CHAPTER-1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 History of Infosys

1.2 Mission and Vision Statement
1.3 Services Offered by Infosys
1.4 Kinds of Industries
1.5 Major Achievements
1.1 History of Infosys
Established in 1981, Infosys is a NASDAQ listed global consulting and It services
company with more than 105,000 employees.
From a capital of US$ 250. Infosys have grown to become a US$ 4 billion company with
a market capitalization of approximately US$ 27 billion.
In their journey of over 28 years, they have catalyzed some of the major changes that
have led to India’s emergence as the global destination for software services talent.
Infosys pioneered the Global Delivery Model and became the first IT Company from
India to be listed on NASDAQ. Their employees stock options program created some of
India’s first salaried millionaires.
In 2008 Infosys crosses revenues of US$ 4.18 billion. Employees grow to over 90.000+
and Reports Q4 revenue of US$ 1,142 million.
Infosys has a global footprint with over 50 offices and development centers in India,
China, Australia, the Czech Republic, Poland, the UK, Canada and Japan. Infosys and its
subsidiaries have 105,453 employees as on September 30, 2009.
Infosys takes pride in building strategic long-term client relationship. Over 97% of our
revenues come from existing customers.

1.2 Mission and Vision Statement

MISSION STATEMENT:-
“To achieve company’s objective in an environment of fairness, honesty, and courtesy
towards their clients, employees, vendors and society at large” This statement includes
the major element such as corporate characters, stakeholders as well as its social
responsibilies.
VISION STATEMENT:-
The vision statement of Infosys is “to be a globally respected corporation that provides
best-of-breed business solutions, leveraging technology, delivered by best-in-class
people.”
1.3 Services Offered by Infosys
 Application Development and Maintenance,
 Corporate Performance Management,
 Enterprise Quality Services,
 Package Application Services,
 Product Engineering,
 System Integration

1.4 Kinds of Industries

 Aerospace and Defense
 Automotive
 Banking and Capital Markets
 Communication Services
 Consumer Packaged Goods
 Discrete Manufacturing
 Energy
 Healthcare
 High Technology
 Hospitality and Leisure
 Insurance
 Life Sciences
 Media & Entertainment
 Resources
 Retail
 Transportation Services
 Utility
1.4 Major Achievements of Infosys
(1) First Indian Company to be listed in NASDAQ.
(2) First company to be awarded the “National Award for Excellence in Corporate
Governance” conferred by the Government of India in 2000.
(3) Rated Best Employer in India in a study by Business Today-Hewitt Associates in
2001.
(4) First rank in the Business World’s survey of “India’s Most Respected Company”
in 2002.
(5) Infosys achieved the “Ready for Web sphere” and “Ready for Lotus”
accreditations for Dom sphere Portal Manager whilst at Lotusphere 2009 (the
premier event for the Lotus and Web sphere Portal community worldwide) in
January this year.
(6) In 2009, Infosys was considered one of the Business Week’s 50 Most Innovative
Companies.
(7) Infosys won the Global MAKE (Most Admired Knowledge Enterprise) award, for
the years 2003, 2004 and 2005, being the only Indian company to win this award
and is inducted into the Global Hall of Fame for the same.
(8) In April 2009, Forbes rated Infosys among the 5 best performing companies in the
software and services sector in the world.
 CHAPTER-3
HRM PRATICES IN INFOSYS

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Background
3.3 HR Practices
3.3.1 Recruitment
3.3.2 Training and Training Programmes
3.3.3 Performance Appraisal
3.4 Challenges in HR Practices
3.5 Recent HR Policy
3.1 Introduction
"Ourassets walk out of the door each evening. We have to make suree that they come
back the next morning."
-Narayana Murthy, CEO Infosys.

"Infosys' sharp and intense people focus is a natural corollary of its booming business,
with customers identifying this as a quality that often separates it from other competitors
in the IT services space"

- Business Today on Infosys winning 'The Best Managed Company Award,' in 2005.

"We believe that people are our core assets and their empowerment is the key to
scalability and longevity. Respect, dignity, fairness and inclusiveness are essential to get
the best out of employees"

- Nandan Nilekani, CEO, President and Managing Director, Infosys, in 2006.

"It is the energy of Infoscions3 that make the environment at Infosys exciting and
challenging. Our attention to detail, quality, speed and customer satisfaction keep us on
the top as we surf successive waves of change. With every step, we learn. By identifying
and fostering learnability in Infoscions, we are enabling an agile organization, at the
forefront of change. "

- Infosys' Annual Report 2005-06.

Infosys technology, a leading software company based in India, was voted as the best
employer in the country in many HR surveys in the recent years. The company is well
known for its employee friendly HR practices. Though Infosys has grown to become a
US $ 2 billion company by the year 2006, it has still retained the culture of a small
company. Infosys attracts the best talent from across the country and recruits candidates
by conducting one of the toughest selection process. Infosys was one of the first
companies to offer ESOPs to its employees. The company followed variable
compensation structure where the employees' compensation depended on the
performance of the individual, the team and the company. It also very
tackles the challenges faced by the company to retain its talented workforce.
At a time when organizations are debating the strategic importance of their human
resources, Infosys, a consulting and software services organization, includes its human
resources on its Balance Sheet to affirm their asset value1. Mr. Mohandas Pai, the Chief
Financial Officer of Infosys, provides a rationale for this practice:
"Investors examine financial and non-financial parameters that determine long-term
success of a company. These new non-financial parameters challenge the usefulness of
evaluating companies solely on traditional measures as they appear in a typical financial
report. Human resources represent the collective expertise, innovation, leadership,
entrepreneurial and managerial skills endowed in the employees of an organization. Our
representation is based on the belief that intangible assets provide a tool to our investors
for evaluating market worthiness of Infosys.

Infosys was one of the first companies to offer ESOPs to its employees. The company
followed variable compensation structure where the employees' compensation depended
on the performance of individual, the team and the company. The case highlights many
such best practices of Infosys in human resource management. It also discusses the
challenges faced by the company to retain its talented workforce.

Issues:
A. Study and appreciate some of the unique HR practices at Infosys
B. Understand the recruitment, selection and training practices of Infosys
C. Examine some of the retention strategies adopted by the company
D. Analyze some of the challenges faced by Infosys on the HR front

3.2 Background
Infosys was incorporated as Infosys Consultants Private Limited on July 02, 1981, by a
group of seven professionals. From the beginning, it relied heavily on overseas business.
One of the founders, Narayana Murthy (Murthy) stayed in India, while the others went to
the US to carry out onsite programming for corporate clients. One of Infosys' first clients
was the US-based sports shoe manufacturer Reebok. Infosys hired its
first set of employees in 1982 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai.
Since the early 2000s, Infosys' operations had been growing rapidly across the world. The
number of employees in the company also increased four-fold to 44,658 in March 2006
as compared to 10,738 in March 2001.
The company believed that its key assets were people and that it was important to bring
its employees on par with the company's global competitors. In spite of its rapid global
expansion, Infosys retained the culture of a small company. According to Bikramjeet
Maitra (Maitra), Head of Human Resources, Infosys, "We like to maintain a smaller
company touch and we have split the overall business into several smaller independent
units of around 4,000 people each."

3.3 HR Practices
Most of the HR practices of Infosys were a result of the vision of its founders and the
culture that they had created over the years. The founders advocated simplicity and
maintained the culture of a small company. The employees were encouraged to share
their learning experiences. Some of are as follows:-
3.3.1 Recruitment
While recruiting new employees, Infosys took adequate care to identify the right
candidates. On the qualities that Infosys looked for in a candidate, Nilekani said, "We
focus on recruiting candidates who display a high degree of 'learnability.' By learnability
we mean the ability to derive generic knowledge from specific experiences and apply
them.
We also place significant importance on professional competence and academic
excellence. Other qualities we look for are analytical ability, teamwork and leadership
potential, communication and innovation skills, along with a practical and structured
approach to problem solving."
3.3.2 Training and Training Programmes
Training at Infosys was an ongoing process. When new recruits from colleges joined
Infosys, they were trained through fresher training courses. They were trained then on
new processes and technologies. As they reached the higher levels, they were trained on
project management and later were sent for management development
programs, followed by leadership development programs...

Training New Recruits

Infosys conducted a 14.5 week technical training program for all new entrants. The
company spent around Rs 200,000 per year on training each new entrant. The new
recruits were trained at the Global Education Center (GEC) in Mysore, which had world
class training facilities and the capacity to train more than 4500 employees at a time.
GEC, which was inaugurated in February 2005 was spread over 270 acres and was the
largest corporate training center in the world with 58 training rooms and 183 faculty
rooms.
Training Programs for Employees
Infosys also conducted training programs for experienced employees. The company had a
competency system in place which took into account individual performance,
organizational priorities, and feedback from the clients.
3.3.3 Performance Appraisal
The first step toward carrying out performance appraisal at Infosys was the evaluation of
personal skills for the tasks assigned to an employee during the period of appraisal. To
evaluate the performance, different criteria like timeliness, quality of work carried out by
the employee, customer satisfaction, peer satisfaction, and business potential, were
considered. The personal skills of the employees were also evaluated based on their
learning and analytical ability, communication skills, decision making, change
management, and planning and organizing skills. Each of these criteria was measured on
a scale of 1 to 5 (with 1 signifying above the expected performance level and 5 below the
expected performance level).
Infosys tried to preserve the attributes of a small company and worked in small groups,
with decision-making remaining with those who were knowledgeable about particular
processes. The managers played the role of mentors and used their experience to guide
their team members.
3.4 Challenges in HR Pratices
With the IT industry growing at a rapid pace, Infosys planned to recruit around 25,000
people in the financial year 2006-07, in order to maintain its growth. Though it had
started hiring its workforce globally, it mainly recruited engineering graduates from
India. If the industry continued to grow at a similar pace, analysts opined that companies
like Infosys would not be able to find enough people, especially with several
multinationals entering India and recruiting aggressively. To address this issue, Infosys
started recruiting science graduates with a mathematics background to create an alternate
talent pool.

3.5 Recent HR Policy

Training at Infosys was an ongoing process. When new recruits from colleges joined Infosys, they
were trained through fresher training courses. They were trained then on new processes and
technologies. As they reached the higher levels, they were trained on project management and
later were sent for management development programs, followed by leadership development
programs.
360-Degree Feedback: The employees also look at aspects of the managers' performance,
strategic vision, ability to communicate, problem-solving skills, responsiveness. The results of the
survey (the rankings and comments) are then aggregated and published online for everyone to
see.
Recognition for Adding Value: 'What gets measured gets reviewed and what gets reviewed
gets improved' is what the company believes in and rewards each employee whose innovation is
lauded by the customer.
Employee-Management Interface: It reduces the gap between the manager and the employee.
Direct Q&A link with the President himself, who is to respond within a given time-frame.
Focus on Learning: A lot of investment in employee-focused resources (e-Learning) and
creating libraries for employees, holding workshops. All employees are eligible for ESOPs after
one year of joining.
Innovation: To innovate and nurture your own business ideas by getting support and
guidance from the company itself. Innovate@HCL is one such e-forum that enables
employee involvement and participation towards innovations in their
work environment and beyond.
Business Continuity Plan: The company's comprehensive succession plan ensures
continuity in the eEmployee Engagement: Some of the new initiatives include My Pal,
Three Cheers, Wellness Programme, Little Mindian and Bring a Smile Programme while
some of the existing ones are preventive health check-ups, yoga classes and employee
relief fund.
Online Learning Programmes like Enable@HCL, TechForum, e-Kaksh, and i-Learn
complement classroom training. Then, there is the "Learn from Leaders" Programme where
senior managers impart valuable lessons to employees.
Other Facilities-
(a) As part of its inclusive HR policy, Infosys will throw open a satellite centre in the
heart of the city to enable employees (particularly new and to-be mothers) to cut
down on travel time to work.
(b) The centre, which can accommodate up to 50 women at a time, is expected to be
opened in the second week of January.
(c) The company has also initiated a pilot project for employees giving them an
opportunity to opt for a one-year sabbatical at any point in their careers. This
could be used for childcare, eldercare, higher studies or for health reasons
(d) Announcing this at the Nasscom IT Women's Leadership Summit in Bangalore,
Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor, said that inclusive policies such as these should
be based on justifiable parameters rather than emotional parameters.
"For such policies to work, the organisation should benefit as much as the
employees." Commenting on the state of gender empowerment in the country,
Narayana Murthy said that though the male-female ratio in the Indian IT industry
seems to be encouraging (65:35), recently published global gender gap survey by
the World Economic Forum is disappointing: India ranks
.