Work Culture

Ajuba: a reciprocal relationship

In line with its motto ‘Invest in people—invest in process,’ Ajuba Solutions has a range of more than 20 in-house workshops and programs for its employees. Renuka Vembu takes a deeper look at the people policies in the company

The work environment of Ajuba Solutions is motivational and inspiring. Just like every employee is expected to surpass the customer expectations, Ajuba applies the same line of principle while dealing with its internal customers who work with them. ‘Under promise, over deliver’—is the imprinted philosophy followed by the company. Employees are always kept in the loop about any decision that may affect their work flow. Their views and inputs are sought while formulating proposed changes and all the policies are formed after due consideration given to incorporate their inputs. This working and behavioral pattern has helped in creating and building a sense of belonging, appreciation and trust amongst employees and the organization. A signal of employee-employer reciprocating the ingrained trust is that no bonds are signed while delegating employees to attend US certification programs and they in turn, show their loyalty by staying back with the organization.

Cross-functional skills, multi-tasking and inter departmental flexibility has drawn many of the HR team members of Ajuba towards other functions like operations, competency development, finance and administration. This helps them to imbibe a holistic perspective and empathize and relate to the employees from their own experience, bringing in sharp insights and pragmatic solutions to smoothen out the course of process improvement and enhancement.

Value system

The value system as espoused by the company is termed as MELT, an abbreviation for:

• Meritocracy: All the policies and practices are based on competencies and performance.
• Excellence: Excellence at work helps delight their customers, which in turn results in more business.
• Learning: Learning means value addition to the existing skill base and knowledge resource. Employees are sponsored to attend and learn from industry leading certification programs as well as a host of internal and external training programs.

Trust, transparency and teamwork: Respect for each individual, fairness in all dealings and a caring attitude have helped build the three Ts.

HR initiatives

Distinct HR initiatives taken up by the company, which revolve around employees, are:

• Money matters: It is a series of 60-minute workshops anchored by the finance team for all employees where simple yet practical tips on effective tax planning, savings and investment, basic investment options, managing credit cards, understanding inflation, etc., are covered. These workshops are complemented by poster campaigns, e-learning tools and a dedicated financial counselor.
• Svasth: Svasth, meaning ‘health’ in Sanskrit, educates employees on topics such as ergonomics for computer users, coping with shifts, the need to maintain a healthy diet and regular food habits, stress management tips, importance of work-life balance, etc. This program is run through workshops, posters, quiz contests, email alerts and ergonomics audits. Ajuba previously partnered with a diabetes research center and conducted a diabetes screening program for all employees. The Svasth Center in their office premises acts as a full-fledged health check clinic with a general physician visiting twice a week and a doctor, once a month. The health checks sponsored by the company are aimed at educating, assisting and emphasizing employees to lead a healthy lifestyle, both within and outside the work areas. Family members can also avail of the facilities at the Svasth Center by setting up prior appointments with the doctors.
• Sparkz: To harness the collective power of ideas from their front line employees, Sparkz was launched, and with active employee participation, it has received ideas on process enhancement, cost cutting and boosting employee morale. A cross functional managerial panel meets every month to review the ideas and select the best ones for implementation, rewarding the best suggested.
• ICONS: ICONS (Internal Communications Network) organizes monthly events to ensure a ‘fun at work’ culture, keeping stressors and work pressures at bay. The team enjoys a high degree of autonomy in decision-making with management backing and has initiated several activities like theme-based festival days, intra-company cricket match during the world cup, painting contests, football tournaments, in-house company newsletter launch and company-wide workstation design contest.

Recruitment cycle

Devendra Saharia, President, Ajuba Solutions India, said, “With a state-of-the-art recruitment center with its own candidate reception lobby, dedicated interview rooms and a CBT area, we focus on using every touch point with a potential candidate as a brand building experience. Therefore, be it job fairs, meeting consultants and interviewing candidates at their centers or having walk-in interviews at Ajuba’s recruitment center, there is only one key goal—‘Get every candidate excited about joining Ajuba and select those who best match our needs.’”

The recruitment team of Ajuba is trained in both candidate psychology and recruitment techniques, using concepts such as guest relations and behavioral interviewing skills. The recruitment process ranges anywhere from a three stage process to a seven stage process, depending upon the type of vacancy and profile required, and candidates are informed of their selection within three hours.

Training modules

In line with their motto, ‘Invest in people—invest in process,’ Ajuba has a range of more than 20 in-house workshops and programs that are conducted across the board. In addition to these are sponsorships to various US-based certifications, external management workshops, conferences, seminars and assignments abroad for top performers, to make them aware of the corporate scenario the world over. At a leader level, they have quarterly Leadership Development Programs (LDP) and Management Development Programs (MDP), which are anchored by the senior management team and include guest speakers from the industry. The organization’s seven full-time trainers and their training philosophy revolve around ‘high impact training in minimal time.’

The three levels of competency development listed down by the company are:

• Entry level: 20 workshops encompassing technical training, domain specific programs, compliance workshops, client specifics, soft skills training, personality development topics, financial awareness, software tutorials, team work, corporate etiquette, email etiquette, US culture modules, voice and accent training, stress management tips and time management sessions, are undertaken for the employees. Employees scoring more than 85 percent climb to the next level.
• Middle management: Four main modules form a part of the LDP—people management skills, project management, client relationship management and performance management, covering subjects like time management, leadership, team building, project management, motivation, transactional analysis and change management, the passing grade being 80 percent.
• Top level: MDP programs are of a more strategic level and include topics like moving from good to great, value creation, talent retention strategies, commercial awareness program and pay for performance system.

External training

In addition to the above, top performers are sponsored for various domain specific certifications such as CPAT (Certified Patient Account Technician) and CCAT (Certified Clinic Account Technician) for medical billing staff, Certified Healthcare Collection Specialist Exam for collectors, and CPC (Certified Professional Coders) for medical coders. Project leaders attend workshops conducted by QAI (Quality Assurance Institute) and Nasscom in areas related to QA, compliance, project management and people practices. Sponsorship to various tele-seminars and Web courses run by training specialists based out of the USA—Judy McKee, Nancy Friedman, AAHAM, ACA, are facilitated for employees.

E-learning portal

Skillworx is where employees have 24/7 access to training content spanning all the above mentioned topics mentioned. The in-house knowledge management portal called KONNECT is linked to their intranet portal TOUCH.

Leadership and mentoring

Saharia explained, “Our fast-track program called LEAP (Leadership Evaluation and Assessment Program) serves as a launch pad for all the talented employees. LEAP is completely performance-driven, irrespective of age or experience. This ties in well with our core value of meritocracy. A typical fast-track employee will consistently demonstrate domain expertise in assignments, possess excellent interpersonal skills, be self-motivated and constantly seek out new challenges. The period to observe and qualify such employees is one appraisal cycle. The benefit is two fold—it provides a structured career progression map to bright employees thereby acting as a talent retention tool, and helps create an internal talent market. 100 percent of all our team leaders, supervisors and assistant managers in operations are homegrown, and many employees have moved successfully into varied lateral openings such as technology, HR, training and QA.”

He added that aspirants attending LEAP are put through a basket of assessments comprising psychometric tests, domain assessments and panel interviews. Parameters like target achievement, voluntary involvement in company initiatives, and feedback from the employee’s team and manager are also factored into the assessment model. People who do get qualified are given a feedback report and alternate channels of growth and development are charted out with the employee, the HR manager and the sponsoring manager. They are also added to the LEAP list for one year where they are assigned a mentor along with a detailed development plan, including quarterly KRAs with SMART (Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-bound) goals.

CSR initiatives

Over the years, Ajuba has unfailingly participated in and contributed to various social welfare causes such as support to the development of special children, providing relief in times of disasters and emergencies, and support to development-oriented organizations working at the grassroots level to bring about positive change in the areas of education, health, community development and environment. It has been closely associated with the Concern India Foundation, Indian Red Cross Society and Vidyasagar (formerly known as The Spastic Society of India).

renuka.vembu@expressindia.com