By R. Chandrasekhar

SYNOPSIS: Litmus Software Solutions' CEO, S.K. Prasad, was at a loss. Despite a full-fledged mentoring programme, the employee turnover in his company stayed high. Failing to gain any insights into his employees' aspirations, Prasad watched helplessly as his talented flock joined his competitors. Since all the standard sops--such as an Employees Stock Options Plan, liberal foreign assignments, and a flexible work-environment--were in place, he knew that the problem had to be with mentoring. Was the mentoring at Litmus too casual, opaque, and bereft of any perceived benefits? Did the belief that people could work it out among themselves need to be replaced by a structured mentoring system? hrfolks.com's Tojo Jose, Leading Edge Systems' Suresh Ogale, RPG Enterprises' Arun Joshi, and TMI India's Neeta Mohla help Prasad find the answers. A BT Case Study.

I think you ought to go," said Nikhil Srivastav, trying to calm down an agitated Sheetal Talwar. For the last 15 minutes, and over a second round of herbal tea, Srivastav, the 39-year-old Vice-President (Marketing) of Litmus, a successful software hot-shop, and Talwar, a 35-year-old Systems Architect in the company, had been trying to resolve a sticky issue.

Litmus' biggest customer in Germany, Schuller Gmbh, wanted Talwar to wing it down to Potsdam the following week to make some changes in a Business-To-Business (B2B) software solution Litmus had developed for it. But Talwar had a problem. Both her daughters, Sudha, 13, and Subha, 10, had their school-exams scheduled for the same week. And she felt that her place was by their side for obvious reasons.

As Talwar's mentor, it was Srivastav's job to show her a way out. Barely a month into his new role, he realised that mentoring was not going to be as easy as he had initially thought it would be. What solutions could he offer Talwar?

"Why don't you send Parvesh instead? He worked on the project with me," Talwar argued, angry.

"I could, but the client insists on having you there because you were the Chief Architect," Srivastav reasoned.

"Don't my problems mean anything to you and the company?" Talwar asked, her face flushed.

"Of course they do, Sheetal. But your boss, naturally, does not wish to do anything that will strain the company's relationship with this key customer," Srivastav explained.

Vineet Chopra's officious-looking face popped up in Talwar's head. He was an insensitive superior as far as she was concerned. She tried hard to recall one occasion when he had tried to help her achieve a modicum of a work-life balance. She couldn't. And the last thing she now wanted to do was to go and grovel in front of him, trying to explain her personal problems.

"Listen, Nikhil," Talwar said, her mind all made up, "I will go to Potsdam, but under protest. You can tell Vineet, or whoever you want, that, as soon as I am back, I am going to look for another job."

"Don't take any rash decisions"

Talwar cut off Srivastav mid-way through his sentence."This is not a rash decision. This is not the first time I've had to turn a blind eye to my family's needs, and sort things out for the company."

Srivastav was unnerved by the meeting. He had never seen Talwar this upset before. Having known her for the last 2 years, he knew she was serious about quitting. "I had better let Kulkarni know," he said to himself.

Vijay Kulkarni was the 41-year-old head of human resources at Litmus. Mentoring had been his idea. He thought it was the ideal foil to the other hard hr tools the company had deployed. Despite no prior real-life experience in spearheading such an initiative, Kulkarni had launched a full-fledged programme in late 1997. Initially, he had considered hiring a specialist firm, but soon realised that mentoring had to be an internally-owned process if it was to work. S. Prasad, Litmus' 49-year-old CEO, had, in his characteristic hands-off fashion, empowered Kulkarni to do what he thought right.

However, the company's other senior executives hadn't welcomed the move. Vithal Rao, Litmus' 35-year-old enfant terrible, who headed the financial services software SBU (Strategic Business Unit), had been the most vocal. Time and again, he had told Kulkarni that mentoring needed to be a structured process if it was to serve any purpose. Events proved him right. Soon, it was evident to Kulkarni that the mentors were acting more like listeners rather than guides. To set things right, he upped his own participation in the programme. He mentored the mentors regularly, but then, things would be fine for a week before a fresh flash-point emerged.

Kulkarni was on the phone when Srivastav rapped on his cubicle to draw his attention. He gestured, asking him to enter. "Hey, Nikhil, how's your birdie?" he asked, referring to Srivastav's newly-redesigned 500-cc motorbike.

"Flies like a bird," replied Srivastav. "It's ironic that I should have said that since I came to warn you about one more possible flight."

Kulkarni immediately sat up. "Tell me you are pulling my leg," he literally begged.

"I'm serious, Vijay." Srivastav went on to describe the meeting with Sheetal.

Kulkarni gasped. "Prasad will kill me. If she resigns, it will be the sixth in 3 months. Besides, this is Sheetal we are talking about, the star of our new systems architecture. I have to figure some way out. Meanwhile, don't breathe a word out about it to anybody."

Thanking Srivastav, Kulkarni reached for the phone to ask Prasad for a meeting. Once in the CEO's unpretentious room, he told him about Srivastav's conversation with Talwar.

"We just cannot afford to lose her, Vijay. Not when we are poised for a big leap," said Prasad, after hearing him out.

Litmus had begun life in 1990 as a distributor of software-packages. But it had climbed the value chain rapidly; by the mid-1990s, it was providing a variety of solutions, having built up considerable domain knowledge in core segments. Litmus had pioneered solutions like Customer Relationship Management packages for companies in the airline- and hotel-industries. As a systems architecture specialist, Sheetal, who had joined Litmus in 1996, had played a key role in developing these packages.

Although Prasad and Kulkarni hadn't told her, they were planning to make her Litmus' General Manager (Architecture) the next month. Prasad's immediate concern was about the 4 new clients they couldn't hope to service without Talwar: "If she leaves, we can kiss our new projects good-bye. Where will we get a replacement even half as good as her at short notice?"

Kulkarni did not reply. Prasad had reason to be upset. Especially since he had spent so much time and effort making Litmus a good company to work for. In April, 1997, he had launched a stock options plan that extended to 40 employees. By early 1999, close to 25 per cent of the 300-plus workforce had been covered. Around the same time, the company had also decided that each of its engineers would work on at least 1 overseas project every 2 years.

In mid-1997, Litmus created a fast-track career-path for 75 engineers, whom it dubbed Double hp (High Performing and High Potential People). Each of these initiatives was focused on employee-retention and -motivation. However, Kulkarni had insisted that they be clubbed with a soft tool that could build a culture of team-work, open communications, and trust. Only that, he argued, could help them succeed.

The tool he picked was mentoring. It was, he felt, the right way of letting the employees know that the organisation cared. And Prasad agreed with him. The result of this combination of initiatives: employee-turnover fell from a high of 25 per cent in January, 1997, to 18 per cent in early 1999. And the Employee Satisfaction Index rose. The worrying part, however, was that the attrition-rate in the Double hp category, at 25 per cent a year, was still rather high.

"What is going wrong, Vijay?" Prasad inquired, worried that the technique that was supposed to bind all the other hr initiatives was itself in danger of falling apart. "Is mentoring breaking down in our organisation?"

"I don't know. But I don't think there is anything wrong with the concept," Kulkarni said. There probably wasn't; Litmus had defined the mentee as a high performer who needed personalised attention. Someone aged between 29 and 36 years, with 3-4 years of work-experience in Litmus.

"Do you think we erred in not spelling out the rules for this relationship?" Prasad suddenly asked.

"No!" protested Kulkarni. "Our idea was to make it informal."

"A well-meaning decision," sighed Prasad, "but, may be, our fundamental approach was wrong."

Kulkarni, obviously, wasn't too happy at the slant the conversation was taking. Proud of his mentoring programme, he interjected: "The instructions to the mentor are clear: listen to the mentee, look at things from his or her perspective, forget that you are a Litmus employee"

A visibly irritated Prasad cut him short: "I know the facts, but how do the mentees' bosses feel about the mentors?"

"Except for an occasional grumble or two, I haven't had any complaints ," Kulkarni said.

"All that is fine," said Prasad, "but, obviously, our mentoring is not effective enough. Otherwise, Sheetal's problem wouldn't have come to a head. We need to find out what's wrong, and, since our people may not feel comfortable telling either you or me, I suggest you hire a consultant."

A fortnight later, Shubhakar Gupta, the independent consultant Kulkarni hired, delivered his report. Managing mentoring, it was evident, was more complex than it had originally appeared. In his debriefing session, Gupta narrated an instance where one of Litmus' engineers needed to urgently fix a problem on-site. He had tried to call up the project manager in Delhi, but was not able to get through. On an impulse, he called up his mentor, who was able to help him. The project manager was unhappy that the engineer had circumvented him, but tried to play it down. However, the relationship had never, since then, been the same.

"I hope our client doesn't get to hear about our excellent team-spirit," said Prasad, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Gupta, who seemed to be enjoying the experience, carried on. "Everyone in Litmus, and I am sorry to say that includes both of you, seems to believe that mentoring is some sort of magic cure that will set right any problem. It isn't. It is a tool that helps people grow in the organisation. Only when inputs that are part of the process--like the organisation's inability to address an employee's problems--are looped back into the company's hr framework can a company become a great place to work. No one here seems to be sure exactly what this programme set out to achieve"

Prasad stopped Gupta's flow of words with an upraised palm: "Enough. I think we have some idea of what went wrong, don't we, Vijay?" Kulkarni nodded in assent. "By the way, ask Parvesh to go to Potsdam instead of Sheetal. I'll talk to the client. And tell Sheetal that she can work from home if she wants to when her kids have their exams."

Kulkarni and Prasad spent the next month talking to people across the company. The idea behind mentoring, they clarified, was to create an environment where people could let off steam and work as a team. Prasad also asked them not to look at mentoring as a problem-resolution mechanism. Then, Kulkarni worked out a rotation programme for the mentors and the mentees, and created a suggestions-box. Things worked fine for the next 2 months. But, slowly, complaints about the inability of the mentors to do anything about their mentees' problems surfaced again. Was it the lack of systems that was undoing everything, wondered Kulkarni. Or was it the fact that mentoring had not been be linked to Litmus' hr framework?

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