Introduction

Human Resources may be the most misunderstood of all corporate

departments, but it's also the most necessary. Those who work in Human
Resources are not only responsible for hiring and firing, they also handle
contacting job references and administering employee benefits.

It's true that any individual who works in Human Resources must be a
"people person." Since anyone in this department deals with a number of
employees, as well as outside individuals, on any given day, a pleasant
demeanor is a must.

Managing employees is a major job, so those in Human Resources must be

equal to the task. Ten or twenty years ago, Human Resources personnel were
rarely seen. Instead they worked behind the scenes to ensure personnel
records were in order and employee benefits were being properly
administered, but the job stopped there. Today's Human Resources
personnel don't only handle small administrative tasks. They are responsible
for staffing major corporations. This is no minor feat.

It's not enough to be able to screen potential employees, however. Those

who work in Human Resources also have to be able to handle a crisis in a
smooth, discreet manner. Whether the issue is health care related or
regarding sexual harassment or employee disputes, a person working in
Human Resources must be trusted to keep an employee's personal details to
him or herself. The Human Resource team must also be a good judge of
morale and realize when morale boosting incentives are needed. It's up to
them to make sure all employees are comfortable with their surroundings
and working under acceptable, if not above average, conditions.

For those looking to enter a career in Human Resources, a college education

is necessary. One doesn't necessarily have to have a degree in Human
Resources, however. Majoring in Business Administration, Psychology, Labor
Relations and Personnel Administration, as well as degrees in Social and
Behavioral Sciences, can also be beneficial.

Human resource management in infosys

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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.

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

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 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...

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

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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).

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...

The Challenges

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...

Human Resource Outsourcing

The business issue to address in HR today is not whether to outsource but
how to outsource effectively. At Infosys, we have a mature HR outsourcing
solution to offer you the strategic sourcing edge.

Infosys' HRO Service spans the entire 'Hire to Retire' cycle - Recruitment
and Selection, Training and Development, Benefits Administration,
Compensation Management, Performance Management, Workforce
Management, Separation Management, HR Analytics and HR Helpdesk and
Administrative Support. Our HR solution addresses your challenges and
provides consistent support to your employees (past and present), vendors
and third-party agencies.

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 • Our HCM BPO unit provides:
1. Excellent cross-service collaboration to deliver comprehensive
seamless solutions
• We provide flexibility in HR solutions enabling 'accelerated
transformation:'
1. Multiple ownership options (Operations, Application, IT support)
2. Facilitate transformation through multiple sequencing options
• Helps clients win in the flat world by leveraging:
1. Workforce from locations where it makes the most economic sense
2. Process efficiency through process re-design across a global platform
• Leverage the knowledge gained through Infosys' HR transformation
capabilities:
1. 70,000+ employees in 46 cities across 17 countries supported on an
integrated online platform (Core HR, ESS/MSS, Recruitment,
Performance Management, learning and development, payroll and benefits)

Human resource policies

Human resource policies are systems of codified decisions, established by

an organization, to support administrative personnel functions, performance
management, employee relations and resource planning.[1]

Each company has a different set of circumstances, and so develops an

individual set of human resource policies. [1]

Purposes

HR policies allow an organization to be clear with employees on:

• The nature of the organization

• What they should expect from the organization
• What the organization expects of them
• How policies and procedures work
• What is acceptable and unacceptable behavior
• The consequences of unacceptable behavior

The establishment of policies can help an organization demonstrate, both

internally and externally, that it meets requirements for diversity, ethics

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and training as well as its commitments in relation to regulation and
corporate governance. For example, in order to dismiss an employee in
accordance with employment law requirements, amongst other
considerations, it will normally be necessary to meet provisions within
employment contracts and collective bargaining agreements. The
establishment of an HR Policy which sets out obligations, standards of
behavior and document displinary procedures, is now the standard approach
to meeting these obligations.

HR policies can also be very effective at supporting and building the desired
organizational culture. For example recruitment and retention policies might
outline the way the organization values a flexible workforce, compensation
policies might support this by offering a 48/52 pay option where employees
can take an extra four weeks holidays per year and receive less pay across
the year.

Developing the HR Policies

HR policies provide an organization with a mechanism to manage risk by

staying up to date with current trends in employment standards and
legislation. The policies must be framed in a manner that the companies
vision & the human resource helping the company to archive it or work
towards it are at all levels benefited and at the same time not deviated from
their main objective.