This Indian company is setting some serious HR goals for others to follow!

There’s perhaps a lesson for every company to take from this one company Mahindra Comviva – a company which provides mobility solutions to its customers. What’s fascinating is that this company is also providing mobility solutions to its employees - except that it is doing it in a different way altogether.

Realizing that employee development is imperative for the company’s over-all growth, it has put in place an Internal Career Opportunity policy which encourages employees to take on different roles and helps them develop new skills, learn new technology, domain and products, as they are rotated from one department to another.

This new policy if adopted by companies can ‘shake’ the system and help in creation of a stronger, balanced talent pipeline.

So far, it is proving to be a boon for employees at Mahindra Comviva, who are not able to explore vertical growth in their current team/role, because of lack of position at the next level. It is also giving them an opportunity to work with new customers/teams and enhance their professional capacities with every move.
Sounds good, but how are the manager’s concerns about resource management with their current team structure being dealt with? Mr Sandyp Bhattacharya, Senior VP & Head of HR at Mahindra Comviva tells us - “The process of ICO is followed as any external hiring would in a given situation. In our system, our regular Heart2Heart meeting helps the managers prepare prior to the employee deciding to take any step towards exit or is negatively/positively affected by external influences. So the managers will be able to ascertain and handle the situation like any other exit situation. The hiring SLAs of 60 days kick in as soon as an employee moves into another role.”
Moreover, employees can apply for a position -one level higher than their current role, which makes the process fairer. On getting selected; the promotion letter is given in advance to the employee though the promotion date is aligned to the next immediate cycle date (June 1 or December 1).
One of the employees at this company, Deshbandhu Bansal who is handling Messaging and Broadband Solutions in Bengaluru currently says his role is defined as Business Development, but he has got the opportunity to work on various solutions such as Messaging, Mobile Internet, Digital Services, Analytics, etc. in various roles such as Partner Management, Product Management and New product initiatives, over the last six years.
But anyone wanting to move has a few simple rules to follow. Mr Bhattacharya says – “An employee has to wait for 2 years before applying for any job rotation once he is part of the system. However, thereafter, if there is alignment towards the role and there are no performance issues, an individual can apply after 18 months to subsequent change. The intent is also to promote a positive environment for growth and potential and not be a rolling stone of the system.”
Here are some of the Benefits of having an Internal Career Opportunity policy
- offers regular rotation of job - exposes individual to new horizons and encourage them to achieve targets - helps in grooming, preparing, enhancing and nurturing employee skills, both functional and cross functional, and developing them as future leaders - It also provides advantage to external candidates, as they can be assessed based on the perceived maturity to handle the vacant role - Gives better understanding of the big picture that allows people with different ideas, perspectives, and expertise to voice their ideas and bring creative and innovative solutions within the team