Q.What makes NIIT a great place to work?
A. NIIT’s values and motives make it a great place to work. NIIT is about ‘people’. We encourage seniors and new generation to work together. We have performance culture that is based on a strong foundation of clearly articulated strategy, backed up by strong execution and regular reviews.
Q. Tell us about your rewards and recognition structure? How do you make sure that this mechanism is fair to all employees?
A. The rewards and recognition structure at NIIT is called Hats Off, which recognises both performance and behaviour. We focus on annual, quarterly, monthly and on-the-spot recognition. The on-the-spot recognition is based on efforts, demonstrated in line with NIIT’s values and motives and their ability to rise above and beyond the call of duty. Recognition is enabled by reporting managers and peers. Peer recognition is based on demonstrated behaviour. There are certain recognition parameters for people managers since our focus is on ensuring that people are engaged and growing at work.
Q. What do you keep in mind while rewarding and recognising your employees? How unique is the reward and recognition mechanism in your sector?
A. The name itself is appealing to people. Reporting managers nominate people for the awards. Peers also recognise each other through iNIITian or by conducting an annual poll for peer recognition and these awards are given away on our annual day. People managers are recognised by their team members and through an online polling.
The uniqueness of our framework is that it addresses all aspects of individual’s need for recognition and focuses strongly on values and performance.
Q. What leads to a wrong structuring of reward and recognition? What can be the consequences?
A. In a multi-business organisation like NIIT, having quotas on rewards and recognition is important to ensure that certain teams and business units do not overuse it. Inadequate details of the criteria is also a major concern. In execution, a lot of emphasis needs to be applied to the communication aspect of rewards and recognition.
A wrong structuring will lead to right people being recognised for the wrong reasons that will lead to a gap in the execution of organisational strategy, which will ultimately lead to low performance and disengaged people.
Q. What are the other elements, apart from rewarding and recognising, to keep the morale of employees high?
A. Rewards and recognition is a critical component of people engagement. People engagement means high morale. Factors for people engagement are alignment with the vision of the organisation, clarity of role and goals, conducive work environment and prospects of a future with the organisation. It is important to see the manager’s relation with the people. Managers engage with their teams in regular interactions.
Through new or changed processes and policies, HR can bring in a lot of positivity at workplace. They also play a key role in facilitating the manager’s and business leader’s engagement with their team. Leaders connect to share the vision and give directions that help the team get aligned to the ‘big’ picture and are able to understand their own contribution better in the overall performance of the business unit.
Total commitment of the organisation towards the professional development and training of people is highly critical for an employee to feel valued and envision his or her future with the organisation. It also translates into organisation’s success and growth.
