Deboleena Bose (standing) with some of her charge at the centre's canteen: Because, eggheads need to eat too

If you think your job is tough, wait till you meet Deboleena Bose. The conspicuously-bespectacled 31-year- old with a permanent smile on her face is General Manager (Human Resources), John Francis Welch Technology Center (JFWTC), GE's first such outside the US (and when, it was founded in 2000, the only such). The man-manager's job at the $80-million (Rs 368 crore) centre, which is located across 50 acres in Whitefield, a Bangalore suburb-a squat white rectangular building from the outside-is unique: JFWTC arguably boasts the highest average IQ per employee (or per square foot) in India. Of its 1,800 employees, 400 sport Ph.Ds and 700, a masters degree in their field of expertise. And it has six patents to its name, and has applied for 94 more. There are experts in arcane fields such as electromagnetic analytics, computational fluid dynamics, non-destructive evaluation and molecular modeling, and it is Bose's job to find such people, and keep them happy.

It isn't easy finding such people. "Despite the abundant talent available in India, the kind of researchers and engineers we look to hire are hard to find," admits Bose. "Most are extremely talented individuals who are always in demand." So, the lady prefers the referral route, pumping employees for the names of others like them, and rewarding them for each successful hire. Not too long back, Mohandas Nayak, a Ph.D from Bangalore's Indian Institute of Science who works in the materials research team at jfwtc told Bose about a friend, a Ph.D from Cleveland State University who wanted to return to India. Today, Nayak's friend is a JFWTC employee. Expectedly, more than 50 per cent of the hires are through employee referrals.

Then, there are those JFWTC catches young, through a programme titled Edison Engineering Development Program (for those who came in late, Thomas Alva Edison, the founder of the light bulb and countless other things founded GE), which it runs at the IITs and Bangalore's Indian Institute of Science. Anandraj Sengupta is one such talent, hired by JFWTC from IIT Kharagpur in 2001. The 24-year-old mechanical engineer works in areas such as mechanical and imaging technologies and already has two patents to his name.

Bose's task is rendered easier-just that bit-by the nature of work at JFWTC. "I came back to India purely for personal reasons," says Jayendran Balasubramanian, a 25-year-old educated at IIT-Bombay and Stanford. "If not jfwtc, I do not know where I could have gone." Like Balasubramanian, several other India-born US-based techies waiting for an opportunity to return to the homeland have jumped (and continue to jump) at the opportunity provided by JFWTC. Raja Krishnamurthy, a 36-year-old with a not-so-common Ph.D-mba combo was working with a US-based manufacturer of adhesives when the chance to work with JFWTC in India came his way. "Compensation and monetary rewards are very important and we do not discount that," says Bose. "But the real attraction JFWTC holds for researchers and technologists who are among the best in their field is the opportunity to work at technology's cutting edge." Given their background, JFWTC's employees probably rate this even higher than the opportunity to participate in leadership training programmes at GE's famed Crotonville facility, something that is open to all GE employees. The emphasis on the work is perhaps one reason for the physical appearance of the facility itself: while the campus boasts recreational facilities, these aren't in the same league as those you are likely to encounter in some of Bangalore's tech campuses, such as Infosys'. Which is only understandable: given a choice between a jogging track and an accelerator, a physicist will probably choose the latter.

Never mind the hiring bit or the job, is it easier or tougher to manage eggheads? After all, given their standing as original inventing eccentrics, Bose's life (or rather work) should be hell? Well, not exactly. Today's researchers are used to corporate work environment; why, some even sport ties to work. And Bose claims she doesn't find her charges (if they can be called that) difficult to manage. She's worked in Wipro's hr function and says the most significant difference is that the centre's employees aren't obsessed with money. Work can do that to you.

Customer Rating
Client rating catches on in corporate India.

It was a routine deal between a mobile phone manufacturer and a telco, one of those things where the end-user gets a phone and a connection for a sizeable discount. But it fell through. A post mortem by the phone company showed that its account manager was to blame: he had not taken the telco's request to get his senior management in on the deal and close it soon seriously. It promptly transferred the executive in question. This true story reflects an emerging trend in India: client rating is becoming popular. Ask Ronesh Puri, the managing director of search firm Executive Access. He asks his clients to evaluate his execs. ''Client's evaluating the servicing employee is part of a changed mindset focussed on achieving the overall objective of customer delight," explains Puri. The hospitality business-the very definition of service-is at the vanguard of the move. Indian Hotels, the company that manages the Taj chain of hotels boasts a Guest Satisfaction Tracking System that allows it to crunch scores of individual employees. And Ashwin Shirali, Director (South Asia), Hyatt Regency, cites the instance of a front office clerk at Kolkata's Hyatt Regency who was promoted to team leader almost overnight this January: he had received positive referrals from over 150 guests. "This employee has a bright future," says Shirali. "He's very customer-focussed." There's another benefit: client-rating can render the appraisal process that much more objective. "Client appraisals are becoming institutionalised," says Vishesh Chandiok, Country Director, Corporate Finance, at global accounting firm Grant Thornton. "Our appraisals are based on perception; the clients, on facts."

-Moinak Mitra

Fixed Assets Going Home
How organisations see departing execs out of the door safely.

The nurturing nineties were all about organisations learning from people exiting them: was there something wrong with the work environment or a particular manager's style of functioning? Was there anything they could do to make things better? Would the employee consider returning to the company at a later date? Such bleeding-heart 'it isn't you, it is us' stuff is still common in companies, but in these nervous zeroes they face a far more pressing problem. How can they ensure that the person departing the organisation doesn't take any valuable knowledge with him (or, at the least, doesn't use any such that he takes with him; after all, a lobotomy isn't possible in these politically correct days)? And how can they block access to information, disconnect lines of communication, and reduce the individual's interaction with fellow employees without being dragged to court? With every business becoming a knowledge business (not our line), these are questions most companies will have to address.

So, although Hari T., Senior Vice President (hr), Satyam Computer Services, begins by stating that exit interviews are conducted for all separations "to find out why the person is leaving and whether we can help the associate meet his career aspirations within Satyam" he rapidly segues into near-legalese to explain what is, and more important, what isn't on. "Our offer letters cover the confidentiality and non-disclosure areas," he adds. Associates are free to work for the competition, but they cannot work on a project for the same client they serviced at Satyam. And when a former employee breaches this contract, the company initiates legal action after informing the individual and his current employer. The issue of non-compete clauses is a messy one. Nithyanandan R., Corporate Counsel and Head (Legal), Infosys Technologies, admits that it is a debatable legal issue in all jurisdictions. However, he adds that confidential information is protected by employment agreements and is enforceable in most courts of law through appropriate injunctions. Given that, companies will probably have better luck arguing that a former employee breached the confidentiality clause than the non-compete one.

Even companies that believe in their employees (and former ones) or that the information gathered by or resident in one individual cannot make or break an organisation hedge their beliefs with pragmatic firewalls. LG India's head of hr Yasho V. Verma believes "information passed along by just one person cannot help the other organisation become an LG," but still relieves people who put in their papers immediately. "We do not wish to have half-hearted employees working for us," he adds. "And we immediately disconnect their e-mail." And while Standard Chartered Bank's regional head of hr (India and Nepal) Chandrasekhar Pingali says "there has never been a breach of confidentiality", he has a safeguard in the form of an enforceable 'declaration of secrecy' that employees sign. Hidden benefit: such enforceable agreements often act as effective exit barriers, although it'll be a brave hr manager who admits as much.

-Payal Sethi