At 35, Ashok Reddy, managing director of TeamLease Services, says he is skewing the average age in his company. That’s because he’s too old, not too young. “The average age of our employees is 27-28 years,” says the co-founder of the Bangalore-based temping firm.

Flagged off in 2001, TeamLease operates out of 14 locations in India, has 35,000 employees and high-profile clients like DuPont, Philips and Gillette. Technically, TeamLease is a staffing solutions company and its function is to place people in different organisations to complete an assignment. Job done, they look for fresh fields to conquer. Of course, at times, these organisations do absorb people on a permanent basis.

Reddy believes in the power of youth. The IIM Bangalore graduate has proved it himself; he founded his first firm at 27. Reddy had been working with ICICI Securities in Mumbai for three years when the entrepreneurial bug bit him. “I was pondering on what to do and finally decided on starting a pension fund administration company,” he says. In 1998, Reddy started India Life Pension Service along with two college friends-turned-partners.

The young entrepreneurs had expected eyebrows to be raised. “Pension fund investment was a low priority area. People thought we were foolish to throw up secure jobs,” says Reddy. But the businessmen stuck to their guns. “We felt age was on our side and enthusiasm was high too. We got a venture capitalist to fund the project and took the plunge,” recalls Reddy. The key to nurturing a company is to realise the difference between a baby and a dwarf, says he. Both are small. But only one has the DNA to grow.

Reddy soon found that doing business was hard work. “We had to create the company from scratch. For months, we burnt the midnight oil, putting the processes in place,” he says. The entrepreneurs learnt some valuable business lessons along the way. People, process and technology became the three pillars of India Life. “We operated on the premise that there is no super brain in a company. It works on collective team effort,” says Reddy.

The idea clicked. By 2000, India Life Pension Service had 200 corporate customers, employed a team of 120 people and worked out of seven cities. “We were the largest players in the industry,” says Reddy. A year later, Reddy sold his company to international human resources consultancy organisation Hewitt, which was looking at expanding in the Asia-Pacific region.

Reddy’s second project was as out-of-the-box as the first venture. “We realised that temping had huge potential in India. Although it is a $200 billion business internationally, it remains unorganised here,” says he. TeamLease Services was launched in 2001 with offices in Bangalore, Mumbai and Delhi. Reddy says the biggest challenge at TeamLease was selling the concept of temping. “Our initial buyers were only multinationals. We had to work hard on getting Indian companies to open up to the concept,” says Reddy. The company’s client base now includes the likes of Reliance Infocomm, Bharti, the Tata Group and the Birlas.

He claims that business is booming. “We hire one person every 50 minutes. By March, this year, we will have 42,000 employees. We are among the top 10 players in the recruitment space,” he says.

He attributes his success to some essential work ethics. At TeamLease, sunshine is the best disinfectant. “We are a democratic organisation. If anyone has a problem, they bring it to the table. There is no politicking,” says Reddy.

Also, TeamLease focuses on continuous change and people training. “It’s important to keep learning and changing. We take feedback from our employees and also keep upgrading our processes,” says Reddy. The company spends Rs 2 crore every year on people training.

That investment is now paying off handsomely. By 2007, TeamLease hopes to beat software giant TCS to be the largest private sector employer in India. “We are rapidly heading towards that goal,” says the confident MD.

As told to Varuna Verma in Bangalore