Intelenet: A Sense of Ownership

Intelenet Global Services is a people-centric organization focusing continuously on improving the

management and development of the human assets of the organization. Intelenet makes sustained
efforts to create an environment that makes employees feel excited to come to work every day. As the
CEO and MD, Susir Kumar, shares his thoughts on Intelenet, one can easily gauge the reasons on the
strides the company has taken in terms of growth and expansion over the last one decade of its
inception.

As a matter of fact, Intelenet Global Services, started off with a single site office in Mumbai with 25
employees. Today, the employee strength stands at 44,000 with a geographical reach across 34 delivery
centers in India and overseas. For a company, which initially started as a 50:50 joint venture between
TCS and HDFC in October 2000, becoming the second largest employer in the Indian business process
outsourcing (BPO) domain, is a great achievement. It was the $180 million investment by Blackstone, a
private equity firm, in 2007, that eventually helped Intelenet scale up its operations, expand
geographically, win more businesses and hence more revenue. The investment enhanced Intelenets
value and more so its valuation. The recent $634 million acquisition of Intelenet Global Services by UK
based Serco, is indeed a testimony to its increased valuation. It is the mature, risk taking, yet humane
team at Intelenet, that attracts the investors. The company believes in a people-centric approach with
emphasis on employee engagement and work-life balance. The value driven culture ensures a work
environment that is open, transparent and encourages and supports excellence at work. Besides
creating an organizational culture that is value driven, the organization infuses a sense of ownership
amongst its employees. Kumar believes that it is the organizations unique culture, people training and
development, and listening and sharing, that make Intelenet a great workplace.

As an organization, Intelenet leverages its most important asset - its people. It not only makes efforts to
harness a family spirit and create a team culture, but also offers abundant opportunities for individual
and professional growth. Manuel DSouza, Chief Human Resource Officer, Intelenet Global Services,
shares his thoughts on what it means to Intelenet to be a great workplace. He opines, Being recognised
as a great workplace means that we have indeed treated our people as our greatest asset. This is visible
not only through our growth in revenue and profitability, but also through the employee endorsements
from the India's Best Companies to Work For - 2011 Study by Great Place to Work Institute and The
Economic Times. The company hires people for their attitude and trains them for the necessary skills. It
believes that it is the quality and caliber of its people, which is critical for the company to deliver value
to customers and achieve success. Intelenet emphasizes on continuous training programs, so that
employees are fully trained and effective at all times. The people training program at Intelenet
encompasses soft skill training, employee growth programs, personality development, communication
skills, process training and others. The training programs help the company assess and identify its
competency and plan for future training and skill development, which helps the company stay ahead of
the competition. Intelenet also conducts programs like STEP (Strive Towards Excellence Program) and
LEAD (Leadership Excellence Accreditation & Development) to help associates and team leaders in their
career advancement.

The greatest problem, facing the outsourcing industry in the present context is that of retaining talent.
Manuel shares his thought on how to tackle the issue and says, Companies should recognize their star
performers and compensate them with monetary and non-monetary benefits that would promote a
sense of well-being and fairness amongst employees. Intelenet has successfully been able to retain its
employees by rewarding and recognizing them through programs like the Employee Appreciation
Program. Apart from this, the company has adapted many channels to satisfy its employees, which
include a strong performance management system, initiatives like i-care where HR connects with
people for direct feedback, and speak your mind, where employees can leave their suggestions for the
management team. I-versity, is the internal training program for employees, designed to incorporate a
growth path for employees, supported by performance and strategic inputs. Specific retention tools like
performance based incentives, transparent promotion policy, accelerated career growth, employee
listening, employee development programs and fun at work initiatives like face-painting, arm-
wrestling, cricket and football tournaments, etc., have been integrated within the organization for
creating a healthy work-life balance culture. Besides these, Intelenet exercises an openwork culture that
leads to the overall development of the employee. Intelenet realizes the fact that employees need to
voice their views and opinions freely and that in turn leads to an open and pleasant workforce, adds
Manuel.

Being ranked in the Study in successive years stands testimony to Intelenets workplace environment
which harnesses a family-spirit and team culture that offers abundant opportunities for individual and
professional growth