The Hindu Business Line : Make the ride exciting

Like other IT and ITES companies, Satyam Computer Services also faces attrition - 18 per cent against the industry average of 22 per cent, A.S. Murty, Director and Senior Vice-President, Human Resources, told eWorldin an interview. So the challenge is to keep employees excited through new projects, new destinations and public recognition. Excerpts:

Aren't IT companies facing a challenge in finding talent at the entry level?

About four lakh students pass out of various engineering colleges every year. Even if 30 per cent are employable, we're talking of more than one lakh people we can take at the bottom-most level, train and groom them. We already have 28,000 people from whom project leaders and managers can be generated. Our aim is not to steal people from other industries but to grow our own people, our own leaders. Our mission is to generate leaders faster than the competition. Whoever is going to do this is going to be the winner.

But when they walk away after training, how do you feel?

That is your contribution to society because it's better to create and leave about 10 per cent or so for others!

Is that your attrition rate?

About 18 per cent, out of an industry average of 22 per cent, but at the leadership level it's only 5-6 per cent.

Which is not bad.

Yes. Because by this time they want to get married, have children; usually they don't switch across like bachelors. The maximum attrition happens around the age of 27 and hardly any after 35.

But is it good for a person's career to keep switching jobs?

In an entire career, a couple of jumps would be beneficial to both the company and the employee; but more than three would be of nuisance value to both!

So how do you control attrition?

We try to create that kind of an excitement within the company; after two to three years switch people from one project to another, one country to another, one position to another. Those getting such opportunities are really satisfied. When you switch to another company, you have to start all over again in terms of so many things.

But isn't getting the right talent a problem?

That is why you have to invest in growing talent. Very little is available out there... and you might end up with some poor performers from other companies at higher salaries and designations and you'll end up de-motivating your own people. Giving opportunities to existing employees — even those with just two years' experience — is far better than getting somebody from outside because they know your methodology and the Satyam way of working.

But IT's benefits are yet to percolate down to Tier II cities and rural India.

Even if you give a choice to those from rural areas or small towns who have studied in cities and get recruited through campus interviews, not many want to go back and operate from smaller towns, because of children's education and many other facilities that bigger cities offer. But we're seriously looking at this possibility.

You can't blame them either.

Yes, so it's a catch 22 situation. But more than IT, ITES will make a definite step towards smaller towns, it's just a matter of a few more months. We have tried the experiment of a rural BPO in Kakinada with 100 people and it's working very well. Why should we pay Rs 1 lakh in Hyderabad when somebody is available for Rs 40,000 there.. provided the technology works, and it does.

What about power?

We have to generate it there, but the State government is also looking at this because for them it is a huge political mileage. Before we even talk about the villages we have to address the issue of towns such as Vijayawada, Madurai, Tirupati, Visakhapatnam and Coimbatore.

What about Bihar; it is seeking investment from IT majors like you.

Not for a couple of years; there are issues of credible governance, safety and security. But we're looking at expanding in Pune, where we already have a facility of 1,000 people.

We've also taken space in Nagpur and Visakhapatnam and expanding in Delhi. Before thinking of a place like Bihar, we'd like to consolidate at these places.

At the end of the day, attrition is your biggest challenge, right?

Any growing organisation has growing pains along with a lot of excitement. This is definitely a concern area and we also know it's happening because of competition and you have to create excitement beyond the salary to retain your people. You need innovative and creative ways to tackle attrition; you can't stop it altogether... you have to motivate them through public recognition, challenges. I joined Satyam in 1993 where there were only 38 people in the whole company...

So how come you didn't jump?

In fact I want to retire from Satyam.

I saw many foreign employees on your campus.

Yes, we want to have a more diverse workforce and have about 600 foreign employees. Our aim is to get 5 per cent non-Indians in our force.

Next year, we'll touch 40,000 people and there is no point in recruiting Indians and sending them to Japan, China, etc. We have a facility in China where almost all the 250 employees are Chinese!

rasheeda@thehindu.co.in

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