SOKIA is one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers in the world and it decided to hire some of the engineers from a reputed IT consulting firm from India, ZIPRO. When the engineers from ZIPRO came to SOKIA, it has no proper documentations and even the work was not properly defined. Some of the best engineers were working on this project to keep the project running because ZIPRO wanted to have long term strategic partnership with SOKIA.
During this progress of project, some of the engineers from ZIPRO learnt everything about the system and problems of the telecom domain (e.g. micro processors, software integration, signal processing etc). As the time passed by, these engineers became very much familiar with the client and the SOKIA started demanding to keep these engineers with them otherwise they will scrap the project with ZIPRO. Even ZIPRO knew if they will call these engineers back to India, they will resign and probably join the SOKIA Company. In a way these employees started blackmailing the parent company in India to stay with the client and much better salary than their peers in India.
ZIPRO HR head, Mr. Arvind Kumar, is worried about this situation and he discusses the situation with the Business Development Manager, Mr. Bala Swami and Corporate Strategy Manager Mrs. Neelam Ramnathan. They discussed about this problem and the main concern was how to avoid this happening in the future. Here are some of the solutions they came up with
Keep the system process-oriented rather than people oriented: It is very important to keep system process oriented rather than people oriented. Process should be so robust that even if a few employees leave the company for whatsoever reasons, there should not be vacuum in the organization. Client should be told in clear term that they are renting employees and the parent company owns them and they can replace them with similar resources anytime.
My experience is clients are not too much worried about individuals in the beginning and they will agree to this condition. Clients are interested in the quality output at a reasonable cost.
Knowledge sharing: All the employees working on any project should share knowledge about the technicalities of the project and work-life with the client. This will give a proper knowledge depository to the company and this can be used to train future staff for the same job in any eventuality.
Communication is the key: Personal communications should be avoided between the client and the engineers deputed at the client project. A proper group should be created where the managers are included by default so all the communication is in the knowledge of the seniors and chances of losing data because one engineer will leave are little.
During this progress of project, some of the engineers from ZIPRO learnt everything about the system and problems of the telecom domain (e.g. micro processors, software integration, signal processing etc). As the time passed by, these engineers became very much familiar with the client and the SOKIA started demanding to keep these engineers with them otherwise they will scrap the project with ZIPRO. Even ZIPRO knew if they will call these engineers back to India, they will resign and probably join the SOKIA Company. In a way these employees started blackmailing the parent company in India to stay with the client and much better salary than their peers in India.
ZIPRO HR head, Mr. Arvind Kumar, is worried about this situation and he discusses the situation with the Business Development Manager, Mr. Bala Swami and Corporate Strategy Manager Mrs. Neelam Ramnathan. They discussed about this problem and the main concern was how to avoid this happening in the future. Here are some of the solutions they came up with
Keep the system process-oriented rather than people oriented: It is very important to keep system process oriented rather than people oriented. Process should be so robust that even if a few employees leave the company for whatsoever reasons, there should not be vacuum in the organization. Client should be told in clear term that they are renting employees and the parent company owns them and they can replace them with similar resources anytime.
My experience is clients are not too much worried about individuals in the beginning and they will agree to this condition. Clients are interested in the quality output at a reasonable cost.
Knowledge sharing: All the employees working on any project should share knowledge about the technicalities of the project and work-life with the client. This will give a proper knowledge depository to the company and this can be used to train future staff for the same job in any eventuality.
Communication is the key: Personal communications should be avoided between the client and the engineers deputed at the client project. A proper group should be created where the managers are included by default so all the communication is in the knowledge of the seniors and chances of losing data because one engineer will leave are little.
Documentation: Proper documentation is the key. Keep all the work documented from the beginning. If everything (or as much as possible) is documented, that can be used at a later date by anyone and whole the process of training does not need to start again.
Rotation of employees: Make it very clear to the client in the beginning that employees will be rotated in 6 month to 1 year period so at later that they cannot force to keep same employees.
If nothing works: Promote such troublesome employees and later on use stick. You know what I mean.
Train alternative resource: Always keep some resources that can do the job of others if some problem arises. We are not doing the work on Einstein, so we can always find, train and groom alternative resources.
Client relationship management: Business development team should keep close relationship with the client and the project managers should remain involved with the work (at least high level) so that the client will be know that it is not individuals but the company that is working for them.
If nothing works: Promote such troublesome employees and later on use stick. You know what I mean.
Train alternative resource: Always keep some resources that can do the job of others if some problem arises. We are not doing the work on Einstein, so we can always find, train and groom alternative resources.
Client relationship management: Business development team should keep close relationship with the client and the project managers should remain involved with the work (at least high level) so that the client will be know that it is not individuals but the company that is working for them.
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