‘We Plan To Grow The India Market’

Deborah Smith, global vice-president – HR & Talent Management, Kronos Inc. tells BW Businessworld’s Ashish Sinha that the company’s global best practices were finding takers across clients in diverse sectors of India Inc.

Excerpts:

Is there a special reason for your India visit?
India is an important centre for Kronos. It is the second largest centre for us outside the United States, with 800 employees. I am here for the inauguration of a computer lab at the Noida Learning Centre for underprivileged children, run by ANK, a Delhi-based NGO.
The centre provides elementary education to children of migrant labourers, which aligns with Kronos’ ‘Give Inspired’ corporate giving mission to support causes that focus on growing and empowering the next-generation workforce. We run many successful initiatives under this umbrella.

Which trends are new in employee engagement?
Globally, organisations are realising the importance of employee engagement to inspire employees to reach their full potential. Companies realise that employee sentiments serve as a benchmark and help them understand the areas they need to focus on. We believe that happy employees make for happy customers, so we look out for innovative ways to take care of our employees. To ensure that fathers have sufficient time off to celebrate and bond with their child, we now provide four weeks’ fully paid leave. We conducted a global survey and found that a four-week period was ideal and in India, we have many new fathers already enjoying this benefit.

How have you performed in India?
Kronos has experienced steady growth in India and is enabling organisations such as FirstSource Solutions, Mahindra, SAB Miller and Ultratech to manage their on-roll and contract employees. Kronos now has customers across industries, such as manufacturing, retail, hospitality and services.

Does Kronos’ have expansion plans in India?
We are firmly committed to continuing expansion of our operations and aim to grow the market and improve the profitability of customers by engaging a million organised sector employees by 2020.

Kronos plans to increase R&D headcount in India by more than 25 per cent to over 1,000 employees. We are introducing Hindi in the ‘InTouch’ time clocks to enable customers in north and west India. We are also establishing an ‘Experience Centre’ at a cost of $150,000 in Noida for our customers and prospects.

What makes Kronos the best place to work in?
Kronos has a unique culture that focuses on innovation, work/life balance, and a focus on our employee/manager partnership. Fostering a culture of appreciation and respect has been a secret ingredient to higher employee engagement. We’re fortunate to have employees who are inspired by each other and our customers.