MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN ASSETS AT INFOSYS


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Leadership and Culture
Most of the current human resource practices at Infosys result from the vision of the leaders’ and the culture that they have created. Narayana Murthy, known for his leadership and vision is the public image of Infosys. His leadership style is humble and straight-forward, quite uncommon in the world of Indian business. Narayana Murthy believes in sharing wealth with his employees and in leading by example. In a knowledge-based business like Infosys, he sees the importance of consistency in rhetoric and action in empowering employees. Narayana Murthy is credited with creating a culture of closeness and empowerment at Infosys. His management style, rare among Indian business leaders, is based on western management.

The other founding members of Infosys contribute their own specialties. Though less known, they each play a critical part in shaping the culture and running the operations at Infosys. These unique personalities, with their particular strengths, create the basis for a uncommon culture at Infosys. Infosys was voted India’s most admired company by a January 2000 survey in The Economic Times.
According to Narayana Murthy, what Infosys has on its side is “youth, speed, and imagination and [they] are constantly innovating in every area of [their] operation.”
The founders’ efforts have been paying off. According to a California-based management consultant working in India, “Infosys has been critical in changing the mind-set of India.”
Transparency is one of the important values held by Infosys. A practice illustrative of this value is its very early decision to adopt the US GAAP standards, the most stringent standards, for reporting its financial results.
Hema Ravichandar, the Senior V-P of Human Resources, sums up the characteristics of the culture that distinguish Infosys from its
competitors:

“Our emphasis on transparency and communication sets us apart from the prevalent family owned businesses operating in India at. Our emphasis on getting the employees ’emotional buy-in into the company distinguishes us from the MNC’s that have recently entered the Indian business scene.”
The attempt to ensure emotional buy-in is evident in their effort to provide a self-sufficient work-environment for their employees. Infosys inaugurated its facilities in Bangalore under the name of “Infosys City” in November 2000. Spread over 44.225 acres, it is claimed to be the largest software services campus in the world. It has the largest `video wall' in Asia which allows for video conferencing simultaneously from multiple centres. The existing buildings also form part of the Infosys City. The City contains food courts that serve Chinese, North Indian, South Indian and Western cuisine. A state-of-the-art gym, golf course, pool tables, table tennis tables’ and dance-floor are already in place. The sauna, grocery store, an Infosys Store, 50 000 square feet swimming pool and a lake with paddling boats will soon be part of the City. The eco-friendly campus now has 3,500 trees, with another 2,500 more when the City is complete. The landscape includes stone paths, rose beds, bamboo clusters with benches beneath them, fountains, and water recycling plants. Besides the enticing work environment, Infosys provides state of the art technology to its employees. For example, PCs used by Infocians are upgraded every two years.
Management of the Human Resource Assets
As of March 31, 2000, Infosys had approximately 5,400 employees. The current employee strength represents a growth rate between 40-50% since 1996. Of these about 86% are engaged in software development (including trainees) and the other 14% are in support services.57% of the employees are aged between 20-25 years, 31% are aged between 26-30 years and the other 12% are over 31 years of age. Approximately 85% of the employees are males and15% are females. Infosys invests heavily in its programs to recruit, train and retain qualified employees. Further management believes that Infosys has established a reputation as one of the most preferred employers for software engineers in India. Elsewhere in the software industry around employee attrition rate is around 30%; Infosys boasts an employee attrition rate of only 9.8%.



Selection
The first step in the strategic management of a company’s human resources is selection of assets with skills and potential consistent with its business requirements. Infosys’s business requirements are flexibility and innovation. Accordingly, it has developed clear selection criteria consistent with this business need. Selection is based on individual’s ability to learn, academic achievement, conceptual knowledge, as well as temperament for (and fit with) Infosys’s culture. Further, because of Infosys’s reputation as a premier employer, it can select from a large pool of qualified applicants within India. Competition among applicants is intense. One selection criteria in particular stand out: the “Learnability”. At Infosys, learnability is defined as the ability of an individual to derive general conclusions from specific situations and then apply them to a new unstructured situation.
P.S. Srivathsa, the Senior Manager of Human Resource

Development, adds:

“Learnability is considered an important criterion because the project life cycle is short and technology is changing rapidly – so the ability of the person to take the concept learnt in one setting and to apply it to another is very important. At Infosys learnability is assessed through written tests that include mathematical and analytical questions geared towards assessing the aptitude of a person to derive generic patterns from a situation.”
For its entry-level positions, Infosys focuses its recruiting efforts on students with excellent academic background from engineering departments of Indian schools. The first step in the hiring process is manpower planning, where the numbers are determined. This planning usually takes place 20 months ahead of the hiring process. Recruitment includes campus interviews, as well as inviting applications over the Internet, newspaper ads, through job fairs, and HR Consultants. The initial screening is based on such criteria as academics and experience. In1999, 185,000 resumes were processed and, after the initial screening, were reduced to 40,000resumes. The shortlisted applicants undergo a selection test.The test comprise two main components: arithmetic reasoning and logical reasoning. Because of time pressures involved in testing the large volume of candidates across the country, the reading comprehension section has been eliminated, cutting down the testing time to one hour. Tutorials or coaching classes offered by third parties are popular among individuals who wish to prepare for these competitive tests. Infosys has a question bank system from which questions are picked randomly for each test centre. Those who score above the cut-off in the selection test are called for an interview. Interviews are conducted jointly by the human resource managers and the technical manager. At the interview stage screening criteria used are aspirations, expectations, flexibility, presentation skills, and communication skills. In 1999, 10,000 candidates were interviewed, and offers were extended to approximately 3,330. Of these, approximately 2,050 accepted. Rejected candidates may reapply after 9 months. People do come back and, if they have picked up the necessary skills, they are hired.



Training and Development
At Infosys, training and development is the next step in building its human assets where the objective is to match the available skills and abilities to its business requirements. In the headquarters at Bangalore, the education and research centre is housed in a building that contains 1,000 software engineers simultaneously. It comprises fully equipped classrooms, labs with video-conferencing units, individual faculty rooms, and a 30,000 square foot library with a capacity for 10,000 books. In addition, under construction are a management development training centre and a Wireless Centre for Excellence to be built by Nortel Networks. The Wireless Centre is expected to be the e-commerce research centre with a capacity for 650people working on research in wireless Internet capabilities. The education and research department of Infosys offered 241 courses in 1998-1999, including courses in business, database management, e-commerce, quality systems, programming language (e.g., Java, C++), networking concepts, software development, languages (e.g. French, Japanese), interpersonal skills (e.g., communication) and managerial skills (leadership, team management, negotiation). Full time faculty teaches 75% of these courses; professionals teach 10% of the courses and outside vendors offer rest of the courses. The full time faculty comprises 40 individuals from academics and industry. The human resources department supplies additional 5 facilitators, who provide the soft-skills training; the quality control department delivers the training for quality. All fresh technology entrants receive 14.5 weeks of training: 3 days of orientation (e.g. corporate culture, customers), 5 weeks of foundation courses (e.g., programming, systems development, and interpersonal skills), 7 weeks of technology courses (e.g. C++, UNIX, HTML) and 2 weeks of group project. In 1998-99, 1750 new entrants received the basic training. In addition, training is provided as a part of the continuing education. In 1998-99, 2000 employees received training as a continuing education: about 8 days/person in technical and software engineering, 1.5days/person in managerial skills, and 3 days/person in project management. Beyond entry-level training, people may nominate themselves for the scheduled courses. Close to 100 courses are offered each quarter, with duration from 1 day to 6 days. Most courses are presented in classrooms, some in labs. In addition, course may be offered on request. Training needs are assessed through various mechanisms; the objective is to fine-tune them to business needs. First the corporate management determines segment-wise technology requirements. These expectations are communicated to the education and research department. So, for instance, the education and research department may be informed of the requirement for500 people with knowledge in Internet technology in the near future. Specific skill needs such as interfacing with Microsoft or Java may be determined through a deeper analysis. Typically, about 3-6 months advance notice is provided. Training needs may also be assessed through the regular planning meetings. In these meetings, the expected projects for the coming year are forecasted. These projections determine skill requirements (e.g., 300-400 project managers for 500 projects). Based on current skill availability and skill demand, training needs are determined. The education and research department also tracks specific technologies; the number of requests for the technology from clients may also determine course-offerings. Infosys also offers training and development support to academic institutions by providing exposure to industry, in the form of sabbaticals at Infosys, training programs, and sharing courseware.

Careers
Charged with the responsibility of developing human assets in a fast paced environment, career management at Infosys faces two challenges: a shift from a focus on technical expertise in the career to a focus on management expertise, and the speed with which this refocusing must be accomplished. Nandita Gurjar, the Corporate Development Manager describes the first challenge as follows:
“Management skills have become increasingly relevant for Infosys because of its ever-increasing volume of business as well as its shift towards consulting business. As the number of projects to be handed has increased, the demand for project management skills in goal setting, communication, coaching, delegation and team management has also increased. Invariably the technical personnel are chosen to move to a management track. This choice is ironic in some ways because the better an individual is in technical skills (such as writing code) the more likely he/she is to be moved away from using the technical expertise into a management track requiring management expertise. Technical expertise provides an individual legitimacy and respect from co-workers making them a natural choice as a team leader. Within a short time span the team leaders are required to manage projects, clients and the people working on these projects. It, therefore, becomes necessary for the individual to abandon their technical expertise – something that has been very salient to their identity in the course of education and early career, when they aspire to be smart “techies”, and start collecting a repertoire of managerial capabilities. While developing management skills by attending management development programs2-3 years ago was one of the “nice things to do”; it has now become a business necessity. The nature of management skills required is further complicated by the fact that at Infosys, managers are also required to manage from remote. Team members are spread geographically and may not meet each other or the team leader for a year or perhaps never. As hiring overseas gathers momentum, the demands may be further exacerbated by the fact that team members may belong to different backgrounds and may not completely understand the organization and the country culture. “
The second challenge facing career management is the “compression” in career, an effect of the speed at which employees must move from one stage in their career to another. The new hires are very young (22 years old) and they are put under managers who are 24 years old. At30 these employees are managers of managers. At 35 an individual can potentially become a vice-president. Management skills become necessary at a very early stage in the life and career of an individual at Infosys. Rapid change is a constant challenge. Nandita summarizes this challenge as follows:
“It is a challenge to teach a 24-year-old to become a manager. The young individual believes, “I have not yet grown”, but you are saying, “You have to do it”. Just when you become used to something you are pulled out of it and it is time to move on to something else. Those who can cope with this change emerge as leaders (perhaps at the age of 32); others fall back and become comfortable where they are. The whole career development progress in Infosys is therefore comparatively shorter than in other companies.”
To address the pressing need for management development, Infosys has put in place some training programs.