Ranjan Chak Executive Director, Oracle IDC

Tell us about Oracle's operations in India.There are actually for all practical purposes, four entities. There is the local distribution, HQ in Delhi, which has offices at Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Calcutta. Then there is the Oracle Solution Services India Ltd in Bangalore and they do consulting.

There is the India Development Centre (IDC) at Hyderabad and Bangalore, the India Support Center and another branch of Oracle IDC in Bangalore. IDC does design development, maintenance and quality engineering for all Oracle products. We also do curriculum development, course content for web based and CBT training and creating manuals which are our end products.

Oracle IDC is planning to expand its infrastructure and get more people on board while other companies are downsizing, why?

We always had plans to grow. We are a little more focused now with more awareness within the community. Indeed the evidence of a slowdown is being felt by the customer and service providers. We are just as convinced that it will turn around. India continues to provide high quality solution that happens to be at an economically viable price. Previously one came to India because the work was cheap. Now one comes to India because one gets high quality work. The fact that it's also cheap allows you to go beyond.

Tell us about your Interview process.

We keep making process changes to reduce the tension involved for both the parties, especially for us, without losing out on quality. The interview process is three-tiered. After an ad in the newspaper, a huge number of resumes like 400-1000 a week come in. Our first job is to scan the resumes into a database. What gets sorted through the database then goes to each group allocated by skill set. Interviews are carried out by technical members who pass it up to the GM, and then the candidate finally meets the Business Unit Head.

A person is likely to go through three interviews. The interview tests the candidate not only for technical competency but also for personality, communication skills, initiative, and aptitude, and probably more of the softer skills than the technical ones. Technical questions are designed to elicit what we are looking for - not merely knowledge but the ability to think around problems.

Training is given a lot of importance at Oracle and all recruits get special training, tell us something about it.

Our training programme is very well structured. It is something that we created internally. General orientation, culture, policies, email etiquette and communication skills is what the training covers initially. A comprehensive feedback is given to the training and HR departments.

A person is well traced as far as what he needs, gets and should get. His own desires are also taken into account. Managers are kept updated to what the people need and what they are taught.

Can you share some of your best practices with our readers?

Training is of course one of them. The other is a lack of bureaucracy. We have also removed things that we ourselves have created, which were redundant. The last thing we want is a bunch of very bright guys doing a lot of tedious activities. If it is tedious then it can probably be automated. We apply this to all departments including HR and administration.

What are the retention policies?

There's no such thing as retention policies here. If a guy wants to leave he should be helped as much as possible .On the other hand, no person should want to go, unless he has a pressing need to do so. If people can communicate, then we can identify their desires and identify our needs. If the two match then there's no reason for attrition. People leave because of the lack of communication rather than the lack of a match. The match exists; it's just that it wasn't communicated.

We do not consciously think of retaining a particular person or a group of people. I'd much rather look at what the people want to do, and need to do, and what does the company want to do and needs to do. End result - we probably have the lowest attrition rates in the country. Does that mean that everybody in every niche is happy with what he does? No; but everybody in every niche should know that he can talk to managers and me. Do we try to suit everybody's desires and whims? Certainly not, if we did that, we wouldn't be a professional company. Open communication means saying this is what has to be done and why it has to be done.

People, in my opinion don't stay for things like car policies or whether there is a car given to you or not, like they did 20 years ago. They stay because of what they're learning, how they are growing and hopefully because they enjoy what they are doing.

In my orientation talk I tell employees that if you don't enjoy where you are, either we should change something or we can help you find a better job than you can do on your own.

Tell us about Oracle's culture, especially things that are distinctly Indian.

We have adapted HR policies for India. I was never an Oracle employee myself, I was hired to start this organisation and there was nobody else here. Most of what we do is Oracle IDC. HR, whom we hire, how we hire, how we retain, career growth, our management development programs are all acquired from India.

ARCHANA JAYAKAR

archana.hyd@careercommunity.co.in