Building an Innovative Organization The president of HCL Technologies, Vineet Nayar started with the company in 1985 as a management trainee, working his way up through the company as president. Through Nayar’s pioneering efforts, he is putting into place a series of small changes that will have a potentially dramatic effect on how employees in the company work. In order for Nayar to deliver on that promise, he realized he needed to make changes inside the company. Nayar’s focus was to create an innovative company. Nevertheless, he was unable to do that without making sure that the internal organizational structure was innovative. Nayar’s objectives were to, reverse the pyramid and place the power in the hands of his employees, making managers accountable to their employees, instead of the employees accountable to their managers. Although his methods may be considered unique, drastic, and definitely risky, he had a few principles that would shape the changes, he was putting in place (Employees First, 2007): • Employees first and the customer second, was that of Nayar’s thoughts and that of spoiling the employees would make them believe that HCL was a great company to work for, his return would be that the employees would then deliver value. (Employees First, n.d.) • He also believed that simplicity would reduce the gap between a manager and their employees. Nayar wanted to reduce the restriction of information flow by setting up artificial borders between managers and their employees. His thoughts were that of by increasing transparency and removing borders, employees would be more likely to act dependably and more innovatively. (Employees First, n.d.)

• Nayar believed that it was impracticable to change a 30 year-old company’s culture, without severe measures. His thoughts were that sometimes-dramatic changes are required to get the pendulum swinging. (Employees First, n.d.)

So what were the management innovations that Nayar implemented? Let us take a closer look:

360-degree feedback

As the company employed 1,500 managers, managers were scored on twenty different aspects of their performance like having a strategic vision, their ability to communicate, their problem solving skills, and their responsiveness. The results of these 360-degree surveys, to include the numbers and the comments were aggregated and published on-line for all employees to view, demonstrating high scores such as motivating employees, compared to lower scores of getting resources in order to get things done. (Employees First, 2007)

Though this was a simple change in the company’s practice, it did not go without profound consequences. For the company’s managers, if they had received negative feedback, their secret was not concealed. For the most part, managers took the feedback seriously and made the necessary changes, others however decided to move beyond. Nayar’s use of the 360-degree feedback was not associated to an annual appraisal, but instead was used to add a new meaning of the word liability. The point here was for the opportunity for everyone to view the negatives and positives of the management staff, which Nayar felt would be enough to change management’s behaviors. (Employees First, 2007)

Service tickets

Nayar installed a program in which, if employees had a question, a complaint, or a dilemma, they were encouraged to open a ticket with the relevant department. These tickets were to encourage people to solve problems, and more importantly, the only employee that could close the ticket, was the one that had originally opened it. The intent was that tickets would only be open for a few days and a daily report as generated to list the quantity of open tickets and how long they had been open, for the fifteen different service desks the company has. The introduction of these service tickets has changed the culture of the business by improving their hygiene factors throughout the workplace. The environment has become encouraging for the employees to work in as they are seeing how the organization as being responsible to them as employees. Additionally, the tickets underline the concept of reverse accountability and the idea that managers and support functions are to be servicing the employees and not the employees servicing the managers and support functions. This concept then goes back to the employee’s first mentality. This was what Nayar had called his, “five star treatments for the employees, as the employees get used to the service level; it makes it hard for them to leave the company, creating a unique experience as well as a level of employee retention.” (Employees First, 2007)

One of the last benefits of the service ticket system was the indicator of ill feeling or other troubles throughout the company. When the company introduces new policies, the number of tickets increases. This increase in tickets allows the company to understand if their communication was successful or not. The goals of this program were to not only change behaviors, but for a department to go a day without a ticket, creating managers to be proactive with their employees so they do not have the need to open a ticket. (Employees First, 2007)

Tying it all together

When Nayar became president of the HCL Technology Company, he decided to lead the company in a different direction. Nayar became more concerned with, “the employees while working to retain focus on production, and if this were performed effectively, the sales and customer relations would take care of themselves.” (Employees First, 2007) With the employee’s first and customers second approach, the company was able to be successful with employee retention, which helped in the growing company. Creativity was encouraged throughout the company, as well as good, insightful relations with the management team. In addition, teams that worked on developing new products were given more freedom. Nayar changed the overall company structure and made people in management, to include the IT personnel, responsible for their actions when it came to dealing with the creative personnel of the organization, which made things run more smoothly. (HCL, n.d.) These company innovations have changed the culture of the organization, creating happy employees, as well as their guarantee that if the customer is not happy, there is a return no hassle policy, which is not a new concept, but a very effective one. (Employees First, 2007)

Conclusion

HCL Technologies is definitely a work in progress, but one that is clearly headed in the right direction. The company has had the opportunity to address concerns like employee turnover, which is a big problem in the IT industry. The company has also had various new customers come onboard. Nayar has approached change and innovation differently than most companies. It is understood how companies come up with a new product, but how to shift a business model of a 38,000-employee company, may not be known to all companies. Nayar will continue to share his successes in the future of HCL. (Employees First, n.d.)

References

Employees First. (n.d.). Retrieved January 19, 2013, from HCL: http://www.hcltech.com/

Employees First. (2007, May). Retrieved January 19, 2013, from London Business School:

http://www.managementlab.org/publications/labnotes

HCL. (n.d.). Retrieved January 9, 2013, from HCL Technology that touches lives:

http://www.hcl.in/advantage-hcl.