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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Ex-employee on why Google is not the best workplace

A former Google executive went public on Tuesday with a lament that the Internet star has become obsessed with advertising and seizing the online social networking crown from Facebook.

James Whittaker left Microsoft in 2009 for a high-level software engineering job at Google only to recently jump back to the California-based firm's rival.

In a personal blog post he explained why he left what is considered one of the world's most desirable workplaces.

"The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate," Whittaker said.

"The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus."

That focus was to conquer the online social networking realm where Facebook rules and Google stumbled with offerings such as Buzz and Wave, according to Whittaker.

"Larry Page himself assumed command to right this wrong," he said, referring to the Google co-founder who took over as chief executive last year.

"Social became state-owned, a corporate mandate called Google+," he continued.

Emphasis was put on synching Google+ social network with the company's popular services such as search and online video venue YouTube.

"Like the proverbial hare confident enough in its lead to risk a brief nap, Google awoke from its social dreaming to find its front runner status in ads threatened," Whittaker said.

Google shut down its Labs initiative to support experimental projects and soured on a policy that lets employees spend 20 per cent of their time on ideas unrelated to their usual jobs, according to the former 'Googler.'

"As the trappings of entrepreneurship were dismantled, derisive talk of the 'old Google' and its feeble attempts at competing with Facebook surfaced to justify a 'new Google' that promised 'more wood behind fewer arrows'."

Whittaker told of working on Google+ but seeing the social network make little headway against Facebook.

"As it turned out, sharing was not broken," he said. "Sharing was working fine and dandy, Google just wasn't a part of it."

"Google was the rich kid who, after having discovered he wasn't invited to the party, built his own party in retaliation," Whittaker continued. "The fact that no one came to Google's party became the elephant in the room."

Google decline to comment for this story.

Tata Group-owned Jaguar Land Rover to add 1,000 jobs at UK plant

Tatas-owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is adding 1,000 jobs at its Halewood manufacturing plant, near Liverpool in the UK.

"The new positions, which will support the on-going significant demand for the Range Rover Evoque and Land Rover Freelander 2, take the workforce at Halewood to almost 4,500 - treble the number employed there just three years ago," the company said in a statement.

JLR HR Director Des Thurlby said: "We are moving Halewood to three shifts and 24-hour operation to meet increased global demand for our products."

The new jobs at Halewood plant will include production operators, supervisors and engineers, the company said.

All new employees joining the production line will receive training towards an Intermediate (Level 2) Apprenticeship, it added.

Thurlby said: "JLR's supply chain is also set to benefit, with thousands more jobs expected to be created."

In the April-January period JLR's global sales were at 2,45,705 units, up 25 per cent from the year-ago period.

Cumulative sales of Land Rover during the period were 2,01,237 units, up 34 per cent from the year-ago period, while that of are 44,468 units, lower by 3 per cent.

In January, the company's overall sales were at 29,293 units, up 44 per cent over January 2011.

Land Rover sales during the month were 24,746 units, up 43 per cent from the same month last year. That of Jaguar were 4,547 units, up 49 per cent from January 2011.

Monday, March 12, 2012

India Inc prefers internal candidates for top posts: Experts

When it comes to succession planning, India Inc seems to prefer internal candidates for passing on the baton for the top position, experts feel.

Choosing an internal candidate for top managerial posts, as seen in the case of Larsen & Toubro today, provides multiple benefits for the corporates, and also sends out the message that hardworking people would be rewarded, they say.

"These days, career progression is taken seriously by employees. Appointing an internal candidate as the successor also sends out a good message that hardworking people would be rewarded by the company," HR consulting firm ManPower Group (India) Managing Director Sanjay Pandit told PTI.

"It is also a good (talent) retention tool," he noted. Corporate giant L&T today appointed K Venkataramanan, associated with the company for over four decades, as its new CEO and Managing Director, while the current chief A M Naik would remain Executive Chairman.

While L&T is the latest major Indian entity to repose faith in an internal candidate for the top position after about one-year-long search process, many others, including salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group, have taken a similar stand in the past.

As was the case for Tata group, L&T is also believed to have considered various candidates, including some from outside, in their months-long search processes.

Cyrus Mistry, son of construction magnate and the Tata group's single-largest shareholder Pallonji Shapoorji, would take over from Ratan Tata as the group chairman in December.

In January, Godrej Properties also appointed Pirojsha Godrej, son of group chief Adi Godrej, as its new MD and CEO.

"An insider will have a good understanding of the company. He will know the people and culture well," staffing services firm Ma Foi Randstad chief E Balaji said.

According to experts, the practice of choosing an internal candidate as successor at the top is a global trend.

"More and more companies are looking to groom talent internally, especially for top positions. This is happening globally as seen in the cases of General Electric, Apple and HSBC," Balaji said.

Pandit pointed out that having an internal candidate as the successor has "multiple benefits such as a good understanding of the company culture".

"Every organisation has a talent succession plan by default and the plan (usually) pans for about three to four years," he added.

"Going for an outside candidate to succeed (at top positions) also reflects the lack of talent internally. Companies are focusing on developing internal talent and a deep management bench (which is a good sign)," Balaji said.

L&T's current chief A M Naik joined the company in 1965 as a Junior Engineer while his chosen successor 67-year-old K Venkataramanan has been with the group since 1969.

Gender diversity scores high for firms like Microsoft, Accenture et al

Profitability, growth and shareholder value are no longer the only yardsticks on which CEOs are being assessed. A growing tribe of India Inc leaders and CXOs is now being evaluated and rewarded on how well they attract, nurture and groom women managers into leadership positions.

Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik and his leadership team have diversity on their performance scorecard, so does Accenture India Country Managing Director Avinash Vashistha. P&G India Managing Director Shantanu Khosla along with his leadership team is accountable for career progression of women in his company. At IBM India, Shanker Annaswamy, managing director, has diversity as a key result area (KRA) that cascades down to his leadership team.

Career progression of women is no longer just an HR responsibility. It is now a CEO function. "Companies are putting diversity as a key result area for the CEO and for other business leaders," says Vikram Chhachhi, executive vice-president of DHR International, a Chicago-based search firm.

Adds Roopa Kudva, managing director and CEO of Crisil, "The word diversity was not in the vocabulary of companies when I started out 25 years ago. Today it is on the agenda of management and boards."

The change is being led by a bunch of MNCs that have graduated from looking at gender diversity as a 'good to do' thing to a business imperative and strategy. "At Microsoft offices in many countries, it is proven that when there is more focus on women, there is a positive impact on business. We take diversity very seriously globally," says Joji Gill, senior director-HR, Microsoft.

Accountability at Every Level

At P&G India, there is leadership accountability of diversity at every level, and at every function - even in manufacturing and sales. The entire leadership team has diversity on its scorecard. Says Sonali Roychowdhury, country HR manager, "The company tracks the success of high-potential women. If there is a big skew, the leadership team intervenes."

P&G has 30% women across levels and half of its leadership team is women. At Accenture India, gender diversity is part of the CXO and leader scorecard. "Each of our leaders from top down is measured on gender diversity," says Rekha M Menon, lead for geographic services for India & ASEAN and human capital & diversity for India. "The three large buckets of gender diversity in the company are attracting more women, retaining and engaging these women, and growing the high potentials," she says.

The company has formally linked mid-level women to leaders who are two levels higher. "Each leader has two-three women whose career she/he is actively guiding. It's evangelism from the leadership," Menon says.

These leaders are accountable for not just numbers, but also have to explain attrition of women and there is accountability in succession slates and for more women in leadership roles. "At some organisations, a part of the bonus for senior leaders depends on how many women have been hired or groomed into leadership roles. Have you as a CEO ensured a certain percentage of diversity?" Chhachhi says. At manufacturing group Cummins India, a 'buy-in' into women's careers at the top has resulted in the percentage of women increasing to 24% in 2011 from 4% in 2004.
"Diversity is a work-in-progress at Cummins India. It is part of the KRAs for all business leaders to get more women on board," says Nagarajan Balanaga, VP-HR at Cummins India. From no women in the leadership team 18 months ago, the company now has four women in the 20-member leadership team.

"The KRA around diversity works in three ways - hiring, retaining woman talent and providing conducive environment. Before the KRAs came into place, we used to lose more women than men. Now the attrition numbers are the same for both," Balanaga says. When a CEO or CXO drives it, the message is driven home faster and stronger. "This ensures a continuous focus to bring in more women into the workforce. It also has a trickledown effect and sensitises people managers to the importance of diversity in teams," says an IBM spokesperson. 

Cognizant rewards employees with 200% variable payout

CHENNAI: After growing faster than Indian information technology (IT) industry, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp has now rewarded its employees by giving out as much as 200% of the variable components of their 2011 salaries.

Typically, anywhere from 20 to 30% of an employee salary is labeled as variable pay, linked to a combination of overall company performance and individual performance.

"The company has done the repeat of 2010 in rewarding its top performers. The top performers got around 200% of their target bonus while the average bonus given was 150%. The bonuses were on expected lines as the company has been scoring good quarter on quarter," said a Cognizant employee in Chennai on condition of anonymity.

"Yes, Cognizant has announced performance-linked bonus payout for all its associates, globally," said Shankar Srinivasan, Chief People Officer, Cognizant. "Our industry leading revenue growth in calendar 2011 has enabled us to pay performance bonuses well above target."

Cognizant's bonus comes at a time when industry lobby Nasscom has projected tepid revenue growth for software exporters. Last month, Nasscom forecasted 11-14% growth for India IT-BPO Industry during fiscal 2013, lesser than the 16.7% growth that the sector saw this in the just concluding fiscal.

"Even against the backdrop of a volatile economy, we grew our revenue by 33.3 percent over 2010 and added more than 33,500 professionals to our workforce globally," pointed out Srinivasan who added that Cognizant's employee attrition rate of 10.1% was among the lowest in the industry.

With the bonus pay out, there is increasing expectation of a good pay hike later this year.

"We are now eagerly waiting for the wage hike that would happen in May/June this year," said an employee from the company's Chennai campus. "We are positive that it would be the same like the bonuses. If you recall Cognizant was the only company which has promoted 33% of its workforce during the calendar year 2011."

While in 2010, Cognizant grew its revenues by 40 percent, in 2011, it grew its revenues by 33.3 percent. Both years, Cognizant grew its revenues by 10-15 percent higher than what NASSCOM projected for the industry.

Despite an uncertain economic environment in key global markets, Cognizant has forecasted growth of at least 23 percent this year. Cognizant had guided for 20 % growth at the beginning of 2010 but managed to grow by 40 percent that year. In 2011, it guided for 26 percent revenue growth and posted 33.3 % growth.

Going by Cognizant's guidance only $100 million would separate it from Infosys in terms of revenues. Cognizant's revenue forecast of $1.7 billion is now close to Infosys' March quarter guidance of $1.80-1.81 billion.

Cognizant has over 137,700 employees globally, of which over 1, 00,000 are in India. 

Courtesy: ET