HCL Tech. Management

HCL Tech. HR

HR ANALYSIS

To the outside world, HCL Technologies (38,000 employees, $1 billion plus in revenues) is just another big Indian IT services company, and on paper its structure and its processes look remarkably similar to everyone else’s. But scratch under the surface and you see the beginnings of a new model of management. Through the pioneering efforts of its president, Vineet Nayar, HCL Technologies is putting in place a series of apparently small changes that will potentially have a dramatic effect on how people in the company work. And already these innovations are starting

to get noticed.

Nayar has a few over-riding principles that shape all the changes he is putting in place at HCL:

·         Employee first, customer second. “The scarce resource is not customers, it is great employees, so if we spoil them, and make them realize that HCL is a great place to work, they will deliver value”.

·         Transparency reduces the gap between the manager and the employee. Many traditional organizations create problems by restricting the flow of information and setting up artificial boundaries between people. By increasing

·         Transparency these boundaries are removed and employees are more likely to act responsibly and creatively.

·         There are no half-measures. You cannot change a 30-year-old company culture without extreme measures. Dramatic changes are needed to get the pendulum swinging.

Any employee with a question, a problem, or a gripe is encouraged to open a “ticket” with the relevant department. If there is a problem with the air-conditioning, she opens the ticket with the facilities service desk; if she doesn’t like her new salary, she opens the ticket with the HR service desk. As soon as the ticket is opened, “people start running around trying to solve that problem.” And, importantly, the only person who can close a ticket is the employee who opened it in the first place. Service desks, such as HR, are measured on their ability to resolve tickets, and the expectation is that tickets will be closed within two days.