Climbing up the ladder with AgreeYa
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The second edition of the Exciting Emerging Companies to Work for Survey had a new name in the Top 5 – Noida-based AgreeYa Solutions which came in at No 3, a steep climb up from the No 15 position clocked in the first edition of the survey. In this edition of HR Factor, we meet with AgreeYa’s Managing Partner Ajay Kaul to know more about this company’s people formula.
“We barely made it then”, says AgreeYa Managing Partner, Ajay Kaul. On being asked what propelled the rise in rankings – Had they done something very different during the past year ? – Kaul plays it down. “Not a lot has changed. But I think the organization has matured (AgreeYa just turned 10) and HR (dept) has done a lot for employees,” he says.
AgreeYa Solutions, Inc. is a US based company with their headquarters in Folsom, California with India operations organized under AgreeYa Solutions (India), Pvt. Ltd. India in fact accounts for less than half of the company’s global employee pool – 250 of the total 600. The company operates in the IT Solutions and software product engineering space in verticals such as Energy & Utilities, Healthcare, Government, and Telecom.
According to Kaul, a lot of long term HR plays have come to bear fruit and a big part of this is the time that AgreeYa devotes to parameters such as resource engagement. “Employees are not just shepherded into training or put onto the bench – they are utilized in projects of value to the organization.” What also helps, he points out, is that the work at AgreeYa is both challenging and diverse: “While you will find a lot of people in other companies doing rudimentary work related to maintenance, here people work on software engineering assignments, developing new products and solutions for our clients. This also means that people don’t feel stuck working on legacy technologies, instead they are getting opportunities to work on the cutting edge of technology.”
“What keeps the excitement factor high at AgreeYa is also the collaboration and “cross-pollination” between India and other global locations. People are encouraged to collaborate, travel in both directions,” says Kaul.
Is there any one programme or policy which is the cornerstone of AgreeYa’s HR strategy? Kaul didn’t think so, saying that there were several policies and practices that helped build excellent employee relations, but from the conversation it is clear that the one metric that matters very seriously to AgreeYa’s management is employee engagement levels. The company uses a survey tool, and in fact took guidance from an external consulting organisation to build the engagement measurement framework, to carry out an annual employee engagement level test. Not surprisingly, the engagement score has shot up from 70% in 2007 to 96% in 2008.
“The company works hard on the survey data,” says Kaul, “with low factors being analyzed and action plans created. The focus is on closing the loop each time.” Has this brought down attrition? “The attrition level has come down to single digit levels, though it has traditionally been quite low for us, perhaps due to our smaller size. There has also been some voluntary attrition due to performance issues,” says Kaul. Has the slowdown impacted or changed their HR policy since there is no longer the kind of recruitment pressure that was being seen over the past few years? “Well, we will certainly make sure that we are more effective especially when it comes to resource utilization,” says Kaul, “but the company expects to grow aggressively through 2009 as well. And for this, the company has its diversified geography and industry strategy to thank as this outlook has mitigated growth risk to some extent in current times,” he says.
In summary, it would appear that AgreeYa’s success doesn’t come from any big bang effect of one single policy or strategy, it is really, as Kaul puts it, “about doing the many small things well.” The company believes that each step – however small – has to be taken well. “Sometimes it is the small things that matter to people”, says Kaul, “and we never want to overlook that.”
Employee Speak
Komal Saxena, is a Project Manager at AgreeYa and has completed four years with the company. Her take on what makes AgreeYa, the third company she has worked for, tick.
Question: How does AgreeYa compare to the other companies that you have worked for?
Komal: Well, AgreeYa has been great from the work content aspect. I get to work on the latest tools and technologies. AgreeYa has also shown a lot of trust in me by giving me responsibility. And compared to previous companies, there is a lot of transparency here and I am never left speculating on what is going to happen. Good, or bad, the management has always been up front with us.
Question: What is it about AgreeYa that makes you want to come to work every day?
Komal: It’s the empowerment and the responsibility. Every day is a new challenge and that makes it exciting.
Question: What are the values you associate with AgreeYa?
Komal: Commitment and Transparency
Question: Any stand-out HR policy that you think really makes a difference?
Komal: There are several. For instance all the policies around recruitment, including the Buddy Program and induction, are very effective. At an operational level, leave and payroll processing is excellent – in the four years I have been here there has never been a slip – and these things are really important. AgreeYa’s performance evaluation is also very fair and objective.
Question: Do you feel that your voice is heard at AgreeYa?
Komal: AgreeYa has an annual employee engagement survey where our viewpoints are noted. The data is also analysed by senior management and people get back to us on remedial action. So, yes, I think my voice is definitely heard.
Contributed by Anita Mani, Prayag Consulting for the NASSCOM EMERGE Newsletter.
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