent pool it’s now looking at adding fresh graduates in BSc and BCA to its workforce. Talking about the recruitment procedure, Rao asserts, “We follow a multi-tier interview process when it comes to hiring people with experience. For freshers, we run them through an assessment centre involving an aptitude/generic skills test followed by a group discussion and a series of personal interviews.”

For laterals, the company has two-level HR interviews and at least two rounds of technical interviews. Sometimes, situations demanding, the Head of the Department also meets the prospective candidates. Then again, the company has designated levels of decision-making in terms of approval to hire based on the levels of hire, for example, for a junior post in the company it’s the assistant of a senior level project manager who shall be engaged in the process.

However, for AppLabs, qualification and technical knowhow are not the sole parameters for hiring a candidate. The company has a well-designed set of values “GLOBAL” that is considers while selecting a candidate. GLOBAL, an acronym, standing for Genuine, Levelhead-ed, Openly enthusiastic, Bold, Accountable and Learning—the few qualities that the business heads look for in an employee before getting him onboard. If an employee shows the potential for these qualities, along with the technical background, then he is put through the next phase of the employment cycle—onto the induction process.

At AppLabs, the induction stage is a two-week long process. Whereby, the first day an employee is introduced to the company by the HR team, the second step of the process that usually takes about a week, introduces the new employee to his project manager who further gives him a tour of the company explaining the various lines of business and in the third and the final step, the employee is assigned to a project.

Training and the art of retaining employees

Once an employee is selected after passing through the various stages of interviews, he proceeds to the next important stage, training level of the employment programme. At AppLabs there exists a specifically designed training programme called the AppLabs Centre of Excellence (ACE) programme that looks after the induction of freshers and runs a three-month long rigorous training programme focussed at updating their skills and knowledge in the technological domain. The training is imparted from experts within the industry as well as the company’s experienced executives. The importance that the company attaches to training becomes clear from its policy of making 40 hours of training mandatory for each App-Labee, every quarter.

Considering job dissatisfaction as one of the major reason causing attrition, Rao reveals, “There is no doubt that most of the time employees start looking at other avenues mainly because their current job profile does not provide with contentment as a result they start to look for a change. We strongly believe that the growth of the company is contingent on its employees hence employee satisfaction means a lot to us.” It is for this reason the company strongly believes in engaging its employees in projects with a definitive deadline that do not extend beyond a certain timeline. “The idea is to maintain a healthy and an enthusiastic work environment by not letting monotony crawl in. It is for this reason we make sure that an employee is assigned to a certain project for not more than 12-15 months,” reveals Rao.

Paying back

Besides climbing the corporate chart, AppLabs is extremely passionate about fulfilling its social responsibility. The AppLabs Charitable Trust highlights the company’s commitment of giving back to the society. ACT is a body of AppLabsees that runs the Corporate Social Responsibility Charter for the organisation. The group takes up a host of charitable events like helping old age homes, providing infrastructure support to the hospitals, donating clothes to the destitute, funding transplant surgeries for the poor and holding blood donation camps. The company also looks at carrying out charity by giving donations and has formalised a charity charter this year. Today, each AppLabsee donates Rs 50 from his/her monthly paycheck and the organisation makes a corresponding contribution.

Adding spice to work

In order to bring about a balance between professional and family life of the employees, AppLabs conducts various parties, get-togethers, sport events and festive celebrations. Besides adding spice to work, these activities help in assuring that the employees and their families get to know each other merely beyond their work. Rao says, “We have two events in a year where we encourage employees to let loose and enjoy. The whole programming and execution is done by them, that includes the run-up and the main event. This gives an opportunity to employees to showcase their talent and also brings the families closer since it is an event open to employees and their families.” Then again, the company holds regular cricket matches with other companies. One can judge the popularity of these initiatives by the high level of participation they are met with at all levels of employment.