NXP Has Handed GPRS device To Women Employees For Safety: Sanjay Gupta, VP and India Country Manager, NXP India

Sanjay Gupta, VP and India Country Manager, NXP India, a global semiconductor manufacturer introduced a GPRS device to ensure safety of women devices. He talks to BW Businessworld more about employee welfare and work culture. Edited Excerpts:

How have you ensured work flexibility in your organisation?

NXP is based in over 20 countries across the world. To be able to coordinate with co-workers from different time zones, it is essential for the staff to have flexibility ofwork timings. There can even be times when employees have to stay back at odd hours for work at office.To ensure that the employees are safe and comfortable, we provide facilities such as pick and drop, free dinner or evening snack so that it gets convenient for them to work at late hours. Additionally, we bear personal cost of employees who may have to work from home. 

At NXP, we understand that content employees can deliver better. It is vital for individuals to enjoy their work, and thus, we help them in choosing their career preference. We have streamlined our work into three categories: Technical Stream, Project Management Stream and Management Stream.Through this structured framework, we enable our employees with strong internal mobility. Employees are provided the flexibility to move horizontally within the same organization to their area of interest, without having to switch to another place.

Has maternity leave bill affected female hiring? Any measures to ensure their wellness?

We believe that a diverse workforce is the most productive workforce. Top engineering colleges generally have a diversity ratio of 10 to 12 percent, but when we go to colleges, our diversity is around 20 percent which shows our female friendly policy. We encourage diversity, and believe that diversity brings new thoughts and ideas. We believe, not only in diversity through gender, but also through people from different states, nations, universities, cultures and backgrounds.

To ensure the safety of women, we have an in-house harassment committee to ensures female employees do not have to stay late at office. If required, we provide drops to female employees if they stay back past 7 pm. Also, recently we handed over a GPRS-tracking device to all the women employees. In issues with wellness, we partnered with a global wellness broker, Marsh. We frequently have wellness related sessions covering, maternity, female health issues and other medical issues. We also have doctors coming from good hospitals for regular check-ups and sessions.

What can be done to bring parity in employee appreciation and make them feel comfortable in the workplace? 

Employees need to be at ease while spending most of their day in office. To make our people feel comfortable, we focus on things they are in contact with every day. We start from the basics such as providing the basic hardware and proper infrastructure. We also believe that an organization must have a climate or culture of trust, openness, transparency and respect. It is in our organization’s DNA to respect everyone, and that all employees, whether contractual or full time are treated with equal dignity.

People at NXP are provided access to any kind of grievance and policy, and are given the freedom to seek redressal from the management staff. We stand against discrimination of any kind, and feel that appreciation makes an individual feel noticed, build confidence, and enhances results. Thus, we highly encourage peer-to-peer appreciation and recognition. Additionally, we have global recognition system, which allows us to award employees with monetary prizes and recognition, whenever they work and perform beyond in their natural domain of work.

To evaluate how appreciation leads to better work results, we work with one of the largest development centre in USA. We have suggestion boxes, any employee at any point of time have any suggestion for any enabling function or any business group they can drop in a suggestion regarding that. The suggestions directly go to the Country Manager, so that is the kind of transparency we show in the climate.

What policies have been adopted to provide a safe and good working environment to the employees?

Apart from the option of flexible working hours, employees are provided with cab facilities, to ensure their safety even outside work premises. Additionally, we conduct health and fitness sessions like Zumba and Aerobics, and promote wellness through various health sessions and check- ups. We also have morning & evening yoga classes for an employee.

We have issued cab facilities for the employees for whoever has registered for the same. We also have flexible working hours in the organization. We ensure that the employees are trained regularly so that they can learn and perform well in high pressure environment. We ensure a homely environment to work in by celebrating every culture and festivals to provide comfort to the employees. We also have special interest clubs in the organisation, where employees can gather for music, dance and sports. In terms of career advancement, we encourage internal mobility for employees.

Rajguru Tandon

BW Reporters The author is a correspondent with BW Businessworld with keen interest in HR and employee welfare.