"It's time to refocus on the employee," says B.G. Srinivas
B.G. Srinivas, SVP and Head of Infosys Europe, Middle East & Africa Business Unit, had this to share from his meetings in Davos (reproduced with permission from WEF blog):
The other challenge in the developed world is how top leadership is coming under increased scrutiny. ... While talent management per se is the key issue businesses grapple with, organizations are made by people. Irrespective of the fantastic systems and processes that organizations build, it is the individuals who make it happen.
We will have to refocus on the employee as we also refocus on customers. Employees will be the key in this world where information is becoming ubiquitous, technology is making information access in real time. All of it is going to have an impact on the kind of talent you want to nurture, the kind of talent and skills you need to build internally within the organization, and the kind of talent you need to attract in different parts of the world.
How do you plan for the future, how do you identify the skill gap in the changed environment, how do you start refocusing on training, mentoring and giving real life experiences to the same talent pool and keep them excited to operate in such a challenging environment is one part of focusing on the talent.
The second part is, how do you embrace multiculturalism, how do you ensure that you create an environment within the enterprise for people from different communities to work in a homogenous manner. At the same time, you need to invoke innovation and excitement among people while you lay a strong foundation of values and culture, which people from different parts of the world would embrace.
You need to take into account that not all of them would think alike, not all of them would have the same background. There will be sensitivities around what you want to set out in terms of culture and values.
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In my opinion, what most of the organisation lack is a shared vision which is flowing through every individual like his/her own blood.
As an employee one should not have to search for vision and value of the organisation. But they should be visible in every decision and action of the organisation.
It is said that with size comes bureaucracy and vast majority of people say that bureaucracy is bad. if the bureaucracy is to safeguard value system and care of employee as a family member, there will be no need for ground people (who have internalised value system) to say it is bad.
What is wrong, is keeping secretes from your own family (employees) or to take decisions which contradict each other in terms of vision or values.
Posted by: Milind Pol | January 30, 2007 09:27 AM
Tom Friedman made a TV documentary of his book "The World is Flat". In the documentary, he went to Bangalore and interviewed some of the IT workers and also showed the English classes in which the young Indian workers were taught to talk like American white people and to adopt names like Richy Cunningham and Alecia Keyes. Friedman appeared to be absolutely enchanted at the sight of these people trying to talk like white Americans that he just had to get up in front of the class and make his own contribution by reading the "sea shells" tongue twister to the giddy room of IT workers. It was simply a pathetic thing to watch.
And as anyone who has called a tech support number over the last two years knows, these absurd and demeaning classes did nothing to improve the situation.
In another scene, Freidman interviews a couple of young call center girls and asks them who they admire most - Bill Gates or Gandhi. Both girls giggle idiotically and say "Why Bill Gates of course. Because he is so rich and famous. He he he he." Friedman giggled in agreement with the girls.
So please stop using his "World is flat" expression". He is an idiot of the highest order and you are better than that.
It is wonderful that India is making a mark in the world with their call centers and job-shopping and business model consulting and all the IT stuff, but why is everyone so enthralled with the likes of Tom Freidman and Bill Gates. Look at what Gates has done over the last 15 years. Compared to other technological advancements, Windows has shown hardly any evolution since Windows 3.1. We're still clicking on little icons and searching for files and having our computers hang up with the little gray pop-up error messages like we always have. Have you seen the new Vista? Exactly the same as XP, except with some different sized icons and transparent windows. This is what 150,000 MS emplyees around the world have been working on for the last 5 years?! And Gates is the richest man in the world from selling this garbage that will forever fail and allow little 13 year old Dutch boys to hack into my computer and steal my credit card numbers. Pathetic!
Enjoy the ride while it lasts folks. By the looks of things, it could last a long, long time.
Posted by: ganesh sundar | February 2, 2007 02:15 AM
I am a Grmtech Leader, I am working for this small companies with Big Dreams. (We have learned many things from Infosys :), directly and indirectly.)
I am working on salary structure to achieve our big dreams and I am simplifying the Ideal company equation to a simpler equation. I quote the my own documents prepared for VCs and CEO,
"According to me the most Ideal equation for a stable company is: The amount of time an employee thinks about company's improvement is proportional to the amount of time a company thinks about the employee. If a company wants their employees to think about company's growth then the easiest way is to make company think about the employee."
Lets compete.
Posted by: AjiNIMC | February 3, 2007 12:24 PM
The thinking is correct. I can say - it is true always.
Companies who worry on short term goals or who do not worry about the long term one - really donot worry about the People.
When you pay the staff well , you expect the values in place to deliver.
Posted by: Govindaswamy S | February 12, 2007 05:42 PM
In the flatenning world, not only will organizations see a large number of cross-cultural teams, they will also see teams where in people will bring a huge diversity of talents, backgrounds and competencies to the table.
The aim of these diverse teams would be to learn and adopt from the best practices of multiple industries. For example, any industry can learn from the fashion industry about inovation, from media about change management and from defence about stress management.
The success of the organizations would depend on how well they can come up with such diverse leadership teams, and how well they can translate their perspectives into business policies.
Posted by: Saurabh Sharma | February 14, 2007 09:36 PM