There is an assured long term career in the IT industry as long as they are sharpening their skills and are in touch with emerging technologies.

Q: How is iGATE facing this challenge?
Ans: Fortunately iGATE was never very sold on the idea of speculation based hiring which has been only about 22% in our case which was as high as 60% for the rest of the industry. Because we do not hire people on bench, we have not face the situation where we may have to retrench people or ask them to join at a lesser skilled job functions. At iGATE we believe in giving a realistic preview of the job to the people rather than making commitments and then asking people to join in other or lesser roles. It becomes the responsibility of major companies to set example and create precedence rather than succumbing to economic pressures. And hence the need for a well thought out HR model.

Q: How feasible is the work-from-home policy for the IT/BPO industry?
Ans: Work from home in an IT/ BPO company, if it does happen, will be an exceptional sort of a situation. We are talking about team based work. I am not sure if we have the right communication structure and apt security practices and preparedness for such an option to succeed.

Q: Certain companies have resorted to increasing work hours of employees which has caused quiet an uproar. What is your take on that and has iGATE also done something on these lines?
No iGATE has not increased work hours for employees and we have no intentions of doing so. This is an absolutely meaningless step to my mind for the simple reason that during a recession the amount of work is anyways reduced so what are theses people going to do in longer working hours?

Q: iGATE was recently judged the Best Employer in India. What are the HR best practices at iGATE that has helped it achieve this?
Ans: At iGATE we have realized the need to have an integrated HR practice for the company. Two reasons contributed to us being able to develop a holistic HR practice. The first was our integrated HR approach to people management where we accorded equal importance to all sub systems of HR beginning from hiring to separation. The second and more important was the way we went about executing it. We did not aspire for short term gains and set our vision on the long term. The HR model of iGATE is driven by people and highly customized to its growth and existence.

Q: What is the iGATE 'adult to adult engagement' model?
Ans: In most organizations, at most times, the underlying assumption is that employees are immature. Therefore, the emphasis is more on processes and dependency is high on systems rather than on people. The fact, however, is that human intervention is dynamic and the real differentiator to produce services can happen only when people wish. This pre supposes that you treat people the way they are i.e., mature individuals.
 
At iGATE, we have made senior management team surrender their arbitrary decision making style, encouraged constructive dissent and consensual decision making, found opportunities to involve employees on continuous basis, and imposed no penalty for failure but penalise for not taking initiative. Before a HR policy is brought out, the views of employees are sought. We look at employees as Self-Achievers