If you enter the HCL Infosystems office at Noida, turn left from the reception and cross the conference room, you come to a room where any employee who has spent over 20 years with the company, and anyone at the senior management level, can come and have lunch, on the house.

Says ML Taneja, executive vice president, HRD, who is himself an old hand at HCL Infosystems: "As a policy we fill up middle and senior management positions internally." The free lunch is a small gesture from the company to show respect for the commitment and loyalty that these people have shown towards the company.

HCL Infosystems dates back to 1975, when it was just HCL, India's indigenous computer systems and services company. Today, as part of the HCL Group, it is a 4002-member organization with a turnover of Rs 7,800 crore at the close of last fiscal. Typically, an organization of HCL Infosystems' profile would face challenges that are completely different from those prevalent in the software side of the industry. One, the employees are geographically highly dispersed-a sizeable number are located in some of the most remote locations in the country-and two, management of the huge sales team. Says Vivek Punekar, associate vice president, HRD, "The sales people are always looking for dynamism and excitement at work and we need to ensure that the company is providing them the relevant satisfaction levels so they don't change their jobs."

"We absorb mistakes and promote and encourage innovation." -Rakesh Mehta, executive VP, HCL Infosystems

"HCL has always been a very employee-friendly company," says Punekar. Assess this: A member of the company's service team at Ranchi met with an accident while returning from a service call at Jamshedpur. Within 15 minutes of his telephone call, 12 members of the local team reached the spot, while three teams from Kolkata, Patna and Kerala left immediately after the information went out. The employee's wife who was in Delhi was airlifted while his son stayed at Punekar's house. Says D Baskar, VP of the system support division, "The message that 'we care' is loud and clear and no HR policy can do this." Indeed.

Baskar, who began his career 21 years earlier as a trainee, recounts his first trip to the US and how it took him over four hours to reach his hotel despite the company providing him with all the necessary information. Today, HCL Insys ensures that every single person who travels out of his hometown, domestic or international, is received at the station or airport, accompanied to his or her place of stay and assisted till he or she settles down completely at the new location.

How the Magic Worked
Traditionally, HCL Infosystems is not known to be the best in terms of compensation or HR measures. So we were a little surprised when the hardware company gave a grand performance in our Dataquest-IDC Tech Star Employer Survey, and employees expressed highest satisfaction levels on all parameters. So what is it that the company did that won the hearts of its employees? For one, HR was internalized into the business. Put simply, line managers were transformed into HR managers, informally, and were made responsible for their team. For example, now a manager has to take a trainee along during any customer visit, a key measure of on-the-job learning but often not followed. However, in a smart move by the HR team this was incorporated into the KRAs of the line managers. The system was also automated which helped management keep track of the process.

TEAM HR: ML Tajeja, Executive VP, HRD (center) and Vivek Punekar, Associate VP, HRD (right), with team member Reema

Two other factors helped the satisfaction level reach the height it did. For one, the HR team has made sure that appraisals in the last two years were completed on time. Says Taneja, "We worked day and night to ensure that not only appraisals happen on time but also that employees get their paychecks along with the increment letter." By the end of one week, the team was able to complete 99% of the appraisals. The second factor is pure monetary and is actually a combination of two smaller factors-compensation and ESOPs. Says Punekar, "We have performance-based pay, and we actually ended up paying more than what we had committed." Compensation today is performance-based, a major reform from the days when it was need-based. While compensation received a facelift, incentive schemes were also strengthened. Last year, the company paid up to 130%, while this year the performance incentive was to the tune of 170%.

The rest of the magic was made by stock options. HCL Infosystems first issued shares under the Employee Stock Options Plan to employees with over one year of service, in 2000. By mid-2005, over 2,000 employees received company shares. The company stock was trading at Rs 816.5 on December 31, 2004. Eight months later (during the Dataquest-IDC Best Employers Survey 2005) and post a stock split in the ratio 1:4 in August this year, the stock stood at Rs 259 (August 24, 2005). Clearly, the notional wealth created by the company for its employees was significant. Today, on the 15th of every month employees who complete one year of service are issued stock options.

'Mine' HCL
One of the biggest challenges the industry faces today is of attrition. HCL Infosystems is no different, with attrition numbers hovering around 16%, up 4-6% from its earlier figure of 10-12%. The hardware service industry has four large players today, in addition to HCL, and all four prefer to get tailored and ready manpower as opposed to HCL Infosystems, which regularly visits campuses, recruits freshers and trains them. Laments Taneja, "There is no effort from the other players in the industry to create talent."

It was primarily to address this issue that the management launched the 'MIndia' campaign (M representing Mine) in January 2004, an in-house initiative to create a sense of pride among employees for the oldest and Indian brand in IT hardware and services space. The opening line of the campaign read "These are the minds that are creating the globe". Says Ajay Chowdhary, chairman & CEO of HCL Infosystems, "We compete with MNCs in our business and it was important to create a sense of pride among employees for their organization which is the leader in many categories-copiers, projectors and PCs." The MIndia campaign was held across 14 locations in the last one-year. It brought cross-functional teams together and helped create a bond and cohesiveness between employees and the top management. The message was loud and clear-recognize the power of HCL and take pride in the brand.

Growth Guranteed
Today all regional managers in the company had started their careers as trainees at HCL. Not only does the company have a strict policy of filling top management positions internally, empowerment and nurturing talent are critical components of HR management. Says Punekar, "We ensure that beginners are trained and cultivated to reach the top." Adds Taneja, "Opportunities are plenty. It is just that the employee has to decide if he wants to have a career with HCL."

"The message that 'we care' is loud and clear and no HR policy can do this." D Baskar, VP of the system support division

The growth path is fairly simple. After five years of experience one is qualified to become a manager. From there, the growth is fairly exponential. In addition, it is the business dynamics of the industry that provides a high degree of empowerment at work. "Empowerment creates a sense of ownership and this yields fabulous business results for the organization," explains Baskar. Sums up Rakesh Mehta, "We absorb mistakes and promote and encourage innovation." That's life at HCL Infosystems.

Bhaswati Chakravorty

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