INTRODUCTION

Infosys Technologies, a leading software company based in India, was voted the best employer in the country in many HR surveys in the recent years. The company was well known for its employee friendly HR practices. Though Infosys grew to become a US$ 2 billion company by the year 2006, it still retained the culture of a small company. Infosys attracted the best talent from across the world, and recruited candidates by conducting one of the toughest selection process. All the selected candidates were required to go through an intensive 14 week training program. All the employees were required to undergo training every year, and some of the chosen employees were trained at the Infosys Leadership Institute to take on higher responsibilities in the company. 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: Study and appreciate some of the unique HR practices at Infosys Understand the recruitment, selection and training practices of Infosys Examine some of the retention strategies adopted by the company Analyze some of the challenges faced by Infosys on the HR front Keywords: Infosys Technologies, Best Employer in India, Training and Development, Recruitment, Selection, Retention, Capability Maturity Model, Infosys Leadership Institute, Leadership Development, Performance Appraisal, Organization Culture, Role Based Structure, AttritInfosys Technologies, a leading software company based in India, was voted the best employer in the country in many HR surveys in the recent years. The company was well known for its employee friendly HR practices. Though Infosys grew to become a US$ 2 billion company by the year

2006, it still retained the culture of a small company. Infosys attracted the best talent from across the world, and recruited candidates by conducting one of the toughest selection process. All the selected candidates were required to go through an intensive 14 week training program. All the employees were required to undergo training every year, and some of the chosen employees were trained at the Infosys Leadership Institute to take on higher responsibilities in the company. Infosys Technologies, a leading software company based in India, was voted the best employer in the country in many HR surveys in the recent years. The company was well known for its employee friendly HR practices. Though Infosys grew to become a US$ 2 billion company by the year 2006, it still retained the culture of a small company. Infosys attracted the best talent from across the world, and recruited candidates by conducting one of the toughest selection process. All the selected candidates were required to go through an intensive 14 week training program. All the employees were required to undergo training every year, and some of the chosen employees were trained at the Infosys Leadership Institute to take on higher responsibilities in the company. 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. "It is the energy of Infoscio 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. " tracting the best and the brightest and creating a milieu where they operate at their highest potential is very important. Our campus and technology infrastructure is world-class, we pay a lot of attention to training and competency building, we try to have sophisticated appraisal systems, we try to reward performance through variable pay. These are all part of the same motive. 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 (Refer Exhibit III

for the number of employees in Infosys between 1995 and 2006). 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." The 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...

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 the same in new situations. 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."

TRAINING
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...

Programs for Employees Infosys Leadership Institute Training The Infosys Leadership Institute (ILI) was set up in 2001 to nurture future leaders in the company and to effectively manage the exceptional growth that the company was experiencing. At the Institute, the executives were groomed to handle the changes in the external and internal environment...

The Culture
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...

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

Infosys Leadership Institute

The Infosys Leadership Institute (ILI) was set up in 2001 to nurture future leaders in the company and to effectively manage the exceptional growth that the company was experiencing. At the Institute, the executives were groomed to handle the changes in the external and internal environment...

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).