Work Culture

Freedom with responsibility

At Aspire Systems, employees are given the freedom to choose their own way to design and do their jobs, writes Renuka Vembu

Aspire provides a work environment that is open, fair and collaborative. The presence of such an atmosphere provides limitless opportunities for its workforce to learn and grow—both on the personal front and the professional arena. The social and athletic clubs at Aspire strive to bring a balance in the work-life of Aspirians by organising various events like sports and cultural activities. The hierarchy of the company is flat and seamless. The witness to this fact is that any employee, immaterial of the nature of job he does or his rank in the organisation, can directly approach the top management at any given point in time.

Kalpana Srinivasan, Head HR, Aspire Systems, says, “Employee focus forms an intrinsic part of our organisation. It runs in our blood and within our system. We function with the tagline of ‘freedom with responsibility.’ We persuade employees to recognise their job responsibilities, understand the nuances involved with the task at hand, work on a set of achievable deliverables and choose their own way to design and do their jobs.”

HRConnect

HRConnect is an HR initiative to stay in touch with every employee. These are mandatory meetings and happen once in every quarter. Every individual is associated with a Resource Executive from the HR team. These executives are responsible for taking care of the career aspirations of all personnel working for the company. Right from the day of joining, these executives work closely with the employees throughout the different phases of their career with the organisation.

These executives strive to ensure a better workplace and help people have a better Aspire experience. Specific HR representatives are assigned to each employee to ensure that the communication is transparent and all issues and concerns inside the organisation are addressed promptly and proactively. Instead of an automated system of interaction, this personal approach helps in better communication so that the employees feel always taken care of.

Career tracks

The training schedules at Aspire are directly linked to the employee’s position in the company. A fresher undergoes two to three months of training, ranging from induction programme to technical and soft skills. He is then assigned to a specific work unit, wherein he works with a senior person from the team to understand the nitty-gritty of the job; while the calendar for a middle-tier or top management official will differ accordingly.

The Performance Management System at Aspire is a continuous process of planning, goal-setting, feedback, and performance review, and ensures that there is a greater amount of objectivity brought into the system. Career development meetings are conducted once in a quarter as a means of periodic discussion between the supervisor and the employee, rather than it being an annual event of performance appraisal.

These one-on-one collaborative efforts are viewed and used as a tool to build trust, open communication and better supervisor/employee relationships at all levels in the organisation. They also help in identifying KRAs and provide opportunities to employees to get a clear career path planned in alignment with the overall organisational goals. 

Employee involvement

All the employees of Aspire are involved in shaping the policies of the organisation. Every policy before the release is run through a pilot. All the employees are allowed to provide feedback about the pros and cons of the policy. This gives better acceptance and adherence to the policies as it takes into consideration the interests and needs of employees. Srinivasan adds, “At any level, any verdict or procedure that has a people impact are finalised only after taking into consideration and trying to incorporate their feedbacks to make it a holistic process.”

Corporate Social Respon-sibility (CSR) activities are organised through an internal association known as ‘AHA’, which stands for Aspire Helping Association. ‘AHA’ helps for and provides for continuing children education. It works in close quarters with the Ramamurthy Foundation, which houses about 25-30 orphaned children. ‘AHA’ takes care of every aspect of education of these children—from books to arranging for transportation to their school fees. They are also identifying schools in the nearby locality for plantation of saplings and in the process of helping these school children with computer education. Aspirians are also volunteers for Greenpeace—an environment watch group, and participate in many environmentally sensitive work initiated by Greenpeace.  

Srinivasan concludes, “From selection to on boarding, we strive to make the overall Aspire experience a memorable one. Whether it be our unique work culture or fast career growth, there is always a collaborative effort to make a difference.”