Work Culture

A virtual reality!

Standing out in this crowded and sometimes self-obsessed society is Virtusa’s vision and continued efforts at enlightening and elevating the lives of those less privileged. Renuka Vembu studies some of such aims and initiatives on the part of the company

With a HR vision to enable a profitable environment which partners hand-in-hand with the best-in-class platforms for growth, efficiency and foundation-building is one of the mainstays at Virtusa. Having realized that creating a performance driven culture is one of the key issues faced by organizations across the horizon, they have embedded it in their values—PIRL which stands for pursuit of excellence, integrity, respect and leadership.

Recruitment and training

Virtusa empowers its employees and integrates workforce competencies and manages performance of the highest pedigree by providing relevant and continuous development opportunities to employees. With a sharp focus and strong commitment on training amassing the technological, managerial and behavioral components, every Virtusan is well geared up for his individual and collective role within the given parameters. The components in the training manual vary based on the role performed by the employee in each project as well as the expected role to be performed during the year. Every employee is provided with a minimum of 40 hours of training in a financial year, which stands exclusive of induction and client training.

Sridhar Chandrasekar, Director, Marketing, Virtusa Corporation, added, “Training needs are identified based on inputs from the annual Performance Appraisal Review (PAR) forms and a comprehensive quarterly process of skill gap analysis using account-wise competency development plans (ACDP). The training and development team works in close collaboration with the project teams, in order to analyze the skill gaps and identify the required training programs. We have top talent program where we identify the top 200 leaders and give them training on a specific program in partnership with U21 (an online graduate school, leaders in global business leadership learning).”

Gearing up leaders

Their leadership philosophy is to assign success to team members and take personal responsibility if things go wrong. They aspire to groom all their managers as Level 5 leaders, which reads as good to great. The six key leadership competencies they focus on are—entrepreneurial skills, building high performance teams, having a client centric focus, communication and influencing skills, clarity of thought and self awareness. Their performance management system measures people on these traits while their leadership development programs focus on building these traits.

Focus on mentoring

Chandrasekar said, “Our HR metrics says that one of the top three reasons for people to join Virtusa is our work culture. We customize the support that each Virtusan needs during their different phases of being with us in creating a highly engaged workforce culture. We have buddy programs for new team members, developmental mentoring for all employees through their respective reporting manager and sponsored mentoring for top talents to help them to groom as future leaders. Thus, we include an employee’s entire career cycle, and aim to take every individual high up the pedestal. Our 83% participation in our Global Team Member Survey 2006 and 89% participation in our recent Global Team Member Survey 2007 are reflective of our highly engaged workforce culture and our culture of being transparent and open for giving and receiving feedback.”

These surveys clearly point out that employee satisfiers have been consistent year after year which are once again pre-defined in their core values—respect for people, an open and friendly culture, apolitical and non-hierarchical workplace and accessibility and transparency of senior management. All these initiatives result in high people delight and a strong employee retention arrangement.

Leading the lot

Chandrasekar explained, “Winning companies are those that consistently outperform competitors. A common characteristic among such winning companies is that they have moved beyond being learning organizations into teaching organizations. “Leaders as Teachers” is an innovative initiative at Virtusa where leaders share their vast industry experience and expertise with fellow colleagues and co-workers. We create opportunities for Virtusans at all levels to listen to their leaders on a continuous basis. These sessions involve leaders speaking on their areas of expertise, being interviewed by a facilitator with a group of audience and the leader co-teaching the primary parts of a training program.”

Recognition and rewards

The RAVE award stands for Recognize and Value Everyone. This quarterly function felicitates team members for their contribution and achievement. The online RAVE application is meant for an employee who can send a RAVE Card to another employee, which gets copied to his/her reporting manager as well.

Employee growth and performance is boosted also by their fast track promotion policies that provide a platform for employees to stretch their roles and showcase their skill sets.

Fun and celebrations

Right from celebrating all the festivals like Pongal/ Sankranthi, Navaratri, Diwali, Christmas to the Virtusa Anniversary celebrations which happens in March, then Environment Day and Independence Day, the company and its employees thoroughly engage in and enjoy these activities. A fixed sum is also allocated every quarter to all team members to have fun in their own way, like team outings.

Employee referral

“Grow Careers” is the employee referral scheme where Virtusans are recognized for their referrals they bring into the organization. Apart from the referral amount, they are entitled to raffles and other rewards also.

CSR initiatives

The company’s full-fledged engagement in numerous social activities and humanity welfare schemes epitomizes its ingrained sensitivity towards the outside world, and thereby, its people constituting its employees and staff members. As a socially responsible corporate citizen, they are fully committed to giving back to the society and the environment. Chandrasekar stated, “The best thing we could probably do as a socially conscious organization is to help ameliorate the lot of children, as our primary obligation is to the younger generation from under-privileged sections of society. This is an investment in the younger generation of the country and helps them get out of the cycle of poverty of educational resources, knowledge and opportunity. With this determination, we have taken our first step towards the corporate social responsibility by adopting two schools in Hyderabad—the Central Primary School and the Zilla Parishad High School, in 2005, in collaboration with Project 511. Project 511 is an initiation by Hyderabad Round Table 8 (a voluntary community service organization) and MV Foundation (an NGO), who put their hearts and minds together serve government schools across the state of Andhra Pradesh, that require funds for maintenance and operational expenditure.

Virtusans decided to take CSR beyond just a responsibility and volunteered to bring Diwali joy to the under-privileged children at the schools they have adopted. Colors and competition, gifts and crackers lit up the eyes and lives of every child that day.

They also actively participated and devoted themselves to Udavum Karangal, a residential home for abandoned children, right from just borns to over 80 year-olds.

It also supported HIV patients, HIV orphans, physically handicapped persons, mentally challenged persons and destitutes. Magic shows and musical programmes enthralled the audience that evening.

Spreading the message

Chandrasekar explained, “Virtusa Chennai celebrated Virtusa Environment Day on December 14, 2006 (also the National Energy Conservation Day) with the aim to bring awareness to the pressing problem of environment degradation. A ‘Cycling Campaign’ was launched, where Virtusans cycled to work from their homes to spread the message of global warming. Virtusans were invited to a talk on Effects of Ozone depletion and the employees were given free saplings to plant at their homes. The office corridors were plastered with colorful posters that screamed out loud facts about climatic changes, little steps to save the environment. Environmental activists Green Peace had put up a kiosk and educated them on environmental issues. “Miles to go”—a movie, was also screened in the evening which highlighted the top toxic spots in India. The above mentioned activities are just a small step taken by us and hope to carry on with several such measures going forward to save our planet. Our desire to reach out to the under-privileged sections of the society is driven by the hope to establish traditions of philanthropy and volunteerism among our own Virtusan community.” They also have launched a website for Paradise Home, an orphanage, special school and training center for the mentally challenged in Chennai.

renuka.vembu@expressindia.com