V. Kartikeyan, Director, Human Resources, Texas Instruments (India) Pvt. Ltd.

With the economic slowdown and the consequent cost cutting and retrenchment, how have you adapted/changed your HR policies to being more people friendly?

These are indeed trying times. More than ever before, there is a need now to balance between employee needs and interests, and the overall costs of running an organisation. Especially a research and development organisation like ours where people-related costs comprise a significant part of the total cost of operations.

However, while we are cutting down on all avoidable costs, we are not retrenching. In fact, we are in line with our worldwide strategy, actually hiring critical staff who will build the necessary base to enable us to come out stronger when the situation improves.

We have endeavoured to keep our policies people-friendly regardless of theeconomic situation. For instance, we have always had a flexi time policythat enables employees to contribute their best. We have maintained a dress code that ``comfortable''. We have cut down only on travelling permitting only business- critical travel. Apart from this, we are keeping our base of benefits constant and trying not to incur higher expenditure. At the senior level compensation is being linked more and more to performance, both individual and that of the company worldwide.

How effective are your internal communication systems to ensure that you are constantly aware of the satisfaction/dissatisfaction levels of your employees?

We have several forums of communication to do just that! The simplest and most elegant way we have discovered in recent times is to have snap polls on various issues using our intranet. These could range from being satisfied with the cafeteria to gauging employee interest in several initiatives. We also have a quarterly site-wide town hall meeting where we communicate matters of site-wide significance to employees. We also conduct comprehensive surveys periodically that give us deeper insights into employees' feelings. We are also planning to conduct regular surveys of the level of engagement of employees within their respective workgroups. We expect this to give us hard facts on specific issues within the respective groups, which may impact the extent to which employees feel engaged or disengaged at work.

Give a few reasons as to why a professional who wants to excel should make Texas Instruments a destination in their career journey?

TII is an institution of technological excellence, with 16 years of successful existence in India. We have over the years, consistently moved up the value chain - from lower end design and tools related work to actually being architects of full products for TI worldwide.

TII has firmly established separate career paths for thosewho are inclined to grow as managers of technological organisations and forthose who believe in growing as architects of the new technology. This ```dual'' career path has evolved over years and is clearly a competitive advantage for TII.

How do you deal with conflict, de-motivation and lethargy in the work place?

The very nature of our work is challenging to such anextent that we do not typically hear of issues of de-motivation or lethargy. Conflicts, on the other hand do occur, and they are healthy to some extent in any organisation. The question is how do we ensure that it remains healthy and does not get out of hand. We have recently begun a new OD initiative called ``Relationship Reviews''. In this, teams get together typically once a quarter, and (much like design or business reviews) review the nature and quality of relationships within the team members. These reviews are short, focussed and avoid the tedium and logistical spread of having to do elaborate team building exercises. This enables the members to examine the type of conflict and work towards converting the conflict into a resource rather than a drag on the team energy.

It is a well-known fact that attrition at Texas Instruments is very low. How did you achieve this?

Controlled attrition is not a matter of chance. It requires consistency of management practices and sustained effort. Our guiding doctrine says, ``Great Work, Great Leaders and Great Rewards''. Focussed attention to each of the elements of this doctrine has enabled us over the years to keep our attrition at manageable levels.

What are your future plans in India, both on the technology and the HR fronts?

TI India has aggressive plans for expansion of its R&D activities. We will be growing to nearly 1000 people in the next 3 to 5 years. The company has reoriented itself from being a pure product development center to focus on developing complete solutions for various end equipment markets that we serve such as 3 G wireless, broadband, internet audio etc. This trend will be accelerated in the coming years with more end equipment solutions being developed at TI India.

On the HR front, we have already begun a ``customer-facing'' model to increasingly align HR initiatives and actions with business directions and flow. We see this process intensifying in the future. We also see an increasing automation of HR systems and processes. This would be necessary to support a growing population. Finally, we want to focus on ``delivering HR to the doorstep of each individual''. This means that human resources will not just impact the whole organisation or distinct workgroups, but will start impacting at a personal level. For example, our ``executive coaching model'' will support not only top performers in their growth but will include performance enhancement plans for employees needing it. We champion change for we believe in providing scope for people to achieve both ``synergy'' and ``strategy'' at work.

MALINI SURYANARAYANAN

maalini.mds@careercommunity.co.in