Work Culture

Fast track to success

Renuka Vembu on how InfoVision motivates and rewards its best performers through rapid promotions and learning opportunities

InfoVision claims to be a dynamic and exuberant company which takes pride in its transparent and humane work environment. The company boasts of a buoyant growth rate of 50 percent per annum. An open door policy invites every person dedicating their service to the company, and a proximity to the senior management is clearly evident in this organization. Initiative is the buzzword at InfoVision. The company’s entire efforts, processes and activities are aimed at creating and adding value to the service provided to the customer—both internal and external. Functioning with this ideology enriches the work experience of its employees.

The impressive growth rate at InfoVision helps create opportunities for each one of its employees in terms of both personal enhancement of lifestyle and professional acceleration. The skilled and talented workforce is capable of grasping the task at hand very easily. They adapt themselves to the work environment in the initial stages of joining itself which provides them with sufficient time for acquaintance and ample opportunities to display their skill sets. This augments their chances of getting promoted within a very short span of as less as three to six months sometimes. This is perceived as a great opportunity to promote the internal pool of talent rather than hiring an individual from outside the organization, who will not be very familiar with the workplace, processes and work culture of the company, and who needs to be trained right from scratch. Those who do not get the senior post invariably understand that only rewarding performers will be entertained and not the senior-most.

Malini Gupta, Senior Vice-president, HR, InfoVision Group said, “A strong emotional bond threads everyone together, irrespective of a person’s function, location, seniority or background. This is corroborated by the fact that a significant percentage of staff that leaves us joins us back. We also encourage learning at all levels. Our in-house ‘Leadership Development’ programme helps budding managers to develop their skills. The organization provides all the right elements and environment that you need to get to the top.” This fact is supported by statistics which highlights that 95 percent of its middle management consists of people who are internally promoted. And 30 percent of their staff comprises people who are recruited through employee referral programmes.

‘We care’

The company has a ‘We Care’ philosophy which sees to it that all the employee feedbacks are looked into and worked upon. The ‘Over Coke and Chips’ gives every employee an opportunity to interact with the President of the company, which often does not happen in many of the work places where the employee is familiar only with his immediate boss or may be the manager of his team. This close interaction ensures that all employees are given clear indications about the acceptable and unacceptable behavior at the workplace. These guidelines and value systems are also ingrained into them by senior members of the team who act as role models.

Recruitment processes

The company takes the assistance of various mediums to hire its employees—consultants, HR networking, advertisements and walk-in interviews. But it lays a lot of emphasis on its attractive referral programme by means of which it encourages its workforce to ‘phone a friend and gain a workmate’.

This method of referral accounts for a major number of its employees. Different skills-sets are required for different work processes. They employ a battery of tests to recruit people depending on the need for technical know-how, computer literacy, typing, or any specialized banking activity.

Effective training

The company takes pride in its comprehensive and effective training programmes. Most people and clients come to them for service, but eventually end up buying their training tools. Innovative and automated training tools developed in-house cover every aspect of BPO training, voice and accent, soft skills, systems and scripts.

The scripts merely act a basic guideline which emphasizes the bare minimum that is expected from an employee on a call. These cover areas like showing empathy, understanding the culture of the caller which may call for need of sense of humour, being friendly, knowing the social and political situation at their end, etc., depending upon the location of the customer. Gupta pointed out, “All these help employees react appropriately and be more humane under a given circumstance rather than them just rattling off product information.”

InfoVision conducts a four to six weeks training which helps equip new hires with everything they need to know on their job. They involve participants in interactive games, quizzes and other fun learning activities. Learning cannot be boring. So, this fun element during training, and experiential methods of learning help learners retain most of what they have come through, rather than just seeing a person giving presentation or hearing lectures.

Participation keeps people involved and active rather than purely listen to someone else talk. Refresher training on-the-job enables all to brush up their skills, which apart from improving their scores, acts as a great deal of support system while performing the job routine. Those who need hand holding have the benefit of one-to-one coaching by their experienced coaches. Whether it is coaching or training, the emphasis is on learning and not teaching. This essentially means that the tutor’s duty does not end only with teaching, they need to clarify and verify with participants if they have understood the concepts taught.

Additional tools

InfoVision has automated knowledge management tools that allow team members to keep a track of updates and take a test by going through a refresher or self-learning tutorial. If any employee is on leave, they just need to log in and the intranet will show them all the updates they missed. Taking an online test will confirm their understanding of the material they have accessed. The company has its management trainee programme which allows them to identify their fast tracker performers and groom them on all aspects of management. They also ensure that people get equal opportunities to grow and step into the right role that they are best suited for. Team managers help staff in deciding their career path for which they have an aptitude for. Skipping level meetings, an open door policy and a welcome meeting in which all senior management meet new hires for an informal discussion and introductions help bridge gap between hierarchies and bring people closer.

InfoVision has a robust, automated and completely anonymous 360 degree feedback process, which provides platform for individuals at all levels to express their views freely. They have an automated helpdesk machine by which a ticket can be obtained for any technical glitches to be solved at once. This guarantees timely and quick addressal of the issue in hand. Employees can also approach the HR any time for sorting out personal problems and get them duly addressed.

Gupta explained, “We strongly believe in the maxim ‘Our people are our greatest asset’, and our attrition percentage that is below the industry average reaffirms the faith of our people in us. Our core values are honesty, trust and pride, imbibed by our people and reflected in the quality of our work. Every InfoVisionary adopts the ‘I take charge!’ attitude.” This means that they take the initiative and charge to make the organization a better workplace, work sincerely towards it, and are readily willing to take on due responsibility for all their actions. They are properly trained with regards to cautiously accepting only the work that they can handle and not over-committing, acting within one’s own capacity, etc. In short, they are taught to take ownership for their actions and not find excuses. A quarterly ‘rewards and recognition’ session is organized to acknowledge exceptional performers.

InfoVision also has an education policy which supports any employee who wishes to pursue further studies and acquire additional qualifications that will help them perform well on the job. This also provides the person access to qualify for a better position in and a longer shelf-life with the organization in the near future. Gupta added, “This does not give an assurance of employee retention, nor is there any binding clause because we as an organization are secure enough. This programme is just a bonus to people who have been with us for a considerable period of time.”

Fun@work

InfoVision believes that ‘work is fun, when you enjoy it the most.’ Hence, events, off-sites and in house activities to ensure team bonding are carried out on a regular basis. They also have their own rock band, AUX 7, which entertains the guests at all celebrations and reward ceremonies, and their Events Committee ensures that they have a calendar packed with fun!

CSR initiatives

Just like every responsible and warm-hearted citizen of the country, InfoVision was right there at the time of crisis lending a helping hand to people in need. They contributed actively to help the victims of the Gujarat earthquake and the tsunami. Teams were also organized to visit those places and help victims rebuild their lives. They also undertake blood donation camps in partnership with the Lions Club.