The Best at Kumaran's

WITH its headquarters in Toronto, Canada, Kumaran Systems Pvt. Limited is a 10-year-old software company. Kumaran Systems has been in the business of providing services of upgradation or migration to the latest versions of Oracle and Microsoft applications. The company is now shifting its focus to the nascent field of Internet solutions in the field of supply chain management, building B2B or B2C market places and operating as an Applications Solution Provider.

All HR processes at Kumaran's flow out of their core belief that best practices are not about doing the best things that others are doing; they are, rather, discovering the things that work best for them at a given point in time. Discovery and exploration has to be a collective effort and not the sole province of the HR division. Having planned a strategic shift in their focus, they are now in a stage of transition. They have evolved a learning system to help their associates cope with this period of transition. Their associates are being re-trained to bring their skill sets in line with new business requirements.

Being a very `flat' organisation with 3 broad bands for professionals and one band for the executive team they have various levels of contributions within each band, but there are very few decision-making levels. Their real challenge has been to reassure associates that the entire assessment process is fair and objective. It has therefore been positioned as an opportunity for the associates to upgrade themselves and improve their individual worth in the market.

Kumaran is in the process of evolving an integrated system to measure the contribution of individuals. A system that is totally transparent and objective in evaluating an individual's performance. Some of the key features of the system are setting work commitment plans similar to Key Result Areas and having individual role formulations instead of static job descriptions. The system will also detail every individual's capability matrix, which is a collection of capabilities required to perform a given role. Finally, they plan to incorporate the 360-degree feedback processes on performance.

The challenge lies in implementation. To aid this, processes have been evolved in such a way that people-related risks and organisation- related risks are minimised as far as possible. Their practices address the following concerns:

* The expectation that the new management will magically address all employee needs and requirements.

* Fears that new processes and procedures would be overly invasive, resulting in too much control and eventual curtailment of an associate's job domain.

* The kind and extent of training an associate requires.

Kumaran believes that there is a need to bring all their employees in line with the core values and vision of the management. Building the right culture is their first step towards excellence - in terms of best practices in compensation, sound HR policies, performance management system, capability development system and training, career progression and organisational development.

MURALI SWAMINATHAN

Vice-President, Human Resource