NO ATTENDANCE TRACKING SYSTEM – A road to Employee Engagement

There are two organizations in India which does not have an attendance system as a part of their Human Resource Policy. Hence their employee’s presence or absence in campus is not monitored by any attendance system.  

First organisation is SAP Labs India which has more than 5000 employees in India spread across various campuses. Although the organisation is spread across with a large number of employees yet it does not have a system of recording or monitoring the attendance time in and out. This clearly reflects a message to all employees regarding the faith that the organisation has on the employees and considers them as responsible employees. In fact, this system has helped to build a culture of trust and bonding of the employees with the organisation. The record shows that till date the number of misuse case of this system is zero.

The second organisation is Icertis, a mid size technology oriented company based at Pune also does not track their employees attendance. But at the same time the employees are expected to be present between 10:30 AM and 3- 4 PM which is considered the core working hours. Keeping this central time of working, employees can choose their free time to come and go.

Such practices help employees to maintain a healthy work life balance, provide satisfaction to the employees and engage them towards their job and the organisation.

Video Game – A new mode of improving interpersonal skills of leaders

For any leader, the biggest challenge is to motivate the team and get the job done at the best performance level. This is possible only by the level of interpersonal skills that the leaders possess within themselves. Global talent management consultancy, Development Dimensions International (DDI) has identified this key way of managing people and has come out with an animated leadership Video Game called “Zapp! Zone: Jane’s Dilemma”. The objective of this game is to engage the leaders in learning the required interpersonal skills and drive a behavioral change in a funny and interactive manner.

This game helps the leaders to practice and improve their use of vital interpersonal skills which are called Key Principals but in an animated video format. The vital skills found by DDI research team are esteem, empathy, involvement, sharing and support which are the central behavior that makes any leader successful in driving a high performance team. 

Here the leader who is the prime leaner assumes the role of an animated character called Jane who has his team comprising of different personality types based on which various use of internal personal skills needs to be implemented. Jane interacts with the team members using the key principles based on various responses given by them. The leaders are continuously monitored along all the five levels by a progress meter. Overall the leaders are made an expert using situational conditions with appropriate usage of interpersonal skills.

Extended Maternity Leaves – An Employee Retention Trend among Indian Companies

According to the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, a women employee is entitled to get a paid maternity leave for 3 months. It has been noticed that majority of the employees do not return back to the employment post maternity period due to related reasons due to which the number of the women employees in the leadership roles have become severely low.

Looking at this critical situation where high potential talents are leaving the organisation due to the less number of leaves been availed to the women employees during the maternity period, many Indian organizations are extending the maternity leave period with additional benefits too. Some of the eminent players supporting the extended maternity leave are Flipkart, Godrej, Vodafone, Intel, Intuit, Accenture, ICICI, Adobe.

Flipkart - 

• 6 months of Paid Leave
• 4 months of optional flexible working with pay.
• 1 year of career break without pay, after which they return to available jobs
• Transport Reimbursement of Rs.600 per day during the last 2 months of pregnancy.
• Stock Parking Facility i.e Reserve Parking slot for 2 months before and after the delivery
• 50% of off in day care charges for children up to 4 years of age  

 Vodafone India

• 4 months of paid maternity leave
• Working hours of 6 hours per day for 6 months post return of maternity
• 1 working week of paternity leave

Intuit India

• Extended paid maternity leaves
• Financial coverage of Rs.60000 for normal deliveries and up to Rs.75000 for cesarean deliveries
• Financial coverage of surrogacy and infertility treatments

Intel India

• Extended paid maternity leave of 5 months
• 1 month of flexible working option for new mothers
• 150 days of paid adoption leave for women employees
• Discounts for day care charges (Best day cares have been tied up within city)
• Financial coverage of Rs.100000 for maternity
• Continuous touch with the women employees during the maternity period to reduce the anxiety level which could arise among the employees being away from work for a long period
• Sensitivity training for all senior managers for a smooth transition to work post maternity

Godrej - 6 months paid leave

ICICI Bank - 6 Months paid leave

Adobe India - Extended paid maternity leave or adoption leave of 6.5 months

Accenture

• Extended paid maternity leave of 5 months
• Additional 1 month of paid leave
• 3 months of unpaid leave options
• Maximum maternity leave of 9 months allowed including 5 months paid  
• Maternity Returners Programme - Career guidance facility for parents for re-entry into new roles post maternity period depending on the choice of the employees
• Parents at work Programme – Assistance to women employees during the maternity period to continue their job and advance in their roles and responsibilities
• Maternity Counseling Calls – Facility for the women employees during the maternity period to get counseled by a professional counselor for 6 sessions.
• Employee Assistance Programme – This helps the employees to cope up with their personal and professional hurdles which they generally face during the maternity period.

Currently only the women with government jobs in India are entitled to get a 6 months maternity leave as per the Central Civil Service (Leave) Rules, 1972. Recently Maneka Gandhi, Minister of women and child development, proposed a maternity leave 8 months. These 8 months will include 1 month of leave before the maternity and 7 months after the delivery. This decision have been kept in consideration looking into the fact of importance of breastfeeding of the new born for at least 6 months which will reduce current high rate of child malnutrition in the country. However the current status is that the labour ministry is ready to consider a 6.5 months of a maternity leave for Government and Private Sector women employees. The final decision is yet to be passed in the Parliament.

Availability of these facilities to helps to attract, motivate and retain women employees thereby reducing the attrition rate of potential talents in the organisation. Such initiatives help the women employees to return back to their workplace smoothly balancing their work as well as their personal life giving 100 percent commitment to family and the organisation.

Image Credit - Economic Times

HR Practices for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual & Transgender at Workplace

Engaging the LGBT Employees at Workplace in India 

According to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, sexual activities which are against the order of nature fall under criminal offence including homosexual acts too. In December 2013, the Supreme Court of India declared that this matter of section 377 out of judiciary system and therefore should be under the discretion of any decision passed in Indian Parliament. Recently towards the end of 2015, the Minister of State for Human Resources Development, Mr.Shashi Tharoor promoted the bill in Lok Sabha for gay sex, but was unsuccessful in getting it passed and de-criminalizing the act of homosexuality.

In spite of the current status of section 377 i.e Lesbians, Gays, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT), there are major corporate giants in India who has been openly promoting LGBT rights at workplace and have been positively included it in their diversity policy. Some of these eminent players are Godrej, Google, Genpact, Goldman Sachs, Coca Cola, Intuit, ThoughtWorks, Microsoft, Accenture, IBM etc.

Godrej – Runs a series of workshops with an agenda of sensitizing the on LGBTs for their employees across functions and teams. Various plays, film screenings, talks are hosted to encourage more openness towards the LGBT employees. In fact actively Godrej sponsored KASHISH - the Mumbai International LGBT Film Festival in 2014. Not only this, the organisation proudly hosted the “MINGLE” – the Indian LGBT Youth Leadership Summit at March 2015. All official forms of Godrej have “Others” for selecting the gender as an option for LGBT employees. Not only this, the organisation offers equal medical, hospitalization expense, Leave travel and transfer allowance towards LGBT employees as provided to any employee. Employee benefits such as maternity/paternity or adoption leave etc are provided to the employee and their dependents irrespective of gender.

Infosys – An employee resource group has been created called “Infosys Gays Lesbians and You” (IGLU) which brings together LGBT staffs from various functions and have discussions on the various policy changes which can support the LGBT employees at workplace. Moreover, various theatre workshops, online chat sessions are conducted for awareness and sensitizing fostering and encouraging the overall LGBT issue at workplace.

Genpact – The LGBT community has a safe and hostile environment at Genpact which aggressively promotes and supports in their working policy. In fact it has been seen that Genpact usually participates in LGBT fairs such as the recent one LGBT career fair in London. This is primarily to build a diverse pool of talent in the organsiation.

ThoughtWorks:  Continuous drives among the employees are done at workplace to create and spread the awareness through short film screenings to drive awareness about the issues and the significance of accepting the perspective around LGBT rights.

Intuit – The Bangalore based IT organisation which has been voted as one of the best places to work in India is leading diversity agenda with inclusion of LGBT at workplace.

Google – In India, Google runs a voluntary employee group called Gayglers who promotes, creates awareness about LGBT employees at workplace

Goldman Sachs encourages LGBT employees to meet the organization’s senior members and discuss about setting up the best practices leading to career development, retention of LGBT employees.

Accenture - It has a Meritocracy Policy which has reference to various sexual orientations which is being communicated to employee’s right from the time of Induction, training on diversity etc. Accenture has a Global LGBT network which brings all LGBT employee together for networking, information sharing and mentoring.

In fact recently The NHRD Chapter of Mumbai had a dedicated session on LGBT diversity at workplace in its HR leadership conference at the Mahindra Management Development Centre in Nashik because today’s workforce prefers to work in companies which supports and celebrates with all employees despite of their sexual orientation