From the MD's Desk.........................................2

HR Best Practices ............................................3

Global Insights: Innovative HR...........................4

Quality of Life ...................................................5

Work Matters ...................................................6

The Executive Life ............................................7

Success Story ...................................................8CO

NTE

NTS

Issue 4 | May 2015

Engagement

Innovation

Insigh

ts

Strategy

Dear Reader,

Greetings!

A new financial year has brought with it excitement as also an opportunity to introspect on people practices in the year gone by. I strongly believe that Sodexo 'Engage', our humble initiative for the HR community, is a step in the right direction towards unleashing insights on people practices and views of HR experts on emerging trends. It gives me great pleasure to share with you the fourth edition of 'Engage'. We look forward to your continued support and patronage.

We thank all of you who have come forward to contribute to the newsletter. It is through our collective effort that we will be able to make the newsletter an interesting platform for sharing our experiences and learning.

This fourth Issue of Sodexo Engage covers the following sections:

HR Best Practices features an interaction with Dr. Madana Kumar, Head - Global Learning & Development, UST Global on the HR practices in the company

Global Insights - Innovative HR features innovative people practices at management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group

Quality of Life discusses the art and science of keeping employees engaged

Work Matters brings you face to face with Mr. Arun Leslie George, EVP & Head - HR, Coromandel International Ltd

The Executive Life gives the readers a peek into the life and career journey of Mr. Prithvi Shergill, Chief Human Resources Officer, HCL Technologies Ltd

Success Story presents a case study which discusses the story of how one of our banking clients benefitted from the specialised solutions offered by Sodexo India.

I hope that you find this newsletter insightful and informative. I would also urge you to contribute in the coming issues of this newsletter to make it a truly participative effort and a shared platform for the business community.

Best Regards,

Rajiv WarrierMD - Benefits & Rewards Services,Sodexo SVC India Pvt. Ltd.

FROM THE MD’S DESK

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Please list some of the recent HR related awards won by UST Global.¨ Learning Elite Awards 2015, by Chief Learning Officer Magazine

published by Human Capital Media, USA¨ Skillsoft Innovation Awards (Talent Development Champion of the

Year) 2015, awarded by Skillsoft Corporation, USA¨ TISS CLO Leap Vault Awards under 4 categories - CLO of the year

2014, Global CLO of the year 2014, Best L & D Team of the year 2014, Best Blended program of the year 2014, awarded at the CLO symposium held by Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Leap Vault

¨ Listed in The WorldBlu List of Most Democratic Workplaces™ 2014

¨ Stevie Awards, presented by American Business Awards for the year 2014

¨ Skillsoft Innovation Awards (Program of the Year) 2014, by Skillsoft Corporation, USA

Please tell us about your talent management practices.

Our TRUST ALPHA program engages the students in a blended learning program that gets them industry ready by the time they join us. We have significantly reduced the post-joining training for the candidates, thereby making them available for billable opportunities much faster. Our Step It Up America program is a unique program to engage inner city minority women in the US on technology training, and employ them on client projects, thereby reducing our dependence on offshore resources for onsite work. This program made such a social impact in the USA that Vice President Joe Biden himself visited our Step It Up classrooms and complimented us on our work.

COLORS INITIATIVE: This volunteer employee program engages UST Global associates across the globe. Colors encourages team building and collaboration, and provides an opportunity for employees to develop their personalities and leadership skills by pursuing aspirations outside their functional requirements.

Please tell us about your key initiatives towards learning & development.

Our Learning strategy is focused on creating impact at two levels - Business and Social, through transforming lives of our employees through engagement and development. So every program that we run is designed to meet these strategic intents.

Through our Leader Enablement Continuum, we ensure that development of leaders is continuous at all levels. Premier programs form part of this continuum, a sample of which can be found in our Leader Enablement Continuum. There are similar programs in Technology areas, Domain area, Induction, Global Assignments, Diversity etc. Let me cite few examples from the Leader Enablement Continuum.

iLEAD: It is aimed at changing mindsets at the top and thereby drive growth, profitabil ity and employee engagement throughout the organisation.

BEACON: It is a sales transformation initiative. Today's dynamic business environment has necessitated the need to provide more client value, align politically, and establish differentiation to become a recognized thought leader in our target markets. BEACON equips the account managers with the right selling skills.

Project Management Program: The PM Academy program aims to improve competency levels of the Project Managers through a combination of e-learning and practical simulations in a workshop environment. The formal learning is complemented through a vibrant PM community within UST. The community activities include sharing case study, best practices and knowledge between community members, etc.

What are the major challenges that the company faces given its diverse workforce?

In a global organization like UST, different geographies mean different work policies. We partner with local vendors and with government if possible, to overcome the challenge. We ensure right talent at the right places for managing diversity. The next challenge is to align this diverse workforce on a common platform known as UST. This we overcome through our effective induction mechanism where employees are aligned to the organisation's culture, processes and mechanisms. There are two programs namely ALPHA (for Freshers) and CLIP (lateral Induction) which induct employees into UST. We also prepare our employees to be global citizens through our Finishing School Program which prepares them for a life in a different culture.

HR BEST PRACTICES

Dr. Madana Kumar, Head, Global Learning & DevelopmentUST Global

Leading workplace on a sustained basis

Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm founded in Boston in 1963, with presence in 45 countries with 81 offices, has been recognized amongst the leading workplaces for consecutive years by a number of reputed and leading international organizations. It rose to No. 2 on Fortune's “100 Best Companies to Work For” list in 2015. This fact is also echoed in BCG's internal survey, which points out that 96% of its staff are proud to be part of BCG. The significant compensation, perks and benefits, and the satisfaction of having made an impact makes BCG an excellent workplace. What makes BCG a different and unique workplace is the firm's relatively low level of hierarchy, high morale, strong team spirit, and high level of aspiration, amongst others.

Up or Out Policy for career development

BCG is focused on career development for its employees and has a robust feedback culture, which is supported by a semi-annual comprehensive performance review. It also has career development advisor assigned to individual employee. It has the “Up or Out Policy”- having identified the strengths and issues faced by the employees for a sustained time (around two years), BCG provides appropriate supportive measures to address the issues/problem areas of the employees and in the event the employee wants to exit, BCG provides assistance through its online jobs database and through its alumni community.

GLOBAL INSIGHTS:INNOVATIVE HR Boston Consulting GroupBuild, Connect, Grow

¨ Social Impact leave of absence – Employees can opt to take a leave of absence to work at a social-sector organization of their choice for up to 12 months

¨ Secondment allows select employees to gain experience outside BCG by working for up to a year at one of BCG's private-sector clients, or for one of its global social-impact partners

¨ Global Women's Initiative- mentorship & networking opportunities with successful women at BCG through regional Women's Initiative Conferences and Working Mother Forum

¨ Learning & development programs - upto 4.5 weeks of training & development per year

¨ LGBT- friendly benefits and policies

¨ BCG pays 100% of employees healthcare premiums

¨ Flexible work options with ability to alter pace & focus area as per individual preferences.

Red Zone Report: A pulse check for employee engagement

Work life balance is an important motivator, and realizing that too many long hours could lead to burnout and sub-optimal results, BCG introduced the Red Zone Report. BCG keeps a tab on the employees' workload by logging the total hours put in by an employee in a week. In the event of an employee logging in more than 60 hours a week for five straight weeks, a red zone report is issued to his/her manager and appropriate steps are taken to lighten the employee's workload.

PTO - Building a more enriching, rewarding & sustainable career

BCG's PTO - Predictability, Teaming and Open Communication program, a sustainable work-life balance initiative, is designed to increase work predictability and career sustainability. Under this program, before commencing work on every project, a detailed roadmap is established for the execution of the project, which includes working norms and priorities. The roadmap is prepared after an open discussion amongst all team members with respect to different norms and it also includes scheduled and agreed upon time-off on a weekly basis for each of the team members. Following the adoption of PTO, there has been an average 35% increase in team work and collaboration, a 35% increase in value delivered to clients and a 100% increase in team effectiveness.

BCG believes in fostering a non-hierarchical and team-oriented culture, and the ability to connect and grow with others. To quote Rich Lesser, President and CEO of BCG from an interview to Consulting Magazine “We strive to be the very best place for people to develop the mindsets, skills and capabilities to be leaders in the world.”

Building Impact Connecting Aspirations Growing Leaders

Unique benefits at BCG

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HR Philosophy @ BCG

New-age Mantra

Employee engagement has emerged as the latest mantra in HR circles, the mantra for increasing productivity and achieving organizational excellence. With the global economic and business environment changing towards better times, employee engagement is emerging as an important area of concern for HR decision makers and it definitely should. Actively disengaged employees cost the US billions of dollars in lost productivity each year. Just as business is a combination of both science and art, employee engagement is a fine balance between deploying the right set of scientific tools and the art of people management while keeping business objectives in mind.

Engaging employees is both a science and an art, as there is no one standard approach or single recipe for enhancing engagement, as each employee comes with a different set of skills, training, experience, stage in employment lifecycle and aspirations, and moreover, employee engagement does not mean the same thing to everyone in every company. This necessitates understanding of how individual employees react or are affected by different factors of engagement, and work and improvise on the same. Also, the company's business model, skill requirement, geographical location and company culture also have a great role to play.

Over the years, the workplace itself has undergone a drastic change with greater proliferation of technology, a multi-generational workforce and geographical diversity, amongst others. And with it, the motivators for employee engagement have also changed. While compensation and promotions do motivate employees, the impact

of the same does not last for long. Therefore the search for newer, innovative and effective scientific ways to engage employees and the art of implementing them to meet the expectations of the diverse workforce has become a continuous process for organisations today.

One needs to understand what the basic factors are that can improve employee engagement. They include:

p Open communication and transparency with employees

p Emphasize on work-life balance

p Equip employees with requisite skills & training to perform job responsibilities

p Enable employees to have a clear career path & growth

p Develop cordial relationships with senior leaders & team members - Have fun together, company outings, team-building efforts

p Initiate & implement appropriate rewards, recognition & well-being programs.

These are the basic ingredients and how the recipe is created varies from company to company. The techniques and methods which benefit one company need not benefit another one. Hence, the one-size-fits-all formula may not work with respect to employee engagement.

Emerging Trends in Employee Engagement

Gamification and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), workplace giving and volunteerism (corporate philanthropy) are some of the emerging trends in employee engagement at the workplace of today. BYOD, which encourages employees to use personal technology devices at work is found to increase productivity and hence employee engagement.

With the usage of smartphones and tablets at the workplace on the rise, gamification is emerging as the software component, which uses analytical tools to create an effective feedback and performance measurement mechanism which aids in enhancing engagement levels and is binding employees, organizational values and objectives. Workplace giving and volunteering for a good cause is also emerging as an effective employee engagement technique.

End Note

Employee engagement should be a continuous process of feedback, learning and evolution. It would be appropriate to say that employee engagement is not the process but the outcome of a relationship between an organization and its employees. As David Zinger, employee engagement speaker, coach and consultant says – “Employee engagement is the art and science of engaging people in authentic and recognized connections to strategy, roles, performance, organization, community, relationship, customers, development, energy, and well-being as we leverage, sustain, and transform our work connections into results.” 5

QUALITYOF LIFE The Art and Science of Keeping Employees Engaged

Fostering the leader's ability to create and implement appropriate plans that will keep the best talent on board and engaged

Employee Engagement

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Using tools to identify current levels of engagement

Understand the financial impact of disengagement

Science

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Please tell our readers about the organizational culture at Coromandel International Ltd.

Our values Integrity, Passion, Quality, Respect and Responsibility are shared across the Murugappa Group and largely determine our behaviour on a day to day basis and more importantly when we are on a crossroad.

Our operating principles of Knows, Cares and Fulfills place emphasis on acquiring superior knowledge and capabilities, a caring approach to our people, stakeholders & the environment and finally a no excuse mindset towards execution.

Coromandel has won several HR excellence awards. Please tell us about your innovative HR practices.

Our fundamental belief is that we must have high employee and organizational capability, highly engaged employees and a high level of aspiration in employees for individual and organizational goals.

For Talent Management, we have an innovative Simulator Training which accelerates the learning experience. It prepares employees for various conditions which normally would take an employee years to experience.

Another learning initiative is Stakeholder Curriculum where executives get a perspective from various stakeholders. Here, stakeholders such as customers, dealers, vendors, bankers, analysts, etc conduct sessions for executives so that they are able to see various issues by getting into the shoes of stakeholders so that they are able to make holistic decisions.

WORKMATTERS

What challenges does Coromandel face in attracting talent?

The talent crunch is high in our industry - lesser and lesser people are opting to work in rural areas. Similarly many engineers don't want to dirty their hands by working in manufacturing locations. Many have argued that we must recruit lower quality employees who would stay on longer. Going against the grain of reason we have insisted on recruiting high quality people whether it is through campus recruitment or lateral hiring.

The best people seldom look for compensation alone, they want much more and this is where we position ourselves. We target high quality candidates and tell them the Coromandel story – we give the true picture by telling them the challenges and difficulties they are likely to face. We also tell them the growth story of Coromandel – past and future and what they are likely to experience.

What are Coromandel's key initiatives for the training and development of its employees?

We start with a comprehensive induction program. Freshly hired engineers go through a comprehensive classroom and on-the-job training for a year. We also train them using state-of-the-art simulators to enable them to be trained under different manufacturing conditions including emergencies. It would take years for an engineer to get such a comprehensive experience; but by using a simulator we compress this into a year. We call this fast forward learning.

What are your HR team's top three effective practices to boost employee motivation and engagement? Please tell us about your R&R programmes/practices.

We believe Employee Engagement is critical. At Coromandel we assess employee engagement through periodic surveys done once every two years through a reputed external agency. Our first Gallup survey was done over 15 years. The surveys are backed by action planning at the leadership and at the manager level which are reviewed periodically.

We have a wide Rewards & Recognition program. At the Annual Sales Conference, our field executives are recognized at a glittering function by senior leaders including the Chairman of the Group & Company. We have similar R&R functions for other functions/businesses. At our quality festival Quest, we recognise employees who contribute towards Business Excellence and Total Quality Management. We also have a Maximiser Award which recognizes people under the category of (a) Knows, (b) Cares and (c) Fulfills. For example under Cares, we recognise people who have done outstanding work for society.

For employees to remain motivated it is important that there is a transparent Performance Management System. To this end, we have a five level performance appraisal where inputs are taken from five sources for each executive. This ensures that no one person can make or break someone's career. The Performance Appraisal is supported by Policy Deployment which ensures people are given the right targets with the right resources and also Performance Counselling which ensures a free and open dialogue.

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Mr. Arun Leslie GeorgeEVP & Head - HRCoromandel International Ltd.

Mr. Prithvi ShergillChief Human Resources Officer, HCL Technologies Ltd

THEEXECUTIVELIFE

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Please take our readers through your professional journey.

Spanning through a multitude of contexts and years, my career taught me well in time that what one did for a livelihood had to mean more than just earning a fair wage - I found meaning and a sense of purpose in work where I could influence communities of people to enhance their individual and collective growth.

Whether it was enhancing insight in management reporting, building a training function, supporting organizational trivestiture and acquisitions, introducing new benefit and reward programs, introducing employee self-service and HR technology platforms, scaling and downsizing organizations, running a payroll outsourcing capability, setting up BPO and IT ou t sourc ing organ i za t ions a t pace , l ead ing institutionalization of processes using the People-Capability Maturity Model (P-CMM), establishing a global Human Capital Strategy across geographies and making it a go-to-market offering to be offered to external clients, refreshing organizational and functional management models, driving productivity and innovation, writing and shaping people practices to institutionalize beliefs, demonstration of desired behaviours and strengthening workforce autonomy, mastery and sense of purpose – have each been experiences in my life that have shaped my professional persona and enriched me when I look back at them collectively.

Please share some tips on time management which you practice.

With the pace of things and the sheer scale of decisions we take on an everyday basis, dealing with stress has become a part of any professional's daily routine. Personally, I believe that the trick is to plan well in time and most importantly, categorise your priorities as simply yet thoroughly as possible. Perform to the best of your abilities, work smart, learn from people you work with and you should be able to handle all the urgent deadlines with a smile!

Which is your favourite holiday destination?

My favorite holiday would be at any place where I can sleep, eat, and party! At the moment, it would be Goa; but the place of choice keeps changing depending on the people I want to be with.

What is your favourite book and why?

I carry a copy of Vineet's Employees First, CustomersSecond with me as it serves as a roadmap whenever I

wish to initiate and drive change.

Who is your most admired leader/role model, and why?

My inspiration comes from the person who is working on a hard project and he does things he did not know how to do but he puts in the effort, he puts in the hours, he demonstrates the curiosity, he makes mistakes and learns from them to move forward and completing it. That is inspiring - seeing ordinary people achieve extraordinary outcomes, outcomes they themselves didn't know they could achieve.

If you give people the sense of purpose, autonomy and the mastery to operate and they never give in, they will continue to add value to the biggest challenges the organization faces! In my life, I follow the school motto of Lawrence School, Sanawar, my alma mater, "Never Give In" and admire people who demonstrate this.

Your take: Hard Work or Smart Work.

I say it is smart to put in the hard work!

The social cause you support.

I am committed to the work we are doing with the HCL Foundation and the iBelieve womens network supported by HCL. Playing a role in enhancing education, employability, employment, a good environment and health by empowering, skilling, teaching and mentoring communities is a path to our own sustainable future.

What advice would you like to give to young leaders?

To bring about a chain of sustainable leadership in play, my advice to all aspiring future leaders would be to firstly view the role of leadership to invert the pyramid and engage, enable and empower people, as in today's competitive world, the best talent is fueled by ensuring the individual understands the opportunities for growth in the organization they work with.

Always take the high road; the view is always better!

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Sodexo SVC India Pvt. Ltd.Indabrator Building, Nesco Complex, Western Express Highway, Goregaon (East), Mumbai - 400 063, INDIASodexo. World leader in Quality of Life Services - www.sodexo.com  |  Tel - 022 4321 4321  |  Fax - 022 2685 5973    

SUCCESSSTORY

Creating Uniform and Sustainable Employee Benefits

A leading private sector bank spread across the country was looking to provide uniform Meal benefits to all its Employees.

Given the nature of the banking sector, with a large workforce and multiple establishments in different parts of the country, providing uniform amenities and Meal benefits to all the Employees is a critical challenge. When coupled with high cost of cafeteria management and constricted cafeteria space, considering banks have prime real estate properties, prudent cost management becomes a big concern.

The Client was concerned with providing cafeteria facility at all possible locations for the Employees in remote locations and the field staff.

The Result:Sodexo Meal Vouchers empowered the client to standardize the Meal benefits to all the Employees across locations, whether they are at the remote branches without cafeterias or the field staff which is constantly on the move. Each employee would get Sodexo Meal vouchers of a designated amount every month which they can redeem at 20,000 Sodexo affiliated outlets across 1500+ cities in India.

Thus, Sodexo Meal Vouchers offered great choice of meals along with substantial tax benefits for the users. The company also witnessed significant drop in expenses o n c a f e t e r i a d e v e l o p m e n t a n d management. Within a span of one year,

Distributed Workforce: Workforce is distributed among various locations. It is hard to maintain cafeterias at every location, thus the benefit is not available to all employees, thereby resulting in dissatisfaction. Hence, the need for Uniform Meal Benefits.

Supports HR for Best Employer Branding p Uniform benefit to all Employees across the

organization

p Tax free perquisite, which is welcomed by the Employees

p Builds a market differentiation over competition to attract talent

p Company meets its obligation of providing Meals to Employees

p Promotes internal transparency

p Enhances motivated workforce

p Supports field staff

p Employees have freedom of choice in meals - access to over 20,000 outlets across the country

p Strong HR initiative for the benefit of Employees

p Improves Employee Engagement and satisfaction

Cost Advantage to the Companyp Efficient utilization of costly real estate

p Cost benefit over cafeteria running and management costs

p Improve the benefit basket for Employees

Solution by Sodexo: Standardized Meal Benefits

Sodexo offered its Meal Pass Solution, which enabled the client to offer uniform meal benefits to all its Employees, especially while dealing with distributed workforce.

Disclaimer: The content for this newsletter has been provided by Dun & Bradstreet Information Services India Pvt. Ltd. (Dun & Bradstreet) in collaboration with Sodexo SVC India Pvt. Ltd. (Sodexo SVC India) and the intellectual property rights rest with both Dun & Bradstreet and Sodexo SVC India. The information in this newsletter  is compiled from various sources including company websites, company announcements, media articles and other secondary sources. While Dun & Bradstreet and Sodexo SVC India endeavor to ensure accuracy of information contained in this publication, they do not accept any responsibility for any loss or damage to any person resulting from reliance on it.

Why Banks prefer Meal Vouchers?

the expenses have reduced by about 35%. Since the company is already fulfilling the responsibility of providing meals to the Employees with Meal Vouchers, the pressure to open newer cafeterias with high real estate cost has also gone down.

All the Employees are enjoying the Meal benefits. Hence it is seen as a more transparent and uniform benefit thus further building employee affinity and engagement for the company. It shows that the company cares for them and also provides tax-friendly benefits which are more than welcome.