Innholdsfortegnelse for 4-Apr-21 i Business Today

Monday morning blues may belie the concept of love for work and workplaces, but happiness at workplace is far from a myth. Especially at hundreds of organisations that care for their employees and deliver some of the coolest workplaces, in India and abroad. That’s why your favourite HR survey ‘Best Companies To For Work’ has been re-imagined and revamped as ‘India’s Coolest Workplaces’. Yet, it remains true to its character — an open, non-aligned survey that captures the perceptions and aspirations of India’s workforce. 2020 saw unbelievable changes in human resources as work transcended the boundaries of ‘workplaces’ and ‘work timings’. As employees adjusted to a boundary-less, virtual, and accessible from anywhere work-life, what kept them glued to their organisations is the care, empathy, flexibility and ‘coolness’ of employer. Such…

↘ Assets under management (AUMs) of the mutual fund industry fell 1.7 per cent month-on-month (M-o-M) to ₹30.5 lakh crore in January 2021. YoY growth was 9.5 per cent, an addition of ₹2.7 lakh crore ↘ Net outflows stood at ₹35,587 crore compared with a net inflow of ₹1.2 lakh crore in January 2020 ↘ Equity schemes saw net outflows of ₹9,253 crore. This was the seventh consecutive month of profit-booking in the segment ↘ Liquid funds saw an outflow of ₹45,316 crore in January 2021 12% India's MF assets as per cent of GDP, as against the global average of 63 per cent AUM OF INDIAN MF INDUSTRY (₹lakh crore) Source: CMIE…

After two Vipassana courses last year, Aneesh Reddy, Co-founder and CEO of Singapore-based software-as-a-service (Saas) customer engagement firm Capillary Technologies, realised meditation’s powerful impact on him. The practice de-cluttered his mind and improved his ability to focus on the present and think clearly. “I am probably at my best in terms of inner peace and mental health,” says Reddy. With stress and loneliness becoming an integral part of the Covid-19 world, Reddy wanted to promote the meditation technique within the organisation. As an experiment, in December 2020, Capillary announced an 11-day Vipassana leave. Anyone who intends to participate in a Vipassana course can avail an 11-day leave — over and above the mandated annual leave. “Annual leave get over during the yearly vacation. Anyone hardly takes off for themselves,” says…

Pranav Prashar, a former short service commissioned officer, had several brush-with-death experiences at the country’s borders during his 10 years with the Army. Faced with unexpected challenges, he had to often take split-second decisions, with no room for complacency. On completion of his stint in the armed forces last year, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Prashar was hired by Amazon. As a soldier, he took innumerable risks to protect the country. In his new avatar as Operations Manager, Buyers Risk Prevention, he is in charge of protecting his consumers from fraud. Prashar says the agility of the organisation and its ability to quickly embrace change and respond to challenges are similar to the training he got in armed forces. He is among the 100-odd army personnel that the…

Reimbursement for setting up home-office, internet and electricity was common during the early days of the pandemic. Accenture India went a step further by providing office chairs at minimal cost and financial support, even accommodation, to a large number of employees asked to vacate their paying-guest accommodation. “When the lockdown came into force, I moved from my paying guest accommodation in Bangalore to my hometown. My team gave me prompt access to a system, an internet connection and collaboration tools. This was my first remote working experience. I received training to improve my WFH experience and manage hiccups,” says J.M. Hamsashree, Procurement Operations Advisory Analyst, Accenture Operations. The Covid-10 turbulence caught everybody off-guard. Some of the biggest organisations found it tough to shift to remote working. Accenture was an exception.…

When Rishad Premji took over as the Chairman of Wipro in mid-2019, the company’s performance was hovering around low single digits. One of the first things Rishad did was to speak to leaders about what was being done wrong and why the company was lagging its peers. What emerged out of those meetings was that the problem was more internal than external, and there was a need to bring together different parts of the company to drive a ‘One Wipro’ in front of clients. It was then that the IT services major came up with five new habits — Being Respectful, Being Responsive, Always Communicating, Demonstrating Stewardship and Building Trust — that would be imbibed into the organisational culture. To translate these values into action, the company appointed Sunita Rebecca…

Companies in India’s Coolest Workplaces Survey are rated on four parameters — People Growth Initiative; Going Beyond Business; Wellbeing Initiative and Engagement & Connect. People Growth Initiative covers clarity of goals (at individual and company level); Fair and objective processes and policies; growth and learning opportunities. Going Beyond Business covers innovation, inclusion, resilience and job security and stability. The Wellbeing Initiative covers workload and flexibility at work; physical, mental and emotional wellbeing; hygiene and safety at work and access to facilities. The Engagement & Connect vertical focuses on ease of operating in the workplace; collaboration tools and structures and rituals. The company with rating 1 has higher weight compared to rating 2, and so on. The gap between rating 1 and 2 is considered more significant than between 2 and…

Best Life Insurance Provider of the Year — LIFE INSURANCE CORPORATION M.R. Kumar, Chairman, LIC The life insurance behemoth held on to its pole position again. Its new business market share rose 3.86 per cent to 68.76 per cent in FY20 as it prepares itself for an IPO. M.R. Kumar, Chairman, LIC, focused on three key areas during the Covid crisis. “We focused on claims settlement, especially related to Covid, and generating more digital payments for smooth cash flow,” says Kumar. For insurance agents, LIC created an application called Ananda, an end-to-end platform for selling insurance policies. Though overall premium collections from protection and guaranteed plans dipped 5.65 per cent and 18.86 per cent, respectively, as on February 2021, the premium in the ULIP category saw 1,592.41 per cent growth.…

Krishna Prasad Chigurupati, Chairman and MD of Hyderabad-based pharmaceutical company Granules India, has a distinction not many top executives of Indian firms, or even global firms for that matter, can lay claim to. He holds two Guinness world records in marathon. The 67-year-old, along with his wife Uma Chigurupati, holds the record of being the only couple to have participated in marathons in both North Pole and South Pole, in the same year. Five years later, in 2015, the couple created the record of becoming the only pair to have participated in seven half marathons, in seven continents, in seven days. “Flying from one continent to another, starting from Antarctica, all in seven days… if you miss a flight, everything would have gone. Logistics was also very crucial. We were…

Q. What were the challenges you were grappling with? Having spent close to four years here, the one area that challenged me, and motivated me at the same time, was to bring about a change in the organisation culture. This meant investing towards technology, building efficiencies, but most critically getting the team to work as one. The one-mind and one-team attributes helped us overcome initial challenges during the pandemic. Q. Who did you approach and why? A. It’s always been my wife, Simran. She has, and continues to be my friend and sounding board, especially when it comes to my professional life. Her points of view have either helped me see the issue with a different lens, or find a solution to a particular problem. Q. What was the best…

Human resources (HR) professional Shachi Singhal joined automobile major Maruti Suzuki close to a decade ago. Work life was a nine-to-five routine, until the outbreak of Covid-19 last year, when it became mandatory to work from home (WFH). Her routine suddenly shifted from meetings and presentations at the company’s headquarters in Gurgaon to virtual meetings from the living room. The frequent coffee chats with colleagues shifted to Zoom or WebEx. A year later, as the world is learning to live with Covid, Singhal is back in office, but only thrice a week. Her company, she says, is looking at institutionalising working from anywhere. “A year ago, I would have never imagined not going to office every day, but WFH has been effective and has, in fact, improved productivity,” she says.…

American technology major Google is perhaps one of the most well-known companies globally. Its growth over the last few years in India has been such that its appetite for talent is substantial. Even then, the queue for those aspiring to get in, is longer than ever and that is down not only to just the country’s unemployment problem. Its quirky and uber-cool offices are one of the primary attractions of working in Google. Tech companies typically pamper their wards with an array of gadgets and gizmos but nobody does it quite like Google. From numerous break-out zones with provision for indoor sports like table tennis to chess, carrom and card games to the popular foosball where employees can unwind, to a delectable spread of food spanning various cuisines to cater…

When an employee of India’s second-largest private sector bank, ICICI Bank, goes to a retail or a corporate customer for sourcing business, he offers the entire range of products and services from savings account to mortgage to credit cards. When a customer reaches out to any employee (including HR or legal team) at any branch or the corporate centre, he gets to experience the full bank. This is part of a huge business transformation under way at ICICI Bank for aligning nearly 1,00,000 employees with the new strategy of organising itself around the customer ecosystem. The new HR strategy has been woven around ‘One ICICI, One KPI and One ROE.’ The seeds of this new strategy were sown two-and-a-half years back when Sandeep Bakhshi took over as MD & CEO.…

Covid-19 hit when India’s second-largest bank, HDFC Bank, was preparing for transition. Aditya Puri, the founding chief was getting set to hang up his boots in October 2020, while in parallel grooming Sashidhar Jagdishan to take charge. Addressing the management digitally, Puri said welfare of employees would be the first priority of the bank during the crisis phase. “Whether it’s Covid or no Covid, you fellows are working so hard and delivering results,” he said. HDFC Bank decided not to cut increments and bonus and offered promotions while many of its peers were desperately cutting costs and resizing remunerations. Puri wanted the bank’s 1.18-lakh employees to stay focused on the theme of customer centricity and building the portfolio. The bank had been consolidating and expanding its business in rural and…

Abbott India, which sells popular brands such as nutrition product PediaSure and antacid Digene, employs about 12,500 people in its four companies in India. This is the highest outside the US and shows the kind of talent the company has been able to on-board in the country. “I am privileged to be leading a high performing team, committed to strengthening the legacy of Abbott and enhancing our promise to help millions of people live a healthier, happier and more fulfilling life,” says Ambati Venu, Vice President, Pharmaceuticals, Abbott India. Abbott, which earns over $1.5 billion revenue in India and views the country as one of its fastest growing longterm markets, has been following an India-specific talent strategy since 2014. One of its recent additions has been a smart chatbot, SMART…

Business Today has conducted 18 editions of the ‘Best Companies To Work For’ survey in collaboration with HR solutions company PeopleStrong. In the 19th edition, as more millennials join the workforce, we have reimagined and revamped it as ‘India’s Coolest Workplaces’ — and joined hands with Taggd, a PeopleStrong Recruitment Solutions brand that manages permanent talent recruitment for over half a million jobs. Over the past year, the world of work has changed dramatically. As people get used to emerging workplaces, which are boundary-less, virtual, and accessible from any place, what keeps people glued to the employer or employers (in case of gig workforce), is different. People need better and exciting opportunities, but linear growth is no longer expected, nor is it feasible in flatter systems. An employer or its…

Best Mutual Funds/Fund Managers The mutual fund industry has weathered the Covid storm well. Net assets under management (AUM), which had fallen from ₹27.85 lakh crore in January 2020 to ₹22.26 lakh crore in March 2020, recovered to ₹30.50 lakh crore in January 2021 as the economy and markets bounced back from lows. Here are the best funds and fund managers identified by the jury for the Business Today-Money Today Financial Services Awards.…

Best Pension Fund House—HDFC PENSION MANAGEMENT Sumit Shukla, CEO, HDFC Pension Management As National Pension System (NPS) gains traction, the focus is shifting to the seven pension fund managers and how they are managing subscribers’ money. In a year when the overall AUM of NPS crossed ₹5 lakh crore, the award for the Best Pension House goes to HDFC Pension Management based on our in-house research. The fund house has delivered 16.92 per cent returns in equity, 14.48 per cent in corporate and 13.82 per cent in the G-sec category over the last one year. Its AUM grew 48.33 per cent to ₹8,438.93 crore as on December 2020 compared to ₹5687.33 crore in December 2019. “We have already crossed ₹15,000 crore AUM and are hoping to close FY21 at ₹16,000…

Rajen Vagadia, Vice president and President, Qualcomm, India & Saarc, has been an avid traveller. “When my children were growing up, I used to travel 21 days a month. Now, I travel with family,” says Vagadia. They go for two vacations a year. He is a nationalist as far as travel is concerned, but during the Covid outbreak he went on a trip to the US with his family. The family spent much of their time at the Yellowstone National Park. “You must go there to see the hot springs. It’s unbelievable. The colours are so wonderful,” says Vagadia. The advantage of having a volcano close by is the reason behind the thermal geysers. Vagadia managed to mix his passion for driving along with holidaying. In the five days at…

Last November, e-commerce giant Flipkart launched ‘FlipMarch’, an initiative to recruit ex-Army personnel across its workforce. Long before, around three years ago, Infosys had announced partnerships with Trinity College and Rhode Island School of Design to create new educational programmes to prepare liberal arts students for digital workplaces. Much of PhonePe’s 1600-plus offline sales team currently consists of talent from Tier-II and III towns, hired because they knew that market well. ‘Abilities Unleashed’, Accenture’s initiative driven accessibility council, on the other hand, helps people within the organisation with disabilities to build leadership skills. Amazon’s ATLAS, helps employees move to tech roles through learning programmes and internships in tech teams. These instances not just reflect the changing face of the workforce, but also how conversations around diversity and inclusion are taking…

Former US President John F. Kennedy once said that the word crisis when written in Mandarin has two characters — one represents danger and the other opportunity. Covid-19 was more than a danger for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Its resources, assets and business, its 4.5-lakh workforce, were spread across 46 countries. The IT services giant moved quickly to bring the functioning back on track. The company first framed the Secure Borderless Work Space (SBWS) infrastructure to facilitate remote working, where all employees migrated to the digital work structure. Secondly, it announced it would not lay off employees and honour all job offers, including the 40,000 given to new graduates. According to Chief Human Resources Officer Milind Lakkad, TCS is gearing up for growth, with a focus on employee engagement and…

The challenge of an employee with ageing parents versus one with young children or another who lives alone can be very different, especially in an unprecedented year like 2020. A series of initiatives by Microsoft India over the past year made it much easier for employees to address such challenges. Microsoft’s efforts were primarily centred on two things — frequent communication and wellbeing. Communication was essential because there’s a dynamic shift in the way employees are working today. “Frequent communication was and continues to be a critical part of keeping our teams together in a remote-working environment, ensuring everyone feels connected, heard and empowered to share experiences. We created platforms and surveys for employees to share feedback and voice their thoughts,” says Ira Gupta, Head of Human Resources, Microsoft India.…

While doing his B.Tech in computer science from an institute in Hyderabad, Sriram Raju created online games, which he played with friends. After completing studies, he landed a job with a local IT firm. Less than two years later, he is preparing to join Axis Bank, India’s third-largest private sector lender, where he will create IT products for mobile and develop web applications to make banking easier and safer for lakhs of customers. Raju is currently enrolled in an 18-week online programme at Manipal Global Education Services’ School of FinTech. The batch is being trained exclusively for Axis, which is betting big on technology to ride the next wave of growth in the post-pandemic world. “Covid has accelerated changes and we are seeing rapid digitisation everywhere. Any change these days…

SCORES HIGHLY ON Clarity of goals both at company and individual level Culture of innovation Access to wellness facilities or other benefits virtually 11 CISCO INDIA OVERALL RANK FRESH FROM COLLEGE Through Cisco Resonance, the IT and networking giant connected with college grads across the country looking to step into corporate life Why does an employee choose a particular organisation over others? Besides salary and designation, employees typically look for a workplace where they can work with super-smart people, feel trusted and respected, and where they can pursue passions outside of their day jobs. “At Cisco, they can check boxes along all of this,” says Anupam Trehan, Director, People & Communities, Cisco India & SAARC. Like its peers, the company had to shift its workforce from offices to homes just…

If there is one word which has got a well-defined space in our vocabulary, “Cool” would be it. As I started writing this column, I tried to list the different expressions which this four-lettered word encompasses for me. And would you believe me, the list is already 50 plus (and counting)? Well, while the ubiquitousness of this slang wasn’t the reason the new avatar of this two-decade-old Business Today – Taggd survey was christened ‘India's Coolest Workplaces,’ it does explain the myriad of factors that come to a young employee’s mind before he or she rates a company as the Coolest in the country. And that is precisely what we have tried to cover in this edition, which for years has tried to understand the psyche, perceptions and aspirations of…

Best Asset Management House (Overall) — HDFC MUTUAL FUND Prashant Jain, Executive Director & Chief Investment Officer, HDFC AMC. Four-Five-Star Funds: HDFC Growth Opportunities Fund, HDFC Small Cap Fund, HDFC Credit Risk Debt Fund, HDFC Medium Term Debt Fund, HDFC Short Term Debt Fund, HDFC Corporate Bond Fund HDFC Growth Opportunities Fund, a large & mid cap fund, returned 11 per cent in one year and 9 per cent in five year period ended December 31, 2020. HDFC Small Cap Fund delivered over 20 per cent in 2020 and 11 per cent in five year period ended December 31, 2020. The key was the AMC’s strategy to avoid excessively valued businesses. “While we have followed this approach for a long time, in recent times, highly polarised markets impacted performance of some…