Dear Readers,
Do you all feel that creating fun at work will lead to enhanced morale and motivation of the workforce.
Post your comments on the article reproduced below.
Raghav
Founder HRinIndia
Indias Biggest HR Network
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In a scenario where the BPO industry is grappling with attrition rates averaging around 30-35 per cent, Ajuba Solutions, a leading ITeS company that provides end-to-end revenue cycle management for the healthcare industry in the US, has managed to keep its overall attrition rates under an impressive 20 per cent. This has been achieved through a host of employee-friendly initiatives that have won it accolades too - it's been ranked by Hewitt Associates among The Top 25 Best Employers in India for 2007, and by IDC-Dataquest among the Best BPO Employers in India three years in a row 2005, 2006 and 2007.
Devendra Saharia, co-founder and amp; president, Ajuba Solutions, says, "We believe that our ability to retain employees is based simply on keeping them happy, respected and engaged. At Ajuba, workplace fun and excitement are defined by two themes: first, all programmes are participative, with most being conceptualised and implemented by employees themselves.
And second, most of these programmes are designed in a fun-with-responsibility format without being too intrusive." The fun-at-work culture at Ajuba is managed at three different levels - project level, department level and company level.
And yet, it's not all fun. There's a fast-track programme called LEAP (Leadership Evaluation and Assessment Programme) that serves as a 'launch-pad' for all talented employees The programme, based on the core value of meritocracy, helps create an "internal talent market", so much so that 100 per cent of all the team leaders, supervisors and assistant managers in operations are homegrown.
The programme provides a structured career progression map to bright employees, thereby acting as a talent retention tool. Another interesting initiative is the campus engagement programme, called ACE, based on a strong conviction in a robust corporate-academia partnership that would nurture and symbiotically build a pool of 'industry ready' students.
It is a key component of the recruitment strategy and takes care of almost 25 per cent of the organisation's people requirement. Alongside, it also helps create brand awareness and recall with students.
Thus, even if a student does not join the company from the campus, ACE helps expose him/her to the brand and helps the employee-brand feature in the consideration set as and when the individual considers a career in the BPO industry. It works well by creating a value triad for the college, the student and the company brand.
Along with these activities, there is a well-designed appraisal system that forms an extremely important part of the organisations' HR policy. Ajuba's performance metrics address the various aspects of a person's role and are based on the FOCUS concept, based on financial, operational, customer oriented and self development related metrics.
"It helps align individual goals to company objectives, identifying training and development needs, spotting star performers and understanding areas of organisational improvement," asserts Saharia.
