Article: #18 Intelenet: A Sense of Ownership

Employee Engagement

#18 Intelenet: A Sense of Ownership

Intelenet Global Services is a people-centric organization focusing continuously on improving the management and development of the human assets of the organization. Intelenet makes sustained efforts to create an environment that makes employees feel excited to come to work every day.” As the CEO and MD, Susir Kumar, shares his thoughts on Intelenet, one can easily gauge the reasons on the strides the company has taken in terms of growth and expansion over the last one decade of its inception.
 

As a matter of fact, Intelenet Global Services, started off with a single site office in Mumbai with 25 employees

 

Intelenet emphasizes on continuous training programs, so that employees are fully trained and effective at all times

 

Intelenet Global Services is a people-centric organization focusing continuously on improving the management and development of the human assets of the organization. Intelenet makes sustained efforts to create an environment that makes employees feel excited to come to work every day.” As the CEO and MD, Susir Kumar, shares his thoughts on Intelenet, one can easily gauge the reasons on the strides the company has taken in terms of growth and expansion over the last one decade of its inception.

As a matter of fact, Intelenet Global Services, started off with a single site office in Mumbai with 25 employees. Today, the employee strength stands at 44,000 with a geographical reach across 34 delivery centers in India and overseas. For a company, which initially started as a 50:50 joint venture between TCS and HDFC in October 2000, becoming the second largest employer in the Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) domain, is a great achievement. It was the $180 million investment by Blackstone, a private equity firm, in 2007, that eventually helped Intelenet scale up its operations, expand geographically, win more businesses and hence more revenue. The investment enhanced Intelenet’s value and more so its valuation. The recent $634 million acquisition of Intelenet Global Services by UK based Serco, is indeed a testimony to its increased valuation. It is the mature, risk taking, yet humane team at Intelenet, that attracts the investors. The company believes in a people-centric approach with emphasis on employee engagement and work-life balance. The value driven culture ensures a work environment that is open, transparent and encourages and supports excellence at work. Besides creating an organizational culture that is value driven, the organization infuses a sense of ownership amongst its employees. Kumar believes that it is the organization’s unique culture, people training and development, and listening and sharing, that make Intelenet a great workplace.

As an organization, Intelenet leverages its most important asset - its people. It not only makes efforts to harness a family spirit and create a team culture, but also offers abundant opportunities for individual and professional growth. Manuel D’Souza, Chief Human Resource Officer, Intelenet Global Services, shares his thoughts on what it means to Intelenet to be a great workplace. He opines, “Being recognised as a great workplace means that we have indeed treated our people as our greatest asset. This is visible not only through our growth in revenue and profitability, but also through the employee endorsements from the India's Best Companies to Work For - 2011 Study by Great Place to Work® Institute and The Economic Times.” The company hires people for their attitude and trains them for the necessary skills. It believes that it is the quality and caliber of its people, which is critical for the company to deliver value to customers and achieve success. Intelenet emphasizes on continuous training programs, so that employees are fully trained and effective at all times. The people training program at Intelenet encompasses soft skill training, employee growth programs, personality development, communication skills, process training and others. The training programs help the company assess and identify its competency and plan for future training and skill development, which helps the company stay ahead of the competition. Intelenet also conducts programs like STEP (Strive Towards Excellence Program) and LEAD (Leadership Excellence Accreditation & Development) to help associates and team leaders in their career advancement.

The greatest problem, facing the outsourcing industry in the present context is that of retaining talent. Manuel shares his thought on how to tackle the issue and says, “Companies should recognize their star performers and compensate them with monetary and non-monetary benefits that would promote a sense of well-being and fairness amongst employees.” Intelenet has successfully been able to retain its employees by rewarding and recognizing them through programs like the ‘Employee Appreciation Program’. Apart from this, the company has adapted many channels to satisfy its employees, which include a strong performance management system, initiatives like ‘i-care’ where HR connects with people for direct feedback, and ‘speak your mind’, where employees can leave their suggestions for the management team. I-versity, is the internal training program for employees, designed to incorporate a growth path for employees, supported by performance and strategic inputs. Specific retention tools like performance based incentives, transparent promotion policy, accelerated career growth, employee listening, employee development programs and ‘fun at work’ initiatives like face-painting, arm-wrestling, cricket and football tournaments, etc., have been integrated within the organization for creating a healthy work-life balance culture. Besides these, Intelenet exercises an openwork culture that leads to the overall development of the employee. “Intelenet realizes the fact that employees need to voice their views and opinions freely and that in turn leads to an open and pleasant workforce,” adds Manuel.

Being ranked in the Study in successive years stands testimony to Intelenet’s workplace environment which harnesses a family-spirit and team culture that offers abundant opportunities for individual and professional growth.
 

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Topics: Employee Engagement, Culture, #BestPractices

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