Heady start: Scenes from Aditi Technologies’ welcome party for its recruits

The Internet joke currently doing the rounds of cyberspace says it all. An HR executive in an IT firm dies and is given a choice between hell and heaven. The executive looks at heaven, and sees the expected: angels on fluffy clouds playing the harp, people with beatific smiles and so on. Hell, on the other hand, has people playing golf, a relaxed devil is chatting with everybody and free beer is being served in one corner. “Heaven is fine, but hell is where I want to be,” says the executive.

But when she enters hell the next day, she finds the situation has changed. The devil is spewing vitriol, tongues of fire lash out at the inmates, who are all looking miserable. “What happened? Yesterday this was a great place,” she says. “Yesterday we were recruiting,” the devil replies, “today you are an employee.”

Like most jokes, this one has a sub-text that’s not greatly removed from reality. As employers vie with each other to woo the best, recruiting across India is becoming quite an art. And hyperbole, clearly, is a part of it.

Samee Athar, in fact, was convinced he’d reached the wrong place when he arrived at his new office on his first day to work last month. “I thought I’d reached a wedding party,” says Athar, test lead, Aditi Technologies, a Bangalore-based information technology (IT) firm.

You can’t blame Athar. A grandly decked elephant stood outside the Aditi office instead of the usual security official. A flower-strewn red carpet had been laid out, a music band played the chenda — a traditional percussion instrument — and a puja was on in full swing.

As Athar and 13 other new recruits walked into their new office, they were greeted by the chief executive officer (CEO) at the entrance. The vice-president applied tilak on their foreheads, a member of the board of director performed a puja and the VP-finance garlanded them. The new employees then sought the elephant’s blessings. “We thought this would be a fun way to welcome new employees into the company,” says Pradeep Singh, CEO and founder, Aditi Technologies.

Although the jumbo welcome party was not a part of Aditi Technologies’ Human Resource (HR) master plan, Singh says it was a means to seek some limelight. “The event was an opportunity to leverage the media and get people to notice the company in a noisy IT marketplace,” says Singh. The plan paid off — a three-minute video clip of the carnival, posted on YouTube, recorded 150,000 downloads.

Owing to a pachyderm paucity in Bangalore , an elephant had to be called in from Palakkad, Kerala, to bless Aditi’s new recruits. Clearly, hiring and retaining employees in the attrition-ridden Indian IT industry has become hard work. “It is difficult to find smart people in the industry. We have to work hard to recruit the right talent,” says Singh.

Also, middle-level attrition in the industry — which stands at 30 per cent — is at an all time high. “Companies require premium talent in this segment. So a trend of rolling out the red carpet for new employees is catching on. Companies are trying to make employees feel important,” says Suhas Merurkar, president, TVA Infotech, a Bangalore-based IT consulting firm.

So, besides jumbo jamborees, Aditi Technologies takes new recruits for out-of-town weekend outings and the CEO invites them for dinner to his house. “It reflects that the company doesn’t have a maai-baap culture,” says Singh.

At Bangalore-based Mindtree Consulting, new recruits go through a two-week induction programme called Arboretum — Latin for a place where you store uprooted trees. “It helps in a cultural assimilation of new employees into the organisation. The employees are shown movies and told stories about how Mindtree evolved,” says Mohan Sitharam, associate director, people function, Mindtree Consulting.

Earlier, it was left to the employee to figure out whom to go for lunch with, or find out where the wash room in the new office was. Now, it’s all taken care of in something called a buddy programme. “Senior technical people are attached to new hires, and they remain their constant buddies till the first appraisal,” says Sitharam. Employees who are fresh out of college attend a 20-day initiation camp and get token gifts. A magazine, called Circle of Life is sent to their parents — telling them about the company and what their offspring will be doing.

These HR practices makes perfect business sense, says Sitharam. Young professionals who join Mindtree undergo a 12-week technical training programme. “There are huge costs involved. So it’s important to ensure that they don’t treat the company merely as a training centre,” he says.

Clearly, the employee is king in India’s IT job market. “The Indian IT industry’s workforce has been exposed to global norms and knows about the best HR practices. Also, with a war for talent on in the industry, it’s important for companies to differentiate and stand out from the crowd,” explains Akila Krishnakumar, CEO, SunGard Offshore Services. SunGard welcomes new employees into the organisation through buddy programmes, meet-greet sessions and induction camps.

Even global IT giants — such as Intel and Sapient — have rolled out elaborate welcoming initiatives for fresh hires in their India offices.

Intel has an ‘Into Intel’ programme, which helps new employees integrate into the company. This includes a team lunch on an employee’s first day in the firm and a buddy programme. “A buddy provides information, guidance and an opportunity to network. These factors help a new employee feel welcome,” says R. Anish, business group HR manager, Intel India.

Sapient starts the welcome process even before new employees join office. The Sapient Leadership Team begins interacting with selected candidates. They are sent literature about the company’s culture and business. “We also have a new team which ensures that all new hires get a smooth boarding and integration experience,” says Rajdeep Endow, India recruiting lead, Sapient. The sheer size of Sapient’s workforce in India — which stands at over 55 per cent of the company’s total global strength — makes it important to keep employees happy.

Firms are finding creative ways to attract talent into their organisation. Bangalore-based Tejas Networks has what it calls a ‘Zero waiting time policy’. “This means that no interviewee has to wait to know if he’s hired. About 90 per cent recruitment happens on the same day as the first interview,” says Shekar N, vice-president, Team Tejas Cares, Tejas Networks.

Unisys Global Services India holds bi-monthly orientation meetings for new hires, where all the top management — from the managing director downwards — is present to answer queries. “Also, managers and team members are supposed to ‘hand-hold’ and mentor new hires,” says Benny Augustine, director, HR, Unisys Global Services India.

Pampering pays. Mindtree claims its infant mortality rate — industryspeak for the number of employees quitting the company within a few months of joining — has dropped from six per cent to 0.8 per cent. “Our HR initiatives for new recruits have made a phenomenal difference to attrition rates,” says Mindtree’s Sitharam.

Software employees, of course, love the attention. Says Geetika Gupta, associate, Mindtree, “I feel I’m important to the company, and not just the hundredth face in the crowd.”

Clearly, unlike the Internet joke, not everybody dons a mask for recruiting. But, as an old saying goes, an elephant’s tusks play two different roles — they are there for display, and for eating!