Please be careful of what you share and just because it comes from someone who has excelled in one area it doesn't necessarily mean that they are an expert in everything else.
Here is how I am going to show you and seek your views of the same.
In another continent while deploying Lean Six Sigma (LSS) we found that the managers were sitting at the desk during the morning production hours and checking mails or surfing doing PC stuff and the division was losing productivity. One of our Lean experts went over and asked the employees (with senior executive sponsorship and approval) to remove all the chairs.
The next day the managers only spent the time they needed and then went on to the production floor and executed their jobs as this was an underground mining organization. Thus the productivity then shot up as the root cause was entirely eliminated.
Infosys Situation:
Dear Mr. Murthy,
Congratulations on your achievements in your field and with all humility and respect, here is my suggestion for you to consider....
Asking the employees to leave early is like nailing jellow to the wall. It is not likely to work nor will it sustain well. The managers under the senior executives created this and so the employees (women or men, married or single) either work late or simply stay late. One smart office manager and senior executive got tired of saying this over and over again and expecting different results or change in behavior. He claimed it was insanity and so he came up with a simple solution - just turn off the lights and power with the appropriate breaker switch that keeps the minimum lighting for the building for safety reasons but cuts out the internet connection as well as PC monitors and telephone links.
The results he got were of a breakthrough in the history of the company. People got used to the new surroundings and knew when to start and when to finish. Whenever you provide excess of infrastructural support, there is a tendency to abuse it.
So Mr. Murthy, taking the time to preach to the employees on what criteria to follow to stay at Infosys, can be easily replaced by considering eliminating the root cause for this behavior and getting rid of managers who promote or encourage such behavior of your younger generation.
What you are advising is "Defect Sub Optimization" where you are only trying to fix the problem by band aiding it. Putting a band-aid is only symptomatic and not going to last for more than a few days when it becomes weaker and the process just slides back or gets worse. Get to the root cause of the problem and eliminate it. You have the power to pull the plug and do so without having to place the burden on the employees.
You are a CEO and achieved a lot in your life and can say leave or work for someone else. Imagine if everyone were like you they wouldn't be working for you and so these younger engineers need our mentorship, trust, and guidance that is straight from our wisdom and not mere tough words of quit if someone fails to follow a criteria. Why even give them a chance to fail and why not Poke-Yoke it and avoid the disasters? This would also help them improve their health and longevity.
More importantly, it would also improve the brand of Infosys as the first company to do such things in this millennium and have a high retention with their well performing employees.
Now, take action and then there is no need for a speech!
Dr. Shree
From United States, Livermore
Here is how I am going to show you and seek your views of the same.
In another continent while deploying Lean Six Sigma (LSS) we found that the managers were sitting at the desk during the morning production hours and checking mails or surfing doing PC stuff and the division was losing productivity. One of our Lean experts went over and asked the employees (with senior executive sponsorship and approval) to remove all the chairs.
The next day the managers only spent the time they needed and then went on to the production floor and executed their jobs as this was an underground mining organization. Thus the productivity then shot up as the root cause was entirely eliminated.
Infosys Situation:
Dear Mr. Murthy,
Congratulations on your achievements in your field and with all humility and respect, here is my suggestion for you to consider....
Asking the employees to leave early is like nailing jellow to the wall. It is not likely to work nor will it sustain well. The managers under the senior executives created this and so the employees (women or men, married or single) either work late or simply stay late. One smart office manager and senior executive got tired of saying this over and over again and expecting different results or change in behavior. He claimed it was insanity and so he came up with a simple solution - just turn off the lights and power with the appropriate breaker switch that keeps the minimum lighting for the building for safety reasons but cuts out the internet connection as well as PC monitors and telephone links.
The results he got were of a breakthrough in the history of the company. People got used to the new surroundings and knew when to start and when to finish. Whenever you provide excess of infrastructural support, there is a tendency to abuse it.
So Mr. Murthy, taking the time to preach to the employees on what criteria to follow to stay at Infosys, can be easily replaced by considering eliminating the root cause for this behavior and getting rid of managers who promote or encourage such behavior of your younger generation.
What you are advising is "Defect Sub Optimization" where you are only trying to fix the problem by band aiding it. Putting a band-aid is only symptomatic and not going to last for more than a few days when it becomes weaker and the process just slides back or gets worse. Get to the root cause of the problem and eliminate it. You have the power to pull the plug and do so without having to place the burden on the employees.
You are a CEO and achieved a lot in your life and can say leave or work for someone else. Imagine if everyone were like you they wouldn't be working for you and so these younger engineers need our mentorship, trust, and guidance that is straight from our wisdom and not mere tough words of quit if someone fails to follow a criteria. Why even give them a chance to fail and why not Poke-Yoke it and avoid the disasters? This would also help them improve their health and longevity.
More importantly, it would also improve the brand of Infosys as the first company to do such things in this millennium and have a high retention with their well performing employees.
Now, take action and then there is no need for a speech!
Dr. Shree
From United States, Livermore
Open letter – recipe for turning around Infosys and motivating employees
Remove all the 4 digit employee number employees. These represent emplyees who got into Infosys at a time when Infosys was not a recognized company and hence Infosys would have recruited sub standard talent. Unfortunately these people are now in senior positions and spoiling the company. These people don’t even have basic etiquettes and presentation and communication skills.
Stop the culture of appreciating managers who encourage working late and encourage work from home
Penalize employees who work from home
Ensure managers donot call employees after office hours or during lunch break
Organize a poll to identify the managers who are encouraging a culture of staying late and slogging and then systematically remove them
Reward managers who “work smart” rather than managers who “make employees slog”
Donot promote managers just because you need to retain them. Check with their reportees whether that manager is required
Have formalized anonymous feedback for every manager
From India, Bangalore
Remove all the 4 digit employee number employees. These represent emplyees who got into Infosys at a time when Infosys was not a recognized company and hence Infosys would have recruited sub standard talent. Unfortunately these people are now in senior positions and spoiling the company. These people don’t even have basic etiquettes and presentation and communication skills.
Stop the culture of appreciating managers who encourage working late and encourage work from home
Penalize employees who work from home
Ensure managers donot call employees after office hours or during lunch break
Organize a poll to identify the managers who are encouraging a culture of staying late and slogging and then systematically remove them
Reward managers who “work smart” rather than managers who “make employees slog”
Donot promote managers just because you need to retain them. Check with their reportees whether that manager is required
Have formalized anonymous feedback for every manager
From India, Bangalore
Open letter – recipe for turning around Infosys and motivating employees
Remove all the 4 digit employee number employees. These represent emplyees who got into Infosys at a time when Infosys was not a recognized company and hence Infosys would have recruited sub standard talent. Unfortunately these people are now in senior positions and spoiling the company. These people don’t even have basic etiquettes and presentation and communication skills.
Stop the culture of appreciating managers who encourage working late and encourage work from home
Penalize employees who work from home
Ensure managers donot call employees after office hours or during lunch break
Organize a poll to identify the managers who are encouraging a culture of staying late and slogging and then systematically remove them
Reward managers who “work smart” rather than managers who “make employees slog”
Donot promote managers just because you need to retain them. Check with their reportees whether that manager is required
Have formalized anonymous feedback for every manager
Managers stop sending appreciation emails appreciating employees who have worked on weekends and late nights
From India, Bangalore
Remove all the 4 digit employee number employees. These represent emplyees who got into Infosys at a time when Infosys was not a recognized company and hence Infosys would have recruited sub standard talent. Unfortunately these people are now in senior positions and spoiling the company. These people don’t even have basic etiquettes and presentation and communication skills.
Stop the culture of appreciating managers who encourage working late and encourage work from home
Penalize employees who work from home
Ensure managers donot call employees after office hours or during lunch break
Organize a poll to identify the managers who are encouraging a culture of staying late and slogging and then systematically remove them
Reward managers who “work smart” rather than managers who “make employees slog”
Donot promote managers just because you need to retain them. Check with their reportees whether that manager is required
Have formalized anonymous feedback for every manager
Managers stop sending appreciation emails appreciating employees who have worked on weekends and late nights
From India, Bangalore
hello,
thankyou very much sir for giving us this kind of view from you.. i totally agreewith you not bcz u r the founder of this compasny just bcz u r right about thi speople are working hard just to impresss the boss and they are just forgetting that now only nights are coming the evening are getting loss from ourlife... if i will work in ur company as a employee (if i get a chance) then i will definitely not work for late hours if really not indeed...
thankyou very much again
HEMANT SHARMA
IT ENGINEER
thankyou very much sir for giving us this kind of view from you.. i totally agreewith you not bcz u r the founder of this compasny just bcz u r right about thi speople are working hard just to impresss the boss and they are just forgetting that now only nights are coming the evening are getting loss from ourlife... if i will work in ur company as a employee (if i get a chance) then i will definitely not work for late hours if really not indeed...
thankyou very much again
HEMANT SHARMA
IT ENGINEER
I think people are missing the points mentioned in the mail. It's not against working, it's against sitting unnecessarily in the office and wasting resources.
@ROOPABNR: It may be a hoax or it can be real, but "Tell Mr.Narayanamurthy" shows a lot of disrespect for a respected man like him. Sorry, but this is not the way to refer to great people who has achieved a lot through their hard work. The mail states "Never put in extra time unless really needed"..so that explains everything I guess...
@VISH_MR82: May be it's not from Narayan Murthy, but before giving a definite statement such as "now a days no bachelor is spedning time in office" we need to think once and shouldn't be judgmental so easily because . I have been with a startup from past 6 years, and during this period, I have come across with people who simply sits in the office because they don't have anything to do at home, or to be precise, a free internet is always good to surf.
Since we run a company, we know how important it is to save the company resources (which includes electricity, food, cabs, bandwidth etc), and we also know that how important it is to finish work when we are committed to clients..there comes the question of staying at office and working late nights. It's always a good practice to come office on time, finish the given work, leave on time and have a healthy peosonal life too...
From India, Bangalore
@ROOPABNR: It may be a hoax or it can be real, but "Tell Mr.Narayanamurthy" shows a lot of disrespect for a respected man like him. Sorry, but this is not the way to refer to great people who has achieved a lot through their hard work. The mail states "Never put in extra time unless really needed"..so that explains everything I guess...
@VISH_MR82: May be it's not from Narayan Murthy, but before giving a definite statement such as "now a days no bachelor is spedning time in office" we need to think once and shouldn't be judgmental so easily because . I have been with a startup from past 6 years, and during this period, I have come across with people who simply sits in the office because they don't have anything to do at home, or to be precise, a free internet is always good to surf.
Since we run a company, we know how important it is to save the company resources (which includes electricity, food, cabs, bandwidth etc), and we also know that how important it is to finish work when we are committed to clients..there comes the question of staying at office and working late nights. It's always a good practice to come office on time, finish the given work, leave on time and have a healthy peosonal life too...
From India, Bangalore
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