HR PRACTISES

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Submitted to- Submitted by-
Prof.Shalini Khandelwal Anuranjan Saxena
N.Lakshmi Narayana
Sanya Kohli
Himanshu Rawal
Dinkar Sharma

INTRODUCTION
NIIT Technologies (NIIT) was incorporated in 1981 as an IT training company. It started its software services business in 1984, with a focus on the domestic market. In 2004, the company split its software services business and its IT training business into NIIT Limited and NIIT Technologies Limited.

The genesis of NIIT Technologies can be traced to the mid 1980s, when a software arm of NIIT Limited was created to cater to the demands of an Indian market just awakening to computerization. Most of the software and services companies in the country in those days were export-oriented. NIIT first entered the domestic market, drawing sustenance and gaining vital experience from its interactions with customers on its home ground. Seeing its corporate customers grapple with IT deployment issues, the company realized the need to go beyond its training mandate and help companies understand their IT needs, pick the relevant technologies and assist in their implementation. Thus was born NIIT’s software operation, a logical extension of its training endeavor. NIIT pioneered the packaged software distribution business in India through tie-ups with reputed software majors such as Information Builders Inc. and Sybase. Later, more partnerships were developed with their leading technology providers. The 1990s represented a turning point for the company and the country. As ‘export or perish’ became the new success mantra for Indian companies, NIIT embarked on its overseas journey, towards the world’s largest market, the US and towards Singapore, an IT savvy nation in need of technology solutions.

In its long journey of 20 odd years, NIIT's focus has always remained the same-its manpower. When the management was formulating the vision statement of the company 22 years back, Rajendra S Pawar, chairman of the NIIT Group, had to take a call on what to put first on the statement--people or business. It was people that he chose to put before business and the decision came without much hesitation from the head honcho. Says Arvind Thakur, CEO of the year-old NIIT Technologies (NIIT Technologies emerged an independent entity after corporate restructuring in 2003), "People are very important in knowledge intensive businesses like ours."

Today, the IT industry has come a long way. The industry has seen boom in the late 90s followed by the great depression between 2000 and 2003, and has finally bounced back. People challenges in every matured industry are different. The Dataquest-IDC Best Employers Survey 2005 revealed that employees today look for growth and challenges at work. Remuneration featured far below at No 7 in the priority list. Most employees surveyed believed that remuneration is something that comes naturally, as a consequence to growth. The bottom-line: Give your people a growth path and the right challenges, and retain them forever.

NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organisation, servicing customers in North & South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
The Company offers services in Application Development and Maintenance, Managed Services, Cloud Computing and Business Process Outsourcing to organisations in the Financial Services, Insurance, Travel, Transportation, Manufacturing and Government sectors.
The Company’s domain strengths, new approaches to customer experience management, robust outsourcing capabilities, and dual-shore delivery model, have made it a preferred IT partner for global majors in these select verticals. Long-term customer engagements—some spanning 15 years and more—have become the hallmark of NIIT Technologies. The vision of

NIIT Technologies is to be the ‘First Choice’ of customers in its chosen verticals. The Company has a simple strategy—to ‘Focus and Differentiate,’ which enable it to compete on the strength of its specialisation. The Company adheres to major global benchmarks and standards, having secured the ISO 9001:2000 certifications and the ISO: 27001 Information Security Management accreditation. NIIT Technologies also follows global standards of development. It has been assessed at Level 5 of SEI CMMi version 1.2. NIIT Technologies’ Business Process Outsourcing arm conforms to the highest quality standards such as COPC and Six Sigma. Its data centre operations are assessed at the international ISO 20000 IT management standards.
NIIT Technologies mainly focuses on well-defined key sectors of industry: * Banking & Financial Services * Retail Banking * Wholesale Banking * Investment Management * Risk and Compliance Offerings * Business Testing Frameworks * Insurance * Channel and Customer Interface solutions * Core Insurance Business Processes * Enabling Insurance Business Processes * Regulatory Compliance and Tax Environments * Intellectual Property-Solutions and solutions Accelerators * Value Added Services * Travel Transportation and Logistics * Airlines and Travel Distribution * Airports * Surface Transport * BPO * Integrated BPO * Retail Distribution * e-Business * e-Procurement * SAP retail

VISION
Values, Motives and Beliefs
We, NIIT, believe that our growth is the derivative of the growth of each one of us. It is the duty of each one of us to espouse and give active effect to the values, motives and beliefs we state here
•
NIIT is people
We have positive regard for each one of us
•
We will foster career-building by creating opportunities that demand learning, thinking and innovation from each one of us.
•
We expect each of us to contribute to the process of organisation building and thus derive pride, loyalty and emotional ownership.
•
We recognise the necessity of making mistakes and risk-taking when it contributes to the learning, innovation and growth of each one of us.
•
NIIT is quality and value
Each of us will ensure that in any association with society, society benefits substantially more than:
(a) What society gives to us.
(b) What society would gain from any other similar association
•
We will meet any and every commitment made to society irrespective of any cost that may have to be incurred.
•
We will ensure our profitability, long-term growth and financial stability, through the process of delivering the best, being seen as the best and being the best.
•
We will be fair in all our dealings and promote high standards of business ethics.
•
NIIT is a mission
We will grow in the recognition and respect we command, through pioneering and leading in the effective deployment of technology and know-how.
•
We will seek to play a key-role in the directions and deployment of technology and know-how for the benefit of mankind.

HR POLICIES

NIIT is People’ has been a part of NIIT’s value and belief since its inception. The fact that people are its key resources has made the organization create an environment where employees can be creative, especially when it comes to delivering value to customers. A performance-driven culture, with a well-defined awards program, wherein achievers and achievements are constantly spotlighted, differentiates NIIT from others. Says Shampi Venkatesh, Chief People Officer, NIIT, “The key differentiator which makes NIIT a great workplace is its constant focus on improving the quality of work-life of its people and its endeavor to contribute back to the society at large.”
Employees feel that NIIT is a great workplace because of its friendly people, good HR policies, supportive bosses, and an open and relaxed atmosphere, which encourages innovation and creativity. It is indeed NIIT’s people who make every day, every moment, fun and exciting to work. The organization has ensured ample opportunity to perform, to do different things and do things differently on a regular basis. NIIT’s people-centric policies and initiatives, work environment which is open, friendly, fun filled with incentives to learn, develop and grow is what makes every NIITian excited to get to work everyday.

NIIT has reinvented itself as an employer over the year, bringing its HR policies in line with new age expectations. Understanding that it has to appeal to youth, the 30-year-old organisation introduced a series of initiatives like cool contests that encouraging peer appreciation.
Perhaps the most radical step it took was to get rid of the Bell Curve, something that many companies still swear by. Instead, NIIT introduced Performance Assessment & Career Enhancer (PACE), an initiative aimed at recognising the performance of every individual who meets his pre-defined goals in the organisation.

This annual assessment system takes into consideration not only the achievements of an employee, but also the values and behaviour used to achieve those results. "Demand from employees is what gave a push to this initiative," says Shampi Venkatesh, chief people officer, NIIT.
"It will take some time for us to see the results of this system that has been put in place since the beginning of last financial year, but the initial response has been tremendous in the organisation." She explains that evaluation of performance is auto-calculated by the online system, based on the Balanced Scorecard, without the supervisor having to give any performance ratings.
NIIT also introduced an Art of Supervision programme for managers, wherein they are provided training and support before they start handling a team. For its new recruits, NIIT introduced N-Tie, in which employees are assessed at intervals of 90, 180 and 365 days.
The programme is aimed at allowing new NIITians to settle in, understand their own potential, start performing and finally, enter the evaluation process. The assessment allows the company to understand if the recruits are the right fit for the company, if they have understood their roles, the business and if they will contribute to organisational growth.

Peer appreciation was something that was on the radar in the past one year at NIIT. Employees regularly give e-WOW cards to each other as tokens of their appreciation. At the corporate office in Gurgaon, every floor has an 'AppreciaTree', on which employees put notes appreciating and thanking their colleagues.
NIIT People Awards allows employees to nominate and vote for each other under categories like FUNtastic, Cool Cucumber, Good Samaritan, Ms and Mr Fitness First, Ms and Mr Super Style and Service with a Smile (for people in support functions).
NIIT also created Passion Groups for employees with common interest areas like yoga, entertainment, dance, cricket, photography and mountaineering. Another initiative, called the HATS OFF program, recognises the outstanding behaviour that an employee has demonstrated in achieving the strategic goals of the organisation.
It not only rewards performance, but also recognises desirable behavior at work place, long service and upward recognition, which means team members recognise their supervisors as well.
HATS OFF also allows employees to collect redeemable points, which they can exchange for electronics and air tickets.
NIIT involves employees in corporate social responsibility initiatives through its iGive program (launched last year), which allows each employee four days leave to help contribute to the betterment of society.

NIIT Tech's attrition rate is in the 10-12% range, which is testimony to the fact that it has not only matured over the years but has also managed to meet the growing needs of its manpower fairly effectively. NIIT sheds the bottom 5% of its workforce by design, something that allowed the company handle recession far better than most of its competitors. A significant number of people who were asked to leave the company during the bad times have returned, which reveals their faith in the company and its management.
NIIT has moved beyond just making the office a fun place. The six-year-old iNIITian portal addresses 85% of the issues-handles leave-related matters; structures and personalizes compensation; holds auctions (especially helps employees who are relocating); has bargain corners; allows internal buy and sell; the list goes on. The management stays out of most of these activities while involving itself in more important matters like compensation, bills or eSeed, an online version of the existing brick and mortar model SEED (School for Employee Education & Development).
NIIT involves employees in corporate social responsibility initiatives through its iGive program (launched last year), which allows each employee four days leave to help contribute to the betterment of society.

RECRUITMENT,TRAINING AND MENTORING AT NIIT:

The management's brief to the line managers was very clear-stay focused on business acquisition and talent acquisition, in that order. The brief's still the same, but priorities have reversed. Today, talent acquisition is the most important responsibility of line managers.

* NIIT Technologies strictly follows a competency-based recruitment policy.

* Training programs-officially called the Performance Planning & Development Process (PPDP)- conducted twice every year to identify and close gaps in business critical areas.

* NIIT also introduced an Art of Supervision programme for managers, wherein they are provided training and support before they start handling a team. For its new recruits, NIIT introduced N-Tie, in which employees are assessed at intervals of 90, 180 and 365 days. The programme is aimed at allowing new NIITians to settle in, understand their own potential, start performing and finally, enter the evaluation process. The assessment allows the company to understand if the recruits are the right fit for the company, if they have understood their roles, the business and if they will contribute to organisational growth.

* The company chooses to be completely democratic in the mentoring and training process. Supervisors identify training needs of individuals, but employees get the opportunity to choose their own mentor from a list of names posted on the iNIITian, an internal web-based portal.

APPRAISAL:

NIIT initiated a unique program entitled UMANG (Using Measurements for Accelerated NTL Growth), which allows employees to measure individual growth and track improvement.
There are eight modules and each module is designed as a discussion session of 2 hours, every month, and coordinated by the team leader. The modules are aligned with project goals and teams can decide what to measure. At no point is one expected to measure more than two parameters.
The identified parameters are put on an Excel-based Data Capture System that captures the data, learning’s and observations, does a root cause analysis and determines corrective actions.
Umang allows one to move from "feel-based to data-based self management,". Fairly successful, given that the usage is in the 60-70% range and the initiative is less than a year old. The 30-minute sessions give people the opportunity to share feedback and thereby learn from his or her mistakes.
Peer appreciation was something that was on the radar in the past one year at NIIT Employees regularly give e-WOW cards to each other as tokens of their appreciation. At the corporate office in Gurgaon, every floor has an 'AppreciaTree', on which employees put notes appreciating and thanking their colleagues.
NIIT introduced Performance Assessment & Career Enhancer (PACE) last year, an initiative aimed at recognising the performance of every individual who meets his pre-defined goals in the organisation. This annual assessment system takes into consideration not only the achievements of an employee, but also the values and behaviour used to achieve those results.
NIIT People Awards allows employees to nominate and vote for each other under categories like FUNtastic, Cool Cucumber, Good Samaritan, Ms and Mr Fitness First, Ms and Mr Super Style and Service with a Smile (for people in support functions).
NIIT also created Passion Groups for employees with common interest areas like yoga, entertainment, dance, cricket, photography and mountaineering. Another initiative, called the HATS OFF program, recognises the outstanding behaviour that an employee has demonstrated in achieving the strategic goals of the organisation.
HATS OFF also allows employees to collect redeemable points, which they can exchange for electronics and air tickets.

It not only rewards performance, but also recognises desirable behavior at work place, long service and upward recognition, which means team members recognise their supervisors as well.

Best Practices @ NIIT which makes it best recruiter | Each one get one: You'll find posters like this all over the campus. Employees are encouraged to make referrals and are given due incentives when referrals get translated into offer letters. The objective is to create a bond. | An open culture,Where employees are encouraged tovoice theiropinions andSuggestions. Thebest ones also getImplemented. | Centers ofCompetence inthree broadcategories--technical,behavioral andfunctional--whereemployees learnemergingtechnologies or hot skills that arecurrently indemand in theindustry.Employees get the opportunity to opt for these programs between projects. | Competency based frameworkfor growth andDevelopment. A270-degree appraisal process(minus thecustomer) thatmakes the entireprocess transparent and fair. | Peopleprocesses havebeen assessedat PCMM(PeopleCapabilityMaturity Model)Level 3. Formalassessment forLevel 5 to startby the end ofthe year. | UMANG, aninitiative tofacilitate careergrowth throughimprovement ofpersonal workProcesses. A self drivenprogram,which allowsindividuals toquantitativelymeasure, evaluateand improveindividualperformance |

Awards and Achievements

NIIT Technologies was conferred with the following prestigious Awards and recognitions during the year under review:

1. NIIT Technologies featured in the Leaders category in the ‘2012 Global Outsourcing 100 service providers’ list

2. It was ranked among the Top 20 Best IT Employers, in DQ-CMR’s Best Employers Survey 2011

3. NIIT Technologies was conferred with the ‘Excellencein Training’ Awards at ASIA’s Best Employer Brand Awards 2011

4. NIIT Technologies was ranked among the Top 25 Fastest-Growing Process Management Providers, 2009-2010 in Gartner’s ‘Market Share Analysis: Process Management 2011’ report

5. Three projects from NIIT Technologies were selected by PCQuest to rank among the ‘Best IT Implementations of 2011’A n n u a l R e p o r t 2 0 1 1 - 1 2

6. The Company’s Chief People Officer, Rosita Rabindra was awarded the ‘HR Leadership’ Award at ASIA’s Best Employer Brand Awards 2011

7. The Company was listed in the ET 500 published in December 2011

8. Pratibha K. Advani, Chief Financial Officer of NIIT Technologies received the ‘Leading Woman Chief Financial Officer 2011,’ award instituted by iiGroup, a global organisation that keeps executives up-to-date with industry trends

9. Pratibha K. Advani, Chief Financial Officer was included in the CFO100 2012 ‘Roll of Honour’ list in the category ‘Winning Edge in Corporate Governance/ Financial Control’

10. The Prestigious Stevie American Business Award, for Honoree Business Leader, was conferred on Lalit Dhingra, President, NIIT Technologies, USA

11. Rajesh C Mathur, Vice Chairman, NIIT GIS Ltd., was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the India Geospatial Forum

12. The Company was recognized as a notable exception among the mid-tier vendors that grow their business instead of just making the existing business more efficient in leading industry research firm Forrester’s ‘Changing Services Landscapes requires New Sourcing Practices 2012’ report

13. NIIT Technologies was ranked Number 13 on DQ-CMR’s Best Employers Survey 2011, an industry-wide research on employee satisfaction. The Company was ranked Number 4 on the parameter of Best HR Practices, which comprehensively analysed the HR policies of IT-BPO organisations across the country. The survey has attributed NIIT Technologies’ ranking to a multitude of factors, one of the prominent among these are your Company’s several new initiatives on the Training and Development front. In the past year, the Company’s has been focusing on launching initiatives in the areas of career development, platforms for collaboration and employee well-being.