Article: #20 HCL Infosystems: Grooming Future Leaders

Employee Engagement

#20 HCL Infosystems: Grooming Future Leaders

The seed of what we see today in terms of the revenue projection of the IT industry was sown more than three decades ago with HCL laying the foundations of a revolution, with a dream to give India its very own microcomputer. Today, HCL is a $5 billion global enterprise. HCL Infosystems, the flagship company of the HCL enterprise, a pioneer in the hardware and software sector, was amongst the first to partner with the government in its initiative of laying down the IT infrastructure in the country. At present, HCL Infosystems is powering numerous projects across sectors like defense, homeland security, airport & railways intelligent infrastructure, telecom, banking, public distribution system, e-governance, education, MNREGA, etc.
 

HCL also has three schools of learning – ‘I Lead' for leadership development; ‘I Win' for sales training; and ‘I Learn' for technical and domain trainings

 

The seed of what we see today in terms of the revenue projection of the IT industry was sown more than three decades ago with HCL laying the foundations of a revolution, with a dream to give India its very own microcomputer. Today, HCL is a $5 billion global enterprise. HCL Infosystems, the flagship company of the HCL enterprise, a pioneer in the hardware and software sector, was amongst the first to partner with the government in its initiative of laying down the IT infrastructure in the country. At present, HCL Infosystems is powering numerous projects across sectors like defense, homeland security, airport & railways intelligent infrastructure, telecom, banking, public distribution system, e-governance, education, MNREGA, etc.

HCL Infosystems is a very entrepreneurial, full of energy and passionate organization. As Harsh Chitale, CEO, HCL Infosystems says, “Entrepreneurial freedom is at the core of the company’s DNA and we provide massive freedom at work and promote entrepreneurship at all levels.” The competitive reward and recognition system that incentivizes performers and the investment on training and development is what attracts talent and makes it a great place to work for. As a company, there is a lot of emphasis on investing in training and development which includes executive coaching to leadership development programs and technical/functional trainings at their 16 acre training campus at Hyderabad.

Being a pioneer in hardware and software sector, they have always felt the need to develop their people at every level in the organization. The unique HCL 4-dimensional framework for development has core, mandatory and preferred programs identified for individuals. HCL also has three schools of learning – ‘I Lead’ for leadership development; ‘I Win’ for sales training; and ‘I Learn’ for technical and domain trainings. ‘I Lead’ uses an online 360 degree feedback tool which enables employees to evaluate and share feedback on the leadership traits, strengths and development areas of senior managers. This special initiative enables a transparent mechanism to create a robust enterprise leadership pool that will fuel the growth of business size and diversity.

To support the grooming of future leaders while senior management extracts knowledge and understanding from the world of the new generation, HCL has developed a unique initiative called ‘GenNext’. ‘GenNext’ is a reverse mentoring session where junior managers share their knowledge on diverse ‘GenNext’ topics with the senior HCL leaders. This helps the senior members gain insight into next generation customers and team members to understand them better; generate fresh ideas and think out-of-the-box; learn about new tools, technology updates, subject matter advances; and valuing diversity, risk taking, and global perspective.

Being recognized as a great workplace is an affirmation of the great work done by the CEO, HR and each manager who plays a crucial role in shaping the organization. Although HCL Infosystems has been able to attract the right talent, the prevailing shortage of talent and increasing attrition is always something that they have to watch for, and emphasis is laid on ensuring adequate attention is given to its people and their continuous productivity. As the industry gears itself for the wider adoption of mobility and cloud computing, HCL Infosystems is all set to build up the required skills for these new trends.
 

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Topics: Employee Engagement, Culture, #BestPractices

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