For the young and the restless

(This is the third in a series that features different workplaces and captures their culture, the quirks and eccentricities that make different offices unique.)

You will be forgiven for thinking that you've walked into a college when you step into the office of Directi, judging by the age of staffers and their motley, mod attires. And given the vast unused spaces, you will perhaps think it's vacation time too. Everything about the two-year-old office premises in Andheri, Mumbai, reflects the demographic segment that dominates occupancy.

The average age of the 600-plus employees at the Rs 1,350-crore Web products company is 25 years. Rather befitting for a company which had its origins in 1998, when its founder and CEO, Bhavin Turakhia, was 19 years old.

There are 40 new recruits who are 20 years old at Directi today. All but 43 employees are aged 32 years or more. And the oldest employee of the company, across offices, is Madukar Salunkar, 45, who is in charge of facilities at the second Directi office in Mumbai, at Seepz. Directi has offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore in India, and also in the UAE, Australia, the US and China. Over 500 employees are housed in the new premises in Andheri.

The new Directi office was conceived four to five years ago, and became functional two years back. It has around 1,20,000 sq. feet of built-up space across seven floors, allowing for a capacity of over 1,200 people at a luxurious ratio of space per person. There is another 40,000 sq feet of bare space that can be fitted out, should there be a need to ramp up headcount further. Clearly, signals of the growth ambitions of the company. This is not even counting the facility at Seepz, which the company may or may not continue with. It's currently a problem of plenty for the management, and no one's complaining — certainly not the employees.

Designing a ‘young' workplace

When Bhavin called Hafiz Contractor to create a plan for the exterior of the building, his brief was simple. He wanted a landmark building, with decent open space, a building that allowed maximum sunlight, and had an ‘outdoorsy' feel. The ‘X' shaped structure is the result of Contractor's planning. A large atrium greets you as you step inside, going up all the way to the seventh floor. Keeping with the youth pulse, the plan is to create a rock climbing set-up in the atrium, through which employees can climb up to their respective floors. No, they aren't joking.

On the interiors, Umesh Agnani, Manager, Facilities, insists that Bhavin plans things up to the last detail. For instance, the tables housing work stations for the European and American nationals working at Directi are taller. Agnani proudly reveals that the founder must have spent eight months deciding on the chairs to be used.

There is thought from the top on the kind of lighting to be used, the shade of wall paint, layout of the work stations, colour of the carpet, level and kind of air-conditioning, and more.

Turakhia admits that he does go into the details and rationalises the process. He says, “There is a lot of thought given to the kind of layouts on the basis of the team sizes and their need to interact. On the whole, we are pretty young at heart and know what we want. We make the effort to ensure that everyone is comfortable in the work place. Small things can make a big difference.”

Almost every employee has two LCD monitors, a boon for those working on multiple windows. Some have three, some even four, and Bhavin has six of them in his cabin.

Directi offices are in a state of constant evolution, and many of the changes are implemented in response to feedback received from employees. The most visible manifestation of that in the Andheri office are the shower rooms that have been added to the gymnasium area. At the 40,000 sq feet SEEPZ facility — where only 50 employees are housed as of now — a floor has been designed on a ‘Mumbai Street' theme, complete with auto-rickshaws. An annual theme is adopted, notes Agnani. A lounge on the second floor has L-shaped seats based on feedback from employees.

All Work and a lot of play

It was past 3 pm on a work day when we walked into the canteen to find it bustling with employees playing table tennis, teams huddled around carrom boards, an ATM machine, a chaat counter, an ice-cream and fresh fruit counter, a free-for-all refrigerator filled with non-aerated soft drinks, a snack bar, and a full-fledged food counter subsidised by half by the company. Most of them are made good use of, we were told, and we did see the proof.

Within the company, there are groups with shared interests, such as photography, movies, dancing, biking and ‘born to play' — the sports enthusiasts group. They don't just discuss sport, but participate in tournaments. There's an annual budget, which is flexible, but hovers in the range of Rs 1 to Rs 1.25 lakh for annual tournaments. The groups are self-supporting, and the company comes in only when there is support required — at Directi, social interaction between employees is designed to happen directly.

Management by Freedom, Inclusion

The management policy, according to Turakhia, is that there is no set policy. While there are quarterly plans for which teams get into micro-detailing, followed by weekly and monthly iterations, everything else is intended to be autonomous.

“When you hire smart people, it's better to set them free. We've typically believed in an extremely open, bottom-up, unconventional process. That's why we use more communication tools within the company than what we use outside, perhaps,” jokes Turakhia, even as he makes his point.

When the company was started, it borrowed from the HR policies of some leading companies to draft its guidelines. Seven to eight years ago, the company changed these guidelines drastically, and evolved its own.

All leave for employees is now granted as one block. It isn't ‘earned leave' anymore; it is there for the taking right at the beginning of the year and requires no approval. Earlier, employees needed approval from a manager, which was then sent to HR to deduct from the leave bank. It's simpler now — if the employee isn't around (or isn't working from home), it's treated as leave.

The change came about when the company realised that the process was cumbersome for employees, and served little purpose.

The employee perception came to light only because there were channels for them to voice their views.

A Wiki-like central repository helps seamless information sharing. Every employee can put up ideas, and people can vote for those ideas. It could be on facilities, or it could be on policies. Even the HR manual is up on the central repository for employees to comment on.

Notably, Directi created a ‘flexible pay packet' two years ago, based on feedback from the repository. The feedback resulted in an increased limit for certain components within the compensation. Mobile reimbursement of Rs 1,000 went up to communication reimbursement of Rs 3,000 for a workforce that loves to stay connected.

A paternity leave policy came up for discussion through the repository. To be fair to Turakhia and his young management team, they were too young when they started off to relate to paternity leave!

A satisfaction survey of employees invites comments on managers, as do exit interviews, which the management has found to be the most valuable resource to figure ‘what is wrong'. Feedback is then passed on from HR to the managers, to analyse employee comments.

The process is ongoing and dynamic, just as the inflow of talent is continuous.

HR Speak

Over the last two years, Directi has started hiring from the IIMs and the ISB. Last year, 12 ISB pass-outs and seven from the IIMs and MICA came on board. Thirty-five per cent of the workforce is comprised of ‘techies', and in the initial days, it was a challenge to compete on campus with the IT biggies, acknowledges Margaret Rodrigues, Associate Manager handling HR.

“We found that when we spoke about the Directi culture, and explained the scope of work, a lot of people started considering us at par with the big, established companies. The whole hiring process is such that there is a lot of emphasis on the cultural fit,” notes Margaret.

Flexible work hours and the option of creating one's own leave calendar translates into the need for the right people who will respect that freedom, notes the HR head.

Campus interviews have also proved to be a medium for employer branding. Admittedly, in 2007-'08, people were not aware of Directi. To gather attention, the company announced in certain campuses that selected candidates would be given iPads irrespective of whether they join the company.

“To get the initial attention is important. Once they listen to what Directi is all about, they appreciate the company. When they see the growth story, the profile of employees, and when the word-of-mouth from their seniors who are employed with us comes in, we find favour,” explains Margaret.

The company claims an attrition rate of 20 per cent annually, with the big churn coming in the areas of portfolio and research analysts. As for ‘techies', Web designers, business development teams, sales and support and accounts and HR, it's much lower, we are told. To reduce attrition, the company has a simple approach. It sets employees free and then provides them with avenues to speak out. Should they have a reason to complain, there are forums within to ensure that their issues are heard, discussed and addressed.

KRAs — both professional and personal — are discussed every three months. In certain business units within Directi, for newcomers, there is a review after three months, followed by an annual appraisal. Freshers who perform get to jump from ‘trainee' to ‘associate' in six months or a year in some units.

Does the freedom get misused by the young workforce? The answer from the young HR head is a defiant ‘No'. There are monthly work hours specified, and the timings are flexible. There have been no productivity issues so far, says Margaret. She says, “The specified hours are 160 in a month, across 20 working days. We find that people end up averaging 9 to 10 hours a day, instead of the 8 hours we specify.”

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