Introduction to Infosys

Headquartered in Bengaluru, Infosys Technologies Ltd is a software behemoth

in the Indian IT industry. A multinational IT services company, Infosys operates
in 33 countries and has development centers in India, China, Japan, UK,
Australia and Canada. Beginning as a mere US$ 250 company in 1981, Infosys
has come a long way now, to become a global frontrunner with revenues of
more US$ 5.38 billion. Infosys provides end-to-end business solutions,
essentially helping clients to setup software infrastructure, develop it and
maintain it. Infosys uses its Global Delivery Model (GDM)as a strategic
outsourcing tool. GDM enables the company to take work to the place where
it can be best performed, at least cost, and with minimum risk. The work on
projects is carried out 24 hours a day, with teams located at different locations
across the world, working round-the-clock on the project.GDM is one of the
major initiatives of Infosys.

Infosys offers solutions to an assortment of industries withservices like IT,

Engineering, BPO and Consulting.

The organization structure is complicated. The hierarchy is headed by Mr. N R

Narayana Murthy who is the chairman and chief mentor of the organization.
Next isthe CEO and Managing Director Mr. Gopalakrishanan S. Following him
are the directors and the senior vice presidents. The COO & Director, Mr. S
Shibulal heads all the Industry business units and Horizontal business units. He
also heads the SETLabs and Microsoft technology centre

A typical project is headed by Delivery Manager. Role Hierarchy in a Unit from

Top to Bottom is

Delivery Head

Senior Delivery Manager

Delivery Manager

Project Manager – Business Manager

Technology Lead

Technology Analyst

Senior Software Engineer

Software Engineer

Functionally, Infosys comprises various Industry Business Units (IBU’s) and

Horizontal Business Units (HBU’s). These are –

Performance Management System

Performance Management is a process for establishing a mutual
understanding about what is to be achieved and how it is to be achieved. PMS
assists organizations to plan, analyze and manage their performance, so that
decisions, resources and actions can be better aligned with business strategies
to achieve required results.

Performance appraisal is a systematic and objective way of evaluating both

work related behaviour and potential of employees. This is carried on a
periodic basis. It mainly involves setting work standards, assessing employee’s
performance relative to these standards and then offers feedback to the
employee so that he or she can work on the deficiencies and improve
performance. The focus of appraisals is on employee growth and development.
It provides an opportunity for the manager and his/her supervisor to set
mutual objectives.

Purpose of Performance Appraisal

The main purposes why organizations conduct performance appraisals are

Career Development

This provides an opportunity for discussion of career objectives. Also it helps

to

Provide an opportunity for career counseling

Helps in succession planning.

Plan for career development

Provide a basis on which to base decisions about training and promotion

Feedback
Encouraged in both directions, ie from manager to employee and from
employee to manager

Provides constructive feedback to the individual on their performance

Provides a structured format for the discussion of performance issues

Feedback helps in reinforces performance strengths and an opportunity to

find solutions for performance deficiencies.

Administrative Uses of Performance appraisal

Salary

Promotion

Retention/termination

Recognition of performance

Performance History

Serves as a repository of performances and can be used for various decision

making purposes

Can be used to review past and present performance.

Documentation for HR decisions

Helping to meet legal requirements

Organizational Goals

Makes the individual aware of organizational expectations

Provides opportunity review the performance from the organizational point of

view

Helps in assessing future promotion prospects and potential

Performance Appraisal Steps

Performance appraisal process include steps as follows

Establish performance standards

These are benchmarks against which performance is measured. They should

relate to the desired results of each job. They must be clear to both the
appraiser and the appraisee. Generally, these requirements can be deduced
from the work description and divided into two parts: behavioral standards
and work result standards.

Choose the appraising method

There are numerous appraisal methods, but no method is the best for all
organizations. Within an enterprise, different methods can be applied to
different positions, units or departments such as sales, production, marketing
or administration department.

Train the Appraiser

Inappropriate appraisal methods or ill-defined standards results in bias. This

could lead to unwise decisions on payment and rewarding. So it is necessary
for leaders and appraisers to be trained on these skills.

Discussing with employees on rating content and scope

The content and scope should be discussed between appraisers and

employees. The Appraisee should be clear about what he is doing and why he
is doing.

Actual Performance and Comparison

Compare, analyze the actual result of staff with set standards. As far as
possible, the appraising results must objective and not on the appraiser’s
perception.

Discuss with staff on the appraising result:

The appraiser should have a discussion with employees on the appraising

result. They should identify agreements and disagreements on appraising
methods. Also give feedback on the strengths and weakness of the employee
and suggestion on improving the weaknesses. The purpose of the meeting
should be to solve the problems faced and motivate the employees to
perform better.
Identifying new goals

Arrive at new goals for achieving superior performance.

But it has been observed that most of the employees hate appraisal system.
The main reasons are

Lack of information about the purpose of appraisal

Many employees are notabout the impact that appraisals can have on their
career prospects.

Time consuming process

The highly complex questions which they have no answers to or highly

complex competencies which they have never heard of confuse them.

Difficulty in writing appraisals

Many employees have poor language skills and they are unable to
communicate their performance in right language and support with data.

Lack of faith in the appraisal process

Employees think that his/her manager doesn’t write appraisals based on

employee’s performance but bias his/her decisions based on their personal
relations with employees.

Lack of feedback after appraisal:

Many companies do not provide feedbacks to employees on their

performance.

Benefits of Performance Appraisal

The performance appraisal system benefits the appraise, appraiser and the
organization

Appraisee:

Increased motivation and job satisfaction.

Clear understanding of what is expected and what needs to be done to meet
expectations.

Opportunity to discuss aspirations and any guidance, support or training

needed to fulfill these aspirations.

Improved working relationships with the superior.

Opportunity to overcome the weaknesses by way of counseling and guidance

from the superior.

Increased sense of personal value as he too is involved in the appraisal

process

Appraiser:

Opportunity to develop an overview of individual jobs.

Opportunity to identify strengths and weaknesses of appraisees.

Increased job satisfaction.

Opportunity to link team and individual objectives with department &

organizational objectives.

Opportunity to clarify expectations that the manager has from teams and
individuals.

Opportunity to re-prioritize targets.

Means of forming a more productive relationship with staff based on mutual

trust and understanding.

Organization:

Improved performance throughout the organization due to:

Increased sense of cohesiveness and loyalty.

Managers are better equipped to use their leadership skills and to develop
their staff.

Effective communication of organization’s objectives and values.

Improved overview of tasks performed by each member of a group.

Identification of ideas for improvement.

Creation and maintenance of a culture of continuous improvement.

Communication to people that they are valued.

Methods for improvement

Making employees believe in fair evaluation of the job performance and
making them actively participate in the evaluating process is a measure to
improve job performance evaluation. Some of the steps that can be followed
is as follows

Roles of HR staffs

Human resource staff should show that they are knowledgeable and
interested in the work of the evaluated staff. Between supervisors and
employees, there should be an agreement on the primary responsibility to
perform the job. Human resource staff should coordinate with employees,
asking them to participate in planning work as a basis of better assessment to
exclude changes in the assessment.

Training in performance appraisal

Train and instruct the appraiser in the evaluation of job performance of

employees. While training the real life situations should be taken in to
consideration.

Performance Management System of Infosys [Performagic]

Infosys uses the web application Performagic to capture all the performance
appraisal related activities.

The appraisal is done twice a year, once in October and another in April. The
cycle is initiated by the HR and the employee has to then add both appraiser
and reviewer. The appraiser and reviewer for any particular employee are
identified based on the projects the employee worked during the appraisal
cycle.

A normal appraisal process flow would look like the below diagram
If the employee is not satisfied with CRR rating then the following actions can
be taken.

Data Capture in Performagic

The employee is evaluated based on performance tasks, competency and

behavioural tasks.

The performance tasks are set based on the role and the project in which the
employee is working. The manager has the flexibility to make necessary
modifications according to his perception of the role and expectations from
the employee. Competency and behavioural indicators are based on the
official designation of the employee. The employee is given the option to rate
any 10 options from the competency and any 5 from the behavioral tasks.

There is also individual utilization measures set for each employee which has
to be met by the employee to ensure a met expectations rating. The utilization
measures set are broadly defined on the IBU level, but can be modified if the
appraiser feels that it’s required. Based on the ratings give to the performance
ratings and behavioural tasks the score for the employee will be calculated
based on pre decided logic. The CRR for employees are decided based on this
cumulative score that the employee scores.

Methodology
Personal interviews were conducted of few Infosys employees to evaluate their
understanding and thoughts on the PMS.

Questionnaire

What is your role?

How many time appraisal is done in a year and when?

What procedure is followed in appraisal?

Is there any formal training given to the appraiser?

How much time do you dedicate for filling the appraisal form?

On what parameters you do your self-appraisal?

What are the performance standards on which appraiser appraise you?

How subjective is the appraisal?

Are all the questions in performagic relevant to your roles

What happens in appraisal meeting?

What type of feedback do you get?

Who all are involved in the appraisal meeting?

How does it affect your performance afterwards?

What do you think are the problems in current appraisal system?

How transparent is the appraisal system?

Difference between present and previous appraisal system?

How much importance you give to the performagic?

How does the performagic rating affect your promotion?

How does the CRR process work?

Do you feel the peer group formation is correct?

Suggest any improvement in the system?

Responses

Employees were not much concerned about the whole appraisal process

Employees perceive that the appraisal data doesn’t have any correlation with
the CRR and further promotion

There is no formal training given to appraisers. Each appraiser rates the

employee based on his/her understanding.

The CRR rating mainly depends solely on how the Manager/ Appraiser can put
forth your case before the CRR panel
The rule of directly mapping the Performagic score to CRR is not followed
since a minimum percentage criteria has to be followed for CRR

The chances of overturning a CRR is almost nil since there is a preset

percentage for each rating

Since it’s a comparative ranking method, employee can just put forth his/her
arguments. The employee has no clue about the things that other person has
done

Employee submits a CRR profiler presentation to the manger in addition to

the performagic. Mainly this data is used by the manager to showcase the
contributions of the employee.

Peer groups for CRR are decided based on the projects/ accounts/IBUs

The size of normal peer group is 20-25

The formation of peer group is mainly based on the role of the employee.

If there are more than 25 employees in the project, the peer group formation
decision become contentious.

The past system provided employees to add/delete tasks as per their

convenience. So employees would give higher weightage to the tasks that
they had performed better in that half.

In the present system the tasks are decided upfront. But in case of project
changes or IBU change scenarios, there would be difficulty in meeting the
expectations.

Current system is completely based on data. So if there is any activity for

which no data is present, such tasks could not be clearly captured but the
system.

Regarding the feedback, most the appraisers try to motivate the employees

If the employee doesn’t receive a top rating then the common excuses made
are ‘visibility of the employee is low’ and the employee is not involved in
organizational related activities.

Past System
Present System
Flexible for task addition

Not flexible

Qualitative data can also be used

Based on quantitative data

Ratings given to the employee before CRR

Ratings given only after CRR rating is finalized

4 CRR Levels

5 CRR Levels

Competency ratings were subjective

Competency ratings made subjective

Comparison with Wipro

Infosys

Wipro
2 Appraisals/yr

2 Appraisals/yr

Based on preset goals

Based on preset goals

CRR cycle not transparent

Transparent process

Less subjective Appraisal

Subjectivity involved in appraisal

Not linked to promotion

Not linked to promotion

Recommendations
Train the appraisers and reviewers so that the appraisal process becomes
consistent across the entire organization

Make the CRR process more transparent. This could be achieved by having a
session where each employee in the peer group is allowed to present his/her
case before others. In this case everyone in the peer group is aware of what
are the benchmarks against which the rating is given

Make the performagic rating the only criteria for CRR. This would clear the
ambiguity regarding the CRR process

Employee should be given a chance to put forth his/her case before the
performagic data is used for determining the CRR rating

Appendix

Performance Appraisal Methods

Critical incident method

The critical incidents for performance appraisal is a method in which the

manager writes down positive and negative performance behavior of
employees throughout the performance period

Weighted checklist method

This method describe a performance appraisal method where rater familiar

with the jobs being evaluated prepared a large list of descriptive statements
about effective and ineffective behavior on jobs

Paired comparison analysis

Paired comparison analysis is a good way of weighing up the relative

importance of options. A range of plausible options is listed. Each option is
compared against each of the other options. The results are tallied and the
option with the highest score is the preferred option.
Graphic rating scales

The Rating Scale is a form on which the manager simply checks off the
employee’s level of performance. This is the oldest and most widely method
used for performance appraisal.

Essay Evaluation method

This method asked managers / supervisors to describe strengths and

weaknesses of an employee’s behavior. Essay evaluation is a non-quantitative
technique. This method usually use with the graphic rating scale method.

Behaviorally anchored rating scales

This method used to describe a performance rating that focused on specific

behaviors or sets as indicators of effective or ineffective performance. It is a
combination of the rating scale and critical incident techniques of employee
performance evaluation.

Performance ranking method

Ranking is a performance appraisal method that is used to evaluate employee

performance from best to worst. Manager will compare an employee to
another employee, rather than comparing each one to a standard
measurement.

Management By Objectives (MBO) method

MBO is a process in which managers / employees set objectives for the

employee, periodically evaluate the performance, and reward according to the
result. MBO focuses attention on what must be accomplished (goals) rather
than how it is to be accomplished (methods)

360 degree performance appraisal

360 Degree Feedback is a system or process in which employees receive

confidential, anonymous feedback from the people who work around them.

Forced ranking (forced distribution)

Forced ranking is a method of performance appraisal to rank employee but in

order of forced distribution. For example, the distribution requested with 10 or
20 percent in the top category, 70 or 80 percent in the middle, and 10 percent
in the bottom.

Behavioral Observation Scales

Behavioral Observation Scales is frequency rating of critical incidents that

worker has performed.