Article: #5 NetApp India: A Culture of Freedom

Employee Engagement

#5 NetApp India: A Culture of Freedom

Our products are built around the needs of customers and that is why engaged employees play a big role in our success
 

Values and culture is the central nerve of our organization globally

 

we not only look at creating an environment within the workplace but also we look at supporting our employees in the complexities they face in today's environment

 

The key for success in our business lies in understanding the customer challenges and building products around their needs with state-of-the-art technology. That is why satisfied and engaged employees play such an important role in our success. We aim to create an environment, where we expose our employees to the customers as much as possible for them to be able to understand the problems that our customers are facing and come up with the most appropriate and innovative solution,” quips Vikram Shah, President India Operations NetApp India Pvt Ltd. A relatively new industry in India dealing in data storage and data management, NetApp has ranked #5 in the Great Place to Work® Institute’s Study and #3 in the Industry Category of the IT sector. Manjunath S.R, Senior Director, HR says “What makes NetApp a great workplace is the experience that we are able to create for our employees. This environment is a combination of many things – what opportunities we provide to our employees to learn and grow, how do we reward them, how do we ensure that they feel safe and secured, how they feel empowered to take charge, etc. All of these are intrinsic expectations from the employees and the fact that we are able to meet most of them makes us a great workplace.”

The organization has initiated an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) which is assistance in the form of counselling imparted to employees and their families. All services are completely confidential to help manage stress and personal situations. “We look at supporting our employees in the complexities they face in today’s environment. The idea is to provide help and support, beyond work related, to the employee and his/her family on their personal challenges by creating a secured and anonymous mechanism to access professional counsellors,” explains Manjunath. To aid this concept, the company has a tie up with 1 to 1 help.net, which is a counselling firm and has even launched a program called ‘Spoorthy’ designed to provide help and support when an employee feels the need. To get an insight of the company’s ideology, we speak to Vikram Shah and Manjunath S. R.

Why is it important for NetApp to have a great workplace from the business perspective?

Vikram Shah: Firstly, for NetApp have a great workplace has only a business perspective; we believe that happy employees will directly impact the performance of our business. For example, in the last few years, our business growth has correlated to the improvement in the ranking in the Great Place to Work® Institute’s Study. So, there is surely a correlation between happy and engaged employees and business results.
In terms of what makes NetApp a great workplace, I think it is our values and our culture. The focus on these two interrelated elements is very strong; we have a real commitment toward ensuring that we maintain our culture and values. Every person in the executive level becomes an ambassador of these values and culture. We stress values and culture right from the joining and orientation program, to the performance management and appraisal programs, and to the reward and recognition approach. Values and culture is the central nerve of our organization globally.

Something unique about your people practices?

Vikram Shah: I think we focus on creating a culture of freedom, candor and responsibilities. We have a very strong orientation program, where I myself have a dedicated session which I cannot delegate to anybody in my team. Another practice we have incorporated in the orientation program is to ask for feedback from new joiners about every single step of their joining process to find areas of improvement.

Your Employee Assistance Program focuses on solving stress related areas of employees, how did this concept evolve? How effective is it?

Manjunath S.R.: When we say that we are different from the other companies in the Industry that means that we not only look at creating an environment within the workplace but also we look at supporting our employees in the complexities they face in today’s environment. The idea is to provide help and support, beyond work related, to the employee and his/her family on their personal challenges by creating a secured and anonymous mechanism to access professional Counsellors.
 

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Topics: Employee Engagement, Culture, #BestPractices

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