Check out this presentation from HCL technologies about a HR initiative called “Employee First, Customer Second“. This appears to be part of a stated strategy from the IT giant about putting their own employees ahead of their customers. Sounds typical HR speak? Maybe yes, ….but in a country whose IT prowess/future hinges on the ability to service external clients, this looks like a fairly bold statement to make. Can’t but help recall Mahatma Gandhi’s famous quote commonly found plastered across shops & establishments all over India “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.”
The initiatives that are part of the policy look well intentioned, though not necessary first of its kind. What looks first of its kind is an organisation of this size, in a county like India, in an industry like client servicing oriented IT services making this a policy statement. And while this initiative predates it, the Satyam scandal makes this pitch even more intriguing for an Indian IT major.
If any HCL employee is reading this blog- can I request you to fill in with some inputs on how this reflects on the ground level? I’d be interested to know that..
Update: I just got reminded of a blogpost I wrote about another initiative from HCL long time back… almost two years ago… this was the “Fearless ad campaign” from HCL highlighting its heritage as India’s original garage startup way back in the late 1970s… check it out here.
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Hi,
I am working in HCL for 2.5 years. Well “employee first, customer second” is just an PR initiative. Does not reflect at the employee level. It just remains an effective opening line for the biggies speeches, and an ending punchline to our umpteen escalation mails.
I spent out couple of yrs in HCL. To me & my team its positive change and its quite effective at ground level.I am pretty sure if employee is mature then he/she can understand this mantra very well other wise some of employees who do not perform at all take this other way round. Definitely “Employee First” does not mean you will get whatever you want. Without putting any effort expecting return — No way
Appreciate this initiative
Read HCL employee reviews on JobeeHive.com: http://www.jobeehive.com/company-reviews/hcl-technologies to know the reality. It looks like a mixed bag, and HCL has got an overall rating of 3.4 out of 5.0 on jobeehive.
I’ve worked there for 12+ Years and quit recently. THIS IS ANOTHER MARKETING TACTICS TO PROMOTE THE COMPANY TO HCLITES AND OTHERS. MANY TIMES I’ve heard my manager saying “We have no other option than giving the customer what/when he wants; even if it takes the entire team to work 24×7″.
FYI, HR team was unable to tell us what Employee First means.
I’m not sure how the rating firms (Gartner, Forrester etc) are able to believe this story and HCL is getting awards for this.
This marketing line “Employee First, Customer Second” looks to be stolen from Dr. Stephen Covey’s “Principle Centered Leadership” which was published long ago.
Do you think this policy is in real implementaion in HCL? This just sucks! I can show tens of teams with in my clear visibility that just say Yes Yes Yes to client. Damn to the employees, whatever is the attrition rate, HCL never cares. This just sucks you know! I am going to put papers next week.
This is just a marketing strategy. HCL first of all does not have good internet connectivity, good systems to work on (Ball mice, Old HCL monitors, Pentium 4 still, 1 GB RAM, very old shivering keys of keyboard). I hate this company to my throat.
A Revolutionary thought by Mr. Nayar. Human Resource is the biggest asset any organization can have and empowering Employees would result in Quality and Quantity that any organization strives for.
this is wrong, customer is first then only employee can exist else they all will be fired off
We should note that Employee First, Customer Second is neither devised by Nayar nor actually implemented by Nayar.
It is ONLY in the PAPER (server, internal websites etc) but NOT in the SPRIT.
http://www.google.co.in/search?q=%22Employee+first+customer+second%22&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:*&prmd=nv&ei=hS5HTPedDoyGvAOxvfTaAw&start=10&sa=N
this quoted search result only gives approx 4 Lacks result about Vineet Nayar and HCL Tech, and if you remove the quote then the result is multiply by 100….just amazing….
Dear Ex-HCLite as you wrote “We should note that Employee First, Customer Second is neither devised by Nayar nor actually implemented by Nayar.” I don’t know what’s ur name and really I don’t care b’cos have u tried to give your name in Google with quote..if yes then m sure u ll not get more then 10 result…
> What you are doing in your day to day professional life…just copy and paste.
HCL has given you food 4 12 years …so it is my suggestion that Don’t blame to anyone…Remember the RULE of THUMB.
Dear Anand Ranjan Pandey,
Thank you very much for your suggestion. But I’m sorry that I’m not in a position to take your suggestion.
My managers (when I was in HCL) know what I’ve done and you have no right to comment about my work.
I’d seen that basic Human rights have been violated in our group. I want companies to follow some RULE of THUMB. Please let me know if you have any RULE of THUMB for “DON’T VIOLATE HUMAN RIGHTS”. Thank you in advance.
You have mentioned that HCL has given me food for 12 years and not to blame HCL. Do you think HCL has given me money for FREE for these 12 years? If you think so, how they are getting all the money to feed so many employees?
Google search count might be high as the outside world thinks that HCL has implemented the “Employee First” policy. But, as I mentioned earlier, its only a marketting tactics for inside HCL as well as to the outside world. People can tell something but you should really see whether it is actually implemented or not. I dont know whether you are currently an employee of HCL or not. If you are not, you should survey few dozens of HCLites to know what is implemented at HCL on “Employee First” front. Since I was associated with HCL for 12+ years and I’ve seen that these words were used to attract the customers, I’m telling that its only a marketting trick.
- Ex-HCLite
Hi All,
I am a current HCL lite and have close to 8 years experience in HCL and HCL has taken care of me so far very well. Now these two statements are for everyone to understand that i am not a HCL hater.
Now what does this Employee first and Customer Second mean…. the management wanted to have policy which is towards enabling all the employees to do their work better and in that sense they are enabling things for Employee to improve moral, productivity and innovation.
Yes they have many policies to provide “Enabling Services” targeted to move towards achieving it.
In order to be satisfied in a company there are various parameters, (some random thoughts of mine)
1. Good Career Growth
2. Better projects
3. Good Office environment where you can be happy
4. HR Support and Management support towards employee (including salrary needs)
5. Various other things and including enabling services
Now over the last 3 years many of these items have gone downhill and literally can burn you out if you have not understood the concept of employee first.
If you think that employee first is the management have a policy to resolve people related issues on time, or address the salary concerns, address the career path or address the complex project requests or address the job rotation needs or address the fun or office gettogether occassion needs or any medical bill claim serivces and needs or any HR needs.. then you would be grossly dissapointed.
It is as bad as any tier 2 or 3 companies, but if you are looking at “enabling services” things which will help you in your day to day activiites… like computer issue, project resource needs.. then comparitively the process is automated and is better… oh wait a minute isnt there such process in many of the other IT companies…. hmmm well to summarize…
this is a good marketing strategy to get projects and mindset change from clients and may be started with the right intent to elevate and provide path for pyramid inversion and create value from the employes… but it is miles and miles away from anywhere achieving it.
Now to the other important question, isnt this ppt a confiential material ? Amit can you post it here and is this legal.
I was with HCL for almost 7-8 year and learned, how to balance your professional and personal life. Kuddos to all my seniors and Vineet…………whose intiative of employee first given me diffirent tengent to career…….
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