'We plan to hire 2,000 people every quarter'

HCL Technologies is on a hiring spree. The organisation plans to hire close to 2,000 people every quarter -- trainees as well as experienced professionals -- this financial year, which means that nearly 8,000 people can expect to find themselves working for the IT giant by March of 2008.

"We have been adding close to 2,000 people every quarter. We are well placed to keep up this momentum in the future as well," says D K Shrivastava, Head, Corporate HR at  HCL. He goes on to explain how you can benefit from the company's recruitment plans:

When they hire: "We are hiring experienced professionals throughout the year, whereas fresher hiring takes place as per the various campus schedules."

Positions available: "We usually hire for positions across many levels. Recruiting the best employees for your organisation is an ongoing exercise, as well as a challenge for every manager, supervisor and human resources professional. Thus, most of our recruitment campaigns are built keeping in mind the thrust areas. We aim to hire people with more than five years of relevant experience, as positions are sometimes available not just at a particular level, but across domains," says Shrivastava.

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Opportunities for freshers: "Employees are likely to feel better about their job if they are better at their job. We tend to devote a lot of time and effort to train new employees; in fact, at our organisation, training and education continue to occur over an employee's whole career. HCL focuses on hiring employees in their third year of engineering school, and training them in their fourth year of college. Thus, the new recruits will be better at coming up to speed when they actually join the company," explains Shrivastava.

"We have added a substantial number of freshers during the financial year of 2007, primarily to cater to growing business demands," he adds.

Levels at which recruitments will take place: "At HCL, we not only encourage recruitment across levels, but also across domains." Horizontal domains are cross-industry domains, while vertical domains are specific to types of industries. In the case of HCL for instance, their Infrastructure Services Division (ISD) and BPOs fall in the horizontal domain category, while vertical domains include financial services, aerospace, retail, life sciences etc.

Qualifications required: "We prefer candidates to be graduates in engineering, computer science and related fields," says Shrivastava. "It will be interesting to note that at HCL, the average age of employees is around 28 years. So we are a pretty young company in that respect," he adds.

Selection process: "Resumes are usually picked from a number of sources (like job portals, employee referrals, placement agencies, head hunters) and are screened and short-listed. Every short-listed candidate goes through two levels of technical interviews. Subsequently, the candidates undergo one session with HR before we disclose our hiring intentions."

Applying for the job: Explains Shrivastava, "HCL actively participates in job/ career fairs, as we believe these are a major source of employee referrals and applications. The response received from the fairs has been very encouraging so far. Besides this, we also encourage employee referral programmes, and list openings on our company website and through advertisements."

Advice for interviewees: "My advice for interviewees is to be relaxed and conversational, and focus on communicating a message that is consistent with the application that got you to that point. He/ she should be articulate and possess base knowledge in his/ her area of specialisation. At HCL, we look for people who can think differently, so many a time we create and share a simulated business case/ scenario with candidates, to gauge how differently they can approach a particular situation," says Shrivastava.

Post-interview: "Our work does not end just by conducting the interview with a candidate. We do understand the holistic nature of a selection process. Therefore, we have streamlined the post-interview process too. Reference checks are important. We typically put each of our potential employees/ candidates through every level of the process so that there are no last minute surprises. The letter of intent is only handed over once the potential employee clears all levels," he says.

Informing candidates who are not selected: "Our aim is to respond to all queries that we receive," explains Shrivastava. "If candidates are assessed as fit for a position other than the one for which they applied, we do consider them for that post. There are a fair number of cases within HCL where employee profiles have been modified depending upon the employee's inclination/ preference and requirements across domains."

Locations: "HCL has offices spread across the globe. Candidates can be hired to work in India or abroad, depending upon the profile and position."

Growth prospects: "A quiet transformation is sweeping across HCL Technologies, with 'Employee First' becoming the new mantra. It aims to put employees in the forefront of new strategies, which are being drawn up to propel the company towards the next growth trajectory. The philosophy is to create a work environment that provides employees with opportunities for personal development and career growth; opportunities to achieve 'individual enlightenment'." All these initiatives are aimed at making the management accountable to employees.

This also creates:

~ A unique employee experience, that ups the 'wow' factor.
~ An inverted organisational structure.
~ Transparency and accountability.
~ A cycle of 'learn-grow-own' for the employee.

"We continually groom the talent within the organisation to undertake more challenging roles, as well as provide inputs on how to cope with new challenges. We give our employees a chance to weave their careers in their own way. Career options are offered to employees, who match the required eligibility criteria to enhance their growth, learn and lead in territory where they would like to position their career. We also mentor our employees to choose their career tracks," says Shrivastava.

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Remuneration: "We believe that engaged employees lead to engaged customers, therefore the focus of our 'Employee First' programme is not only remuneration but also employee empowerment. This has helped HCL evolve a symbiotic organisational structure with a unique culture that sets us apart from our peers, and instills a sense of pride in being an HCL employee. HCL has instituted a series of innovative initiatives, such as:

Providing employees with a unique environment:

• Smart Service Desk: This is an employee feedback mechanism that enables employees to resolve work issues they may have by way of an online service ticket. Around 30,000 tickets are raised per month, and 0.5 million tickets have already been raised and sorted this year.
• iGen: This is an employee participation-driven idea generation programme.
• Directions: A unique face-to-face communication initiative by HCL's senior leadership covering employees across the globe.

Encouraging a value-driven culture:

• Trust Pay: 85 percent of the employees in HCL are now on fixed compensation
• ValuE Portal: A portal to measure and recognise value creators in an organisation.

Add-ons: "As mentioned previously, the focus of our 'Employee First' programme is not only remuneration but also employee empowerment. Thus, we value add to the growth of our employees through innovative practices like:

Driving an inverted organisational structure:

360 Degree Feedback is a programme wherein employees provide feedback regarding their seniors, including HCL's president; the results are then published on the intranet (15,000 responses were received for the most recent exercise, covering 1,500 managers).

Creating transparency and accountability:

• U&I (a direct communication programme with the company president)
• Electronic Appraisal System
• Hewitt Employee Engagement Survey
• Weekly Polls

"Our company uses a portfolio approach to rewards, and doesn't rely on just one or two programmes. Each programme therefore has a distinct purpose and structure to encourage a set of actions or attitudes. There is no single programme that works. Successful companies across the world have achieved an alignment between what the company needs to achieve with its strategy and to reinforce its core values," says Shrivastava.

"Fortune magazine has called us 'The world's most modern management -- in India', and credits us with empowering our employees and 'pointing the way to the future of business'," says Shrivastava. "In addition, the latest annual review from London Business School, talks about HCL's "Employee First" initiative. HCL is the only Indian company to be featured by LBS in their annual review!" Shrivastava states.

Prominent clients: Prominent HCL clients include Deutsche Bank (DB), British Telecom (BT), DSG International (Dixons), Cisco Inc, Teradyne Inc, Boeing, AMD, Autodesk, Celestica and Microsoft.

Locations and expansion plans:

Postal address:
HCL Technologies Ltd
A-9, 10, 11
Sector 3
Noida
UP - 201301

Email: apply@hcl.in

Website: http://www.hcltech.com/index.asp

Career information: http://www.hcltech.com/Careers/index.asp

Apply online: https://rms.noida.hcltech.com/rmsexternal/