Syntel KPO: Right Altitude to IJP
By Sandhya

Over the last 20 months, Techgoss had published a series of exclusive reports giving details of all that was happening inside the BPO, KPO and IT divisions of one of India’s most successful IT-ITES companies Syntel.  One report showed how that in the past Syntel BPO was overly reliant on couple of key clients. Also, reported were the sudden exits of the CEO and key HR people.

Regular readers of Techgoss are well aware that a large number of our articles are crowd sourced.  People send in tips, photos, story ideas and even articles. Many of our contributors have full times jobs in IT - ITES, and so prefer using a pseudonym. A Tipster wrote in giving an update to our previous articles

“
Hey Techgoss Team,

Over the past few months, significant concerns have been raised about the fact that some of the Syntel Appraisals were not transparent and prone to biases and pre-determination.

Techgoss had also published an article predicting the results of an IJP at Syntel KPO.  In this case the result of the IJP was withheld (not announced even though the result was the same) after the article was published

Quite separately, Techgoss had published another article about how some disquiet with the IJP selection had resulted in it being discussed quite passionately at a Syntel KPO Townhall attended by the CEO and other senior managers.

It seems that Syntel KPO Management and HR have revisited their appraisal policies and procedures to fine tune them. As a result, an Assessment Center was proposed to be opened early in 2012. However there were some delays (Read as commitments made to employees in 2011 which had to be fulfilled by April 2012.). Thus the new format of Appraisals comes into effect from July 1, 2012. The older format was called ‘Ascend’ whereas the new format has been named ‘Altitude’.

Accordingly, Emails were floated by the HR starting the first week of June. However the e-mails did not clearly mention the criteria to be met and procedures to be followed. The employees were simply told that they should "keep watching the Space for more information soon". The second and third emails also failed to specify the details clearly. The fourth e-mail specified the criteria to apply for Altitude. Reading the e-mail one got the feeling that it would involve self nomination. However it turned out that Promotions from E1 to E2 (Associate to Sr Associate) would be through Manager Nominations (Old Procedures), E2 to E3 (Sr Associate to TL) and E3-E4 (TL to Deputy Manager) promotions would be through ‘Altitude’ i.e. Aptitude Test followed by Group Activity and finally a personal interview.

The nomination process began from June 15 & Ended on June 19. E2's, E3's and E4's were told that they are shortlisted to attend the Aptitude test to be conducted on June 21, 2012. The Aptitude Test was held on June 21. The Aptitude test consisted of 45 objective questions to be completed within half an hour.

According to talk around the water cooler, the aptitude test paper solutions involved lots of lateral thinking and some found them lengthy. The results will be announced sometime next week as the exam was not computerized but a written one.

How transparent this system turns out to be and whether the smart managers of the company manage to manipulate the system remains to be seen!  However, overall many employees were happy with the new initiative taken by the HR and Management of Syntel.

This certainly looks like another positive initiative by the management to make it a win win situation.  A key element in a holistic solution to have 360 degree transparency in the promotion process.
 “

We love all our Tipsters!

Thanks for the great Tip! Know something more about this?   Send us a detailed Tip

(Tipsters, Big thank you for all your tips and photos. Do you have a story to tell? If you need to speak to us in confidence or write for us, email us at techgoss[at]hotmail. Or use the Anonymous Tip form at the top of our website. Anonymity guaranteed. We pay Rs. 1250 for 100 – 200 word snippets or photos. Unfortunately, we cannot use any tips which are not backed up by enough facts)