How HyTech won a NASSCOM Gender Inclusivity award
By Sumir Singh

NASSCOM, which is the voice of the booming Indian IT-ITES sectors, announced its Gender Inclusivity Awards in Dec, 2009.  NOIDA-based HyTech Professionals India Ltd was honoured with the NASSCOM Award for Excellence in Gender Inclusivity for the Best Emerging Company which has been in existence for less then 5 years.

The NASSCOM process to recognize and reward female friendly companies involved a number of steps and was done by some of the most respected names in the Indian tech industry.  In conjunction with IIMs, NASSCOM sought information on a number of topics to evaluate companies for these prestigious awards

Phase one of the steps followed by NASSCOM/IIM during the grueling selection process was applications screening based on certain questionnaire, where each company had to give brief information and quantitative facts regarding the company, process and procedures, inclusivity practices and initiatives, etc. After receiving the completed forms from Phase One, companies were solicited for detailed information on all the above mentioned topics with their supporting documents. Phase Three involved a Campus visit for physical verification and random cross sectional interview cum discussion with few employees.

The Jury Members in the selection of the winner in each category of awards included respected names like Ms. Hema Ravichandar, Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy, Dr. Rekha Jain, Mr. Som Mittal and Ms. Vinita Bali

HyTech, which is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and ISO 9001:2000 Certified software engineering services company, has for two years in a row been judged to be among the top 15 companies of India by NASSCOM in the category of “Exciting Emerging Companies to Work For” on the basis of its Career Development, Fairness and Equity, Rewards & Recognitions, Work Environment, Work Satisfaction, HR Systems and Processes.

Techgoss spoke to HyTech HR Head Mitu Srivastav who listed the following points which won them the coveted award

“ 
- Regular technical on-job trainings are imparted by the technical trainers with behavioral workshops and activities to keep female employees competent, motivated, confident and highly energetic.

- Regular Counseling of the female employees by their mentors for career succession, motivation and personal / professional growth.

- Job Rotation to ensure female employee growth, motivation & retention. If someone has developed interest and takes some training or certification in any new technology / domain and wants to change his/ her technology for their career growth, then they first approach to their reporting manager. The Reporting Manager then after, does the career counseling of the individual and recommends the case to HR Dept. HR identifies the interest area of the individual and plans his / her transition time to the new technology. On coordination with the department head (of that new technology) they assign smaller task and modules of the new technology to the individual, so that it is ease in transiting in to the new area. And after a certain period, the persons performance is been assessed as per the technical procedures by department head (of that new technology) and once it’s been above the cut off line then he / she gets absorbed in the new technology.

- Rewards and recognition to female employees based on their performance inspiring them to perform better. For Example: Hytech has performance based rewards and recognitions like Employee of the Quarter and other year Awards based on performance of individual. Nominees for these awards are chosen on quantitative and merit basis. There is a systematic process of identifying the performers were all the nominee’s performance are recorded and based on the rating system of different parameters the winners of every award is chosen. Hytech also recognizes its employees by celebrating their special days of life like birthdays, anniversaries etc.

- Secure cab service is provided to females staying beyond 8 pm.

- Extra-curricular activities are also conducted monthly to enhance female employee’s planning, organizing, creativity and team handling skills, etc. For Example, Hytech conducts cross sectional team building games, activities like collage competition, pyramid building, etc. thus enhancing their planning, organizing ,creativity skills and team building skills.

- Assigning difficult and critical project responsibilities to female employees.

- Allowing female employees to spearhead the cultural helms of affairs in the organization.

 - Encouraging more female participation in projects.

- Supporting female employees to conduct various social activities to maintain company’s corporate social responsibility.

- Client interaction in the company is also taken care by female leads. Having excellent communication skills, they pass on the message or the clients’ requirement to the project heads and they plan and act accordingly.
“

These various endeavors dedicated towards female employees have certainly paid dividends. Female Retention has significantly increased in the company as they are very dedicated and complete their tasks well before the dead line. It is a win win situation for employer and employee.