20 HCL Infosystems: Grooming Future Leaders

The seed of what we see today in terms of the revenue projection of the IT industry was sown more
than three decades ago with HCL laying the foundations of a revolution, with a dream to give India its
very own microcomputer. Today, HCL is a $5 billion global enterprise. HCL Infosystems, the flagship
company of the HCL enterprise, a pioneer in the hardware and software sector, was amongst the first to
partner with the government in its initiative of laying down the IT infrastructure in the country. At
present, HCL Infosystems is powering numerous projects across sectors like defense, homeland security,
airport & railways intelligent infrastructure, telecom, banking, public distribution system, e-governance,
education, MNREGA, etc.

HCL Infosystems is a very entrepreneurial, full of energy and passionate organization. As Harsh Chitale,
CEO, HCL Infosystems says, Entrepreneurial freedom is at the core of the companys DNA and we
provide massive freedom at work and promote entrepreneurship at all levels. The competitive reward
and recognition system that incentivizes performers and the investment on training and development is
what attracts talent and makes it a great place to work for. As a company, there is a lot of emphasis on
investing in training and development which includes executive coaching to leadership development
programs and technical/functional trainings at their 16 acre training campus at Hyderabad.

Being a pioneer in hardware and software sector, they have always felt the need to develop their people
at every level in the organization. The unique HCL 4-dimensional framework for development has core,
mandatory and preferred programs identified for individuals. HCL also has three schools of learning I
Lead for leadership development; I Win for sales training; and I Learn for technical and domain
trainings. I Lead uses an online 360 degree feedback tool which enables employees to evaluate and
share feedback on the leadership traits, strengths and development areas of senior managers. This
special initiative enables a transparent mechanism to create a robust enterprise leadership pool that will
fuel the growth of business size and diversity.

To support the grooming of future leaders while senior management extracts knowledge and
understanding from the world of the new generation, HCL has developed a unique initiative called
GenNext. GenNext is a reverse mentoring session where junior managers share their knowledge on
diverse GenNext topics with the senior HCL leaders. This helps the senior members gain insight into
next generation customers and team members to understand them better; generate fresh ideas and
think out-of-the-box; learn about new tools, technology updates, subject matter advances; and valuing
diversity, risk taking, and global perspective.

Being recognized as a great workplace is an affirmation of the great work done by the CEO, HR and each
manager who plays a crucial role in shaping the organization. Although HCL Infosystems has been able
to attract the right talent, the prevailing shortage of talent and increasing attrition is always something
that they have to watch for, and emphasis is laid on ensuring adequate attention is given to its people
and their continuous productivity. As the industry gears itself for the wider adoption of mobility and
cloud computing, HCL Infosystems is all set to build up the required skills for these new trends