I was reading a report in today’s TOI on Infy’s iRace (iRace — Infosys Role and Career Enhancement) policy causing a lot of resentment within the company. iRace has been designed by Mercer Consulting and was intended to assign each level within the corporate ladder with the relevant skills and experience. In Indian IT companies it is all too common to become a Team leader/manager in a matter of 2-3 years unlike in the west where it takes a longer time. This fast track movement has resulted in techies who do not have sufficient depth of technical knowledge and who are not yet ready to take on managerial skills.
In a bid to address this issue, Infy launched iRace and apparently some managers were demoted as they did not fit the newly defined criteria. I’m not going into whether Infy was right in demoting people or not but am fully behind the idea of spending sufficient time at each level and defining criteria to move to the next level. Else we will be left with employees who are not fully equipped to handle the role they are in – of course, there will always be exceptions and a few fast-trackers. Let’s keep the fast trackers as exceptions and not bow to expectations of promotions year after year.
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Interesting to read this.
If competencies are defined for each role, and a minimum time stipulated for each role, there should technically be no debate about promotions (or no promotions). Metrics for the competencies will also help avoid ambiguity.
But I cannot but help feel that the Infosys demotions sound unfair – I wonder how competency redefinitions should be handled otherwise? Perhaps give people a window period – say 1 year – in which they should measure up to the newly defined competency for that role – if they don’t measure up, then they are demoted?
In my previous company, I had the experience of coming across managers who didn’t have good communication skills and managerial skills. The only reason they made it to the next level was because they had consistently performed exceptionally in their previous role. But if they didn’t have the skills required to perform better at the next level, then should they have been promoted to that level?
We need a system where people can constantly develop their skills so that they are well equipped to handle higher responsibilities at an appropriate time. But in corporate environments where time is at a premium, how many people can actually follow this through?
I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dogs Saw and there is a chapter on the Enron disaster. At Enron, talent was worshiped and people hired from the best of the schools. People were given a free rein just because he/she was bright. For example, employees were promoted irrespective of whether they were successful or not in their earlier role if they were bright. Gladwell quotes an example of one person who was a fast tracker although his two initiatives lost money for the company. The point is talent in combination with performance is a powerful combination and is of no use by itself. An interesting aside – Enron’s talent management policy was recommended by McKinsey.
What Infosys did is a bold act. The recession last year would have allowed them enough time for a rethink on HR practices
Talent management can be a differentiator in attracting and retaining key talent. Its common to find global companies to have worldwide programmes that spot talent and potential and nurture them early on. Most often, those spotted would be high performers. Such Managers on fast track growth, also called High Potentials, are put on more challenging jobs and given lot more training and exposure to ready them to take on larger roles earlier in their career. So, there is a systematic way of preparing them for the future and less of randomness. The HR teams will have structured way of identifying such talent and justify their movement up. Of course, there will be a few instances when rational is overridden by emotions, but thats not always the case.
In some companies, there are processes that need to be adhered to when promoting somebody into specific management levels – i.e. transition criteria are specified. These ensure that the person has not only performed but also has the potential to take new responsibilities.
On the other side, there are instances of talent at the senior level even in large global companies being quite ordinary – this happens when the promotion processes are inadequate and also applied by rote. This can lead to potential leadership crisis and impact on the growth of the company itself.
The good part is, several companies these days are talking about rationalising the key talent management function. On the flip side, one wonders how effective these systems really are. Are the individual processes well thought of and adequate? Are they future proofed, because not all companies esp in India have the exposure to managing large employee population.
Talent management is a highly sensitive function. In the case of Infosys, they have grown so much that managing employee expectations and aspirations may have become a major challenge. In the new structure, there is reduced room for emotional approach and more of logic. Its unfortunate that a few were impacted but it may be precisely to discourage such type of employee movement that the system was evolved. Henceforth employees will have clarity on their career path and can prepare themselves accordingly
Sukanya has pointed out that “A Few” were impacted by the iRace programme. An Infosys spokesperson has put the number of employees affected at 5% of the workforce. Considering the fact that Infosys employs more than a lakh people, the 5% would translate to 5000 disgruntled senior managers/project managers/ team leads, etc, etc.
One of the major employee grouse is that this has been implemented with retrospective effect.Imagine yourself going to office tomorrow and being told by your boss that you are being demoted with immediate effect.
And yes, nobody in the senior delivery manager and higher positions were affected. Food for thought, that.
One learning from all this is that large organizations behave in a certain way – when times get tough they do not shy away from layoffs and other such belt tightening practices which will have an adverse impact on some employees. The reason is that in good times, such companies hire liberally and often selection criteria are compromised. When times get tough, and the flab has to be cut, the under performers get impacted. In smaller organizations however every employee counts, and hence such practices will not surface.
In India, we are used to a very benevolent work environment. However, as businesses become more and more global, such “rational” practices will become more common place. Creating a high performance work culture is not easy, and moves such as the above will be mired in controversy. But, I don’t see the trend stopping.
Came across this quote which is apt for this topic -
“In business, words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.” — Harold Geneen, industrialist
Excellent! Thanks a lot for going beyond the typical marketing advice. This feels immediately useful.