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Sasken CEO and Chairman Rajiv Mody speaks to BT's Rahul Sachitanand: Salaries in the IT industry seem to be increasing constantly. Do you think these hikes are sustainable over the long term? Our starting salaries are not the greatest, we offer around Rs 2.5 lakh per annum, compared to Rs 3 lakh-plus that some others offer to freshers. But we believe that the best and brightest minds join us because we are growth-oriented and offer an opportunity for people to excel in their field. I believe that there's a mad rush to get rich fast among youngsters and I don't believe that this is sustainable over the long-term. People need to work for a while and gain experience before they can head a team (in the position of project manager for instance) and this is not something that happens over night. You also have to blame the Indian mentality that's obsessed with getting higher up the ladder faster than your neighbour. The real problem will happen if and when the market slows down; when they are caught with no place to sit when the music stops. Sasken's adopted some innovative employee practices that seem to give your employees a lot more freedom than other organisations. What are these practices and why are you structured like this? The people working for me are adults and I treat them with respect; I don't believe in time cards and time sheets. Employees are free to come in when they want and I only want to reach their targets on time. They aren't expected to sign in and we do not strictly implement leave norms. Our office is open 24 hours and if employees work late, for example, then they're free to take a cab home at our expense. We have just five levels of management and everyone, including me, has the same size cubicle and travels economy class. While we drive our employees tough targets, we also believe in giving people a break from work, so we have the concept of Hibernation, where people who've slogged for four years or more can take six weeks off at our expense. Is attrition a problem for Sasken and do you believe there is a war on for talent? What can you and the industry itself do to curb this? Attrition is clearly a problem for the industry and at Sasken too. I would like to reduce this statistic significantly. The reasons for this high attrition are fairly obvious; the job market is expanding, opportunities are increasing and given the "get rich quick" attitude today, people are willing to switch in three, six or 12 months. There's an undeniable war on for talent and since we don't pay top dollar to Sasians we need to also need to clearly define job roles and ensure that each employees' job is enriched. We need to strengthen our mid management and ensure they get more autonomy and responsibility; my job is to only enrich and mentor these managers. We have sponsored the post-graduate degree in software management at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, to encourage the development of a mid-management both at Sasken and the industry itself. Sasken's come a long way from the company that started in a garage 16 years ago. Do companies in such growth phase begin to lose their original identity? The days when Sasken was a small company are behind us as the organisation has continued on its growth path. We try and have meetings across functions and departments to try and foster that small company mentality. As we grow in size, we also need to find ways of handling the pain points that come with larger scale. These may relate to attrition or the need to make each employee feel that their role and contribution is vital to the success of Sasken..
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