Evaluation of Human Resource Management Processes at InfoSys

Human resource management is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued assets – the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. The terms “human resource management” and “human resources” have largely replaced the term “personnel management” as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations. In simple words, HRM means employing people, developing their capacities, utilizing, maintaining and compensating their services in tune with the job and organizational requirement.

“Our assets walk out of the door each evening. We have to make sure that they come back the next morning.”

Mr. Narayana Murthy ( CEO INFOSYS)

In an era where organizations are debating the strategic importance of their human resources, Infosys, a consulting and software services organization, includes their human resources on its Balance Sheet to affirm their asset value. This assessment is to analyze the various approach Infosys focuses on

1. HUMAN RESOURCE – Selection and Recruitment Process

2. HUMAN RESOURCE- Training and Development

3. HUMAN RESOURCE Performance Appraisal

4. HUMAN RESOURCE- Compensation

And critically analyze them and to understand if the organization has aligned to their human resource strategy objectives.

2- COMPANY PROFILE

Infosys Technologies Limited (BSE: 500209, NASDAQ: INFY) is an information technology service company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Infosys is one of the largest IT companies in India with 113,796 employees as of 2010. It has offices in 22 countries and development centers in India, China, Australia, UK,US, Canada and Japan., it was voted as the best employer in the country in many HR surveys The Company is well acclaimed for its employee friendly HR practices. Infosys has grown to US $ 2 billion Company by the year 2006, it has still retained the culture of a small company. Infosys evolves from the best talent from across the country and recruits candidates by conducting vigorous selection process. The company follows variable compensation structure where the employee’s compensation depended on the performance of the individual, for the team and the company. 3 Anglia Ruskin University- 0970885/1

Infosys derives its operation from the development, maintenance, and implementation of software. They cater their services to the following industries

· Manufacturing

· Banking and financial services

· Insurance

· Telecom

· Retail

· Energy

· Transportation

The organizations major competitors are WIPRO, TATA consultancy services, IBM

3- ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY

HR practices of Infosys are envisioned by its founders and the culture that has been predominant over the year. The organization advocates simplicity by maintaining the culture of the company. The employees are encouraged to share the learning experience. Infosys was the first company to provide the employees with world class facilities for training and working. The company treats their employees as fixed asset appreciates their durability by constant innovative training. In knowledge-based business significance of consistency is rhetoric and actions are required to empower employees. The company believes in “youth, imagination and speed” they are constantly innovating in every area to bring generation next employees.

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4- SELECTION AND RECRUITMENT

According to Edwin Flippo, Recruitment: “It is a process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating and encouraging them to apply for jobs in an organization”

Selection: “It is the process of collecting and evaluating information about an individual in order to extend offer of an employment”

Recruitment planning is one of the most important components in new people management organization. Infosys has to deal with human assets as it a knowledge based organization hence it becomes important to have the right person for the right job. Infosys believe have to take the recruitment planning in very serious manner to ensure that we can get best talent in the organization. 4 Anglia Ruskin University- 0970885/1

OBJECTIVE of Infosys recruitment and selection system are

· Talent acquisition and retention.

· To infuse new blood and improve knowledge base

· To accommodate development of human resources in the country

· Increase pool of candidate and maximize the resources

· Increase the number of quality people in the organization to attain organization goal and objective

RECRUITMENT, SELECTION POLICY AND PROCEDURE AT INFOSYS

1) STATEMENT OF INTENT

· Promote a planned, objective approach to undertake recruitment

· Help recruiters to examine the knowledge and skills required for the job

· Help recruiters to assess if candidates represent these requirements

· To implement the organization’s policy on the provision of Equal Opportunities in employment

2) RECRUITMENT OPPORTUNITY

· The need for the post must be specified by the line manager and credited by the relevant Director.

· A job description and job specification must be prepared by the line manager prior to the post being formulated

· The post must be formally evaluated.

· The cost for the post, including the variable costs of the post must be identified by the line manager. In so doing the need to maintain management costs within prescribed limits must be recognized

3) OPPORTUNITY ADVERTISING

Draft the advertisement and tailor made for the target audience ensuring it is non-discriminatory and avoids any gender or culturally specific language. The factors will include the following:

· job title

· salary and other incentives

· brief summary of post

· brief person specification

· contact person for enquiries from applicants/informal visits

· closing date

· interview date

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· location

· hours/shift work

· a statement that disabled applicants who meet the minimum selection criteria for the position will be guaranteed an interview

· arrangements for visits to the job location

4) SELECTION PROCESS

The selection panel will examine how each skill within the candidate specification will be most appropriately assessed. The method used will be determined by the nature of the post, but may include a combination of the following

· Panel Interview

· Presentations

· Testing

· In-tray exercises

· Group exercises/discussions

5) DECISION GUIDELINES

· Tests used as part of the selection process should be available to the interview panel prior to the decision making process.

· Each candidate’s abilities should be assessed against the person specification. Consideration may be given for the provision of professional and personal development.

· Summary and records of decisions at interview should be made by all panel interviewers on each candidate and retained by the Human Resources Department.

6) POST SELECTION PROCESS

· Communicate with the successful candidate.

· If the candidate declines the offer and other candidates were deemed by the panel to be suitable using the same selection criteria offer the next most suitable candidate the post.

· Communicate with all the unsuccessful candidates at the earliest opportunity and offer feedback within two days.

7) EMPLOYMENT OFFER

· Acknowledge offer of post to successful candidate and at the same time, request documentary evidence of their eligibility to work in the specified country

· Keep process managers informed of progress

· Issue written statements on the terms and nature of offer of employment in advance of the commencement date,

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION ANALYSIS

The recruitment and selection policies help the management to practice a fair and clinical procedure of recruitment and selection process. It caters to develop the morale of every 6 Anglia Ruskin University- 0970885/1

individual who attend their recruitment and selection process. The management believes that every single candidate who aspires to join their organization is a potential candidate to dwell within organization.

Infosys follows necessary steps to recruit people on the basis of various factors and to choose the right candidate. The following are the main factors that are considered while recruiting new employees.

LEARNING: Infosys give more emphasis on the ability to learn. The ability to derive generic knowledge from particular experiences and apply the experience during circumstances

COMPETENCY: Infosys give more value to professional competencies and highlights academic excellence.

OTHER QUALITIES: Other qualities include analytical ability, adaptability to teamwork, leadership potential, communication and innovation skills, along with a practical and a ability to have a structured approach to problem solving

RECOMMENDATIONS

· Identify the demographics: The level of young and older generation is on a one way hike, Infosys believes new blood infusion by compromising the existing employees, therefore the company must have strike a balance between the experience and un experienced people.

· Internal forms of recruitment or placement is highly negligible at Infosys, the company can save time and cost on the recruitment and selection process by following the method.

· Infosys uses agencies for their recruitment process, but prefer to use their own recruitment procedures. Since the company invests considerably on recruitment and selection, Infosys should minimize intermediaries.

· The selection and recruitment process at Infosys are time consuming due to the large volume of candidates; the company must optimize a quicker decision making system or criterion.

5- TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

“Imparting of specific skills and abilities and knowledge to an employee”

It is an attempt to improve current or future employee performance by increasing an employee’s ability to perform through learning, which is determined by performance deficiency”

OBJECTIVES of Infosys undertaking training and development are

· Develop the employees’ competency and improve their work performances

· Help grow people within the organization in order that future need of the organization can be met within the organization

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TRANING NEED ANALYSIS

TRAINING OBJECTIVES

TRAINING METHOD

IMPLEMENT TRAINING PROGRAM

MEASURE TRAINING RESULT

Technical Training by Education and Research Department

Quality Process Training

The Infosys Leadership System

Personal Effectiveness and Managerial Programs

· Reduce the learning time of employees starting in a new job or appointment or transfers and becoming competent quickly

· Facilitate learning and continuous improvement

· Meet changing needs of technology, process and culture

TRAINING MODEL AT INFOSYS

APPENDIX 1

(www. Authorstrea,.com)

TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES AT INFOSYS 8 Anglia Ruskin University- 0970885/1

APPENDIX 2

www.Infosys-careers.com

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.

ANALYSIS OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT AT INFOSYS

At Infosys, training and development is the pinnacle step in building its human assets where the objective is to match the available skills and abilities to its business requirements. The training program incepted at Infosys aligns with its objectives by

· Synchronizing learning ability among the people and an organizational commitment to continuous personal and professional development

· Infosys believes each and every employee will propel a team and make decisions hence apart from their technical skill; leadership and managerial skill are implemented in their training

· New and fresher recruits are provided training and development during their probation period making them accustomed to the organizational or industrial culture

· Apart from compulsory training employees are given career development path where other skill sets of the candidates are used.

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RECOMMENDATION

· The company’s training and development program are highly theoretical or monotonous; the company should employ practical decision making circumstances, where direct face off to circumstances can be evaluated.

· It is noted that most of the employees at Infosys are engineers or single graduate holders, opportunities to hold higher degrees should be enabled.

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· Most of the training held at Infosys are technical based training, addressing to service training issue can help the employees gain client management or customer management knowledge.

6- PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

A performance appraisal is a part of managing career development.

“It is the process of obtaining, analyzing, and recording information about the relative worth of an employee to the organization”

Performance appraisal is an act of appreciation of an employee’s successes or failures; it is a judge of an employee’s personal strengths and weaknesses, and susceptibility for promotion or further training.

OBJECTIVES performance appraisal at Infosys

· To analyze the performances of the employees over a period of time.

· To comment between the gap of the actual and the desired performance.

· To help the management stabilize organizational control.

· To tighten the relationship and communication between superior – subordinates and management – employees- the whole management process.

· To identify the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals and groups so as to identify the training and development needs.

· To provide feedback to the employees according to their past performance.

· Offer information to aid personal decisions within the organization.

· Provide transparency of the potential and tasks to be performed by the employees.

· To arbitrator the effectiveness of the other human resource functions of the organization such as recruitment, selection, training and development.

· To condense the grievances of the employees

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL AT INFOSYS

Performance appraisal is carried out half yearly at Infosys. A 360-degree appraisal is carried out for all employees. Appraisals are required from peers, direct supervisors, subordinates and customers. A minimum of six to seven appraisal reports are collected for each employee, all of which completed are on-line and the data is maintained in a central database.

What is 360 degree performance appraisal?

360-degree performance appraisal is a circle system of obtaining data from peers, subordinates, and internal and external customers, about an employee’s performance. 360-degree assessment is based on the assessment of an individual’s management capabilities, competencies and behavior by colleagues or team members horizontally and vertically. 10 Anglia Ruskin University- 0970885/1

APPENDIX 3

http://appraisals.naukrihub.com/360-degree-performance-appraisal.jpeg

360* PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

Performance Appraisal

· Identifying of performance

· Feedback on individual performance

· Basis for self-evaluation.

Analyzing Employee Development:

Diagnosing training and career development requirements

· Maintains a basis for promotion, dismissal, job enrichment, job enlargement, job transfer, probation

· Monetary and appreciation rewards.

Organizational Study:

· Organizational environment development needs

· Changes in the Managerial approaches.

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Customer Satisfaction Study

· Employee’s perceptional changes

· Customer satisfaction improvements

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL ANALYSIS

Infosys is an organization which dwells on their success of their employees, so they believe that their appraisals have to be justified. IT personal performances are intangible so their appraisals are considered to be more difficult to be judged than in any other industry. Hence Infosys undergo their performance appraisal more often than many other companies in the sector. The appraisal techniques are evaluated on

1) INDUVIDUAL SKIL: Where an individual has learnt or achieved new personal skill that can add value to the organization.

2) PERFORMANCE LINKED APPRAISAL: Where an individual has achieved significant performance in his task and performed beyond expectation in his project or team

3) THREE TIER PERFORMANCE: Appraisal is based on the three tiers of performance. The three tiers are overall corporate performance, unit performance, and the performance of the concerned employee.

RECOMMANDATION

· The company majorly focuses on one type of performance appraisal method-360 degree appraisal method, the method has its own disadvantages hence other approaches should be incorporated.

· Transparency in the appraisal system helps to prevent conflicts and disagreement. People believe that only by experience people gain appraisals and the actual level of performance considered is negligible.

· Performance appraisal are accounted for a person’s technical skill but leadership, competency are ignored at the lower levels. By monitoring the these skills the company can identify the future managerial candidate

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7- COMPENSATION FOR INFOSYS

“Compensation is payment in the form of hourly wages or annual salary combined with benefits such as insurance, vacation, stock options, etc. that can positively or negatively affect an employee’s work performance”

Robbins ” Compensation management is a method of determining the cost of effect pay structure designed to attract and preserve, provide an incentive to work hard and structures to ensure that pay levels are perceived as fair”

WHY COMPENSATION MANAGEMENT

· A good compensation package is significant to motivate the employees to increase the organizational productivity.

· Unless compensation is provided no one will come and work for the organization therefore compensation helps in running an organization effectively and accomplishing its goals.

· Salary is just a part of the management system, the employees have other psychological and self-actualization needs to fulfill, and compensation serves the purpose.

· The most competitive compensation will help the organization to draw and sustain the best talent.

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COMPENSATION MANAGEMENT AT INFOSYS

· Infosys compensates its human assets in three different ways

· Adds learning through training and development and appraisal practices

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· Adds significant emotional value through initiatives directed towards sustaining employees with their work and personal needs

· Adds financial value by monetary compensation

DIRECT COMPENSATION FOLLOWED AT INFOSYS

Basic Pay: Wages or Salaries paid to the employee. These are a standard practice; the competitive advantage can only be earned by paying a higher amount.

Incentive Pay: Bonus paid when particular performance or objectives are completed, It motivates employees to set and increase performance level and is an drive to accomplish farm goals.

Stock Options: A right to own and manage the organization which is given to an employee to reward extraordinary services.

Bonuses: A part of the profit the organization earned by the employees due to the success of their overall achievements,

INDIRECT COMPENSATION FOLLOWED AT INFOSYS

Over time policy: Employees are provided with the sufficient allowances during their overtime, if they happened to do so, such as transport facilities, overtime pay

Hospitalization: They are provided with allowances to get their regular check-ups, at an regular interval. The company has a tie with leading hospital in the country where emergency and non emergency medical care is provided

Insurance: Accidental insurance and life insurance for employees are provided to employees. The company are in contract with METLIFE insurance who also derive service from INFOSYS

Retirement benefits: The organization provide for pension plans, the provident fund scheme which is a government issued retirement scheme is one of the examples for retirement benefits followed at Infosys 14 Anglia Ruskin University- 0970885/1

Process Migration: The employees are provided opportunities to be deployed for projects outside the host countries.

COMPENSATION ANALYSIS FOR INFOSYS

· With increasing demand for technology professionals and innovative compensation packages employee retention is the most feared challenge for Infosys.

· The employees of the new era feel since they spend time and effort for the company, collective bargaining for managerial decision should be implemented.

· Skills, competencies, and commitment surpass loyalty, hard work and length of service

· Increasing demands of technology coupled with a short supply of professionals

· Informational Technological companies have moved from conventional pay-for-time methods to a combination of pay-for-knowledge

8- CONCLUSION

The real challenge is to how the company is able to integrate all the subsystems in HR. eventually this would help the organization for achieving exceptional performance. People have to be groomed to get in with the performance culture. The company has to create an environment that stimulates the creation of knowledge; its sustenance will be the challenge for Infosys in the future. HR department can not function with traditional systems. Now the role will shift to HR facilitator, to facilitate change process. HR facilitator will have to involve the whole organization in this process and act as a guide, coach, counselor and facilitator. Infosys as a company is a leader in its own stride. Infosys has excellent recruitment policies, huge data bank, placement agencies. Infosys also conducts rigorous tests to ensure that they can get high profile talent that will fit in their culture. At Infosys the best performance system is in place that evaluates the organization as whole. Infosys has been able to tackle the quantum of performance with fairly efficient manner. The prime tasks for Infosys is to build corporate culture.

With the advent of a work situation where more and more companies are having to concede that their valued employees are leaving them, a new concept of career and human resource management is bound to emerge. The focus of this new paradigm should not only be to attract, motivate and retain key ‘knowledge workers’, but also on how to reinvent careers when the loyalty of the employees is to their ‘brain ware’ rather than to the organization. 15 Anglia Ruskin University- 0970885/1

HR practitioners must also play a proactive role in software industry. As business partners, they need to be aware of business strategies, and the opportunities and threats facing the organization. As strategists, HR professionals require to achieve integration and fit to an organization’s business strategy. As interventionists, they need to adopt an all-embracing approach to understanding organizational issues, and their effect on people. Finally, as innovators, they should introduce new processes and procedures, which they believe will increase organizational effectiveness.

9- EVALUATION

Theoretically and in practicality Infosys have some of the best HRM policies. The company has won accolades for innovative and diverse HR systems. These laurels were acclaimed during the best time of the financial era. The following are the repercussions Infosys laid during the recession.

· The company lay off 2100 employee during 2009

· The company benched many of their employees

· Graduate employees were asked to improve skill set

· Management restructure performance appraisal from half yearly to quarterly

· The organization preferred experienced staff to new blood

· Salaries were reduced and incentives were held

It is evaluated that even though Infosys followed some of the most innovative HR practices the repercussion of recession had impacted the organization employees. The layoff caused dissatisfaction among employees and the once committed employees worked in fear for their job. It is therefore understood that, the best HR practices may not always be the most satisfying way. It also understood that even though the company incepts some of the best Human resource techniques the psychological factors of the human beings are still variable to acceptance and rejection thus causing high HR functions to be subjective to change. 16 Anglia Ruskin University- 0970885/1