Essay about Infosys Case Study
Case Study Infosys Strategic Human Resource Management Kaplan University October 31st, 2011 In October 2006 Harvard Business Review article entitled, Infosys: Strategic Human Resource Management” discusses the rapidly expanding computer software giant and the challenges it faced in maintaining its high performance and employee satisfaction. In this article, the company’s strategy regarding strategic human resource management was evaluated. This case study was written based on the information gathered from this evaluation and is based on three parts.
The first part identifies the major issues preventing Infosys from achieving its goal to regain its top ten ranking for best performing company and best employer. The second part address the strategies the company chose to mitigate the issues identified. Finally, it will conclude with a summary of the analysis. Reasons Infosys Employee Satisfaction was on the Decline Infosys expansion rate exceeded the human resources available at the time. Despite this fact they continued to grow but had difficulty managing the expectations and communication of the new employees.
As the company grew so did so did its inability to squelch the increasing diversity and disparity of an increasing number of employees. Strategic Management Jeffrey Mello presents Strategic Management in five distinct steps. (1) Mission Statement (2) Analysis of Environment (3) Organization Self-Assessment (4) Establishing Goals and Objectives (5) Setting Strategy (Mello, 2010). Infosys was challenged in following the steps in the strategic management process regarding its relationship with employees due to its rapid expansion.
Once the process of strategic management steps are understood and followed sequentially the organization can align itself with the stakeholder’s objectives. If any of the steps are not followed or the employees do not buy into the goals or the communication is not successfully accepted, aligning the strategy with the stakeholder’s objectives may not develop effectively. Infosys has gone through some significant growth since its humble beginnings in 1981. With the company’s mission and core values et in place early in the start-up of the organization, they successfully earned the Business Today Best Employer Survey two years in a row. However, they faced challenges managing the human resource aspect of their organization the following year when they lost the coveted top employer survey. Despite the rave reviews by employees during the earlier years of the organization, the hierarchy of employees had become despairingly discontent. In the early days the company offered stock options which made the employees very wealthy. This provided a sought relationship between candidates and employees alike.
Expecting the same treatment as their predecessors, the newer employees we not offered the same strike price benefit due to a government agency. One of the issues was that both middle and senior managers were not in touch with their rapidly growing subordinates. The managers did not correlate the discontent with their employees doing less interesting work as well as not being richly rewarded as in years past. Another issue employees at Infosys disliked was the company becoming process oriented; this led to employees performing repeatable projects.
Employees began to realize they were not being stimulated technically as they had been in the initial years. Many employees felt as though the organization was becoming too impersonal. Additionally, they also felt that Infosys was taking some of their bonuses away with the lack of equitable stock options that had become expected. How Infosys Tried to Link the People In an effort to revitalize the organization’s morale, Infosys strategized in multiple ways in which to gain buy-in to its goals and objectives.
At its inception, Infosys had an employee oriented vision; they created a company that was not like any other Indian corporation. They felt the other Indian organizations were either too personal or too impersonal. Infosys set out to build an organization that was fair to all its stakeholders, shareholders, employees and customers alike. The company insured it was offering its employees’ salaries in the top 10%-15% in their competitive peer group and began offering stock options that vested in five years; this was a first in their peer group.
The company exhibited extraordinary employee loyalty as part of its mantra. They always kept an open door policy regarding employee grievance resolution. They provided emergency assistance to families of employees, if needed, and created their own healthcare platform to ensure employees remained physically and emotionally healthy. Infosys went as far as creating extracurricular activities and hobby groups for their employees to foster a life-work balance.
In conclusion, effectively linking the employees to the strategic management process by communicating and managing their expectations, the company can move forward to achieve its goals. Missing part of Mello’s five step process previously mentioned will effectively mismatch the organization’s needs with that of the employees. References Delqong, T. (2006, October 16). Infosys (a): Strategic human resource management. Harvard Business Review, 9(406), 1-11. Mello, E. A. (2010). Strategic human resource management. South-Western Pub.