India Tele Linkages

India Tele Linkages (ITL) was one of the pioneers to enter the telecom business in India in the private
sector. India T.L. was the only company to have brand recognition with its popular Tulip range of
telephones. ITL had restructured itself into a multi product/ service group by diversifying into other
telecom and non-telecom services like healthcare too. Its service venture included Chennai
operations, ITL cellular and the cellular licensee in Andhra territory. After distributing different areas
among different groups of companies, ITL also ventured into manufacturing of transmission
equipments. In fact, ITL was the first company to get ISO 9002 accreditation in India. In the year
2000, it entered into a tie-up with LDC Telecom, Oman to manufacture SDH, digital control
multiplier and some network access products. The company registered total sales of RS. 76 crores in
1995-96, a 22% growth over previous year’s figure of Rs.62.4 crores. The net profit was Rs. 9.14
crores, a growth of 67.7% over the previous year’s figure of Rs. 5.45 crores. ITL had forged an
alliance with the global giant German Telecom for a complete range of office automation products.
The company had started distributing ISDN handsets and terminal adapters. The company had also
set up a joint venture with Tkahami Ltd., Japan to manufacture pagers.ITL had chosen a strategy of
building brands whether it was Tulip in telephone instruments or Spacetel in cellular services. As the
third step in the growth of India Tele linkages, it was granted license to provide basic telephone
services in telecom circle of the state of Tamil Nadu by the Ministry of Communications,
Government of India on April 18, 1998. On August 4, 1999 India Tele Linkages set up its first private
line at Coimbatore with its head office at Chennai and five regional offices at Bangalore, Hyderabad,
Bhuwaneshwar, Trivandram and Coimbatore. Initially, the company was the only private player and
did not perceive any threat from the sole player in public sector. It had managed to get a net customer
base of more than 1 lakh in the state of Tamil Nadu alone. Now, in the quickly expanding telecom
sector new players were entering in the industry and some of them were well established, widely
diversified and financially secure companies.
The various functional areas of ITL were: Operations, sales and Marketing, Technical,
Finance and Accounts, Human Resources, IT, Materials, Limited mobility and quantity. The company
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had a very tall structure (Appendix I) wherein there were 14 levels with the first 9 level at every
regional office and the other corporate level positions were at the corporate head office. The
Coimbatore region was headed by Kamal Kumar, a 56 year old engineer from an army background
who had taken VRS from the army to join the corporate sector. He had joined India Teletel after a
short stint at Moray Enterprise as a branch head. ITL at Coimbatore had the departments of
operations, sales, marketing, technical, finance and accounts which were headed by HOD of manager
level. Human resources was headed by Rakesh Sharma, Deputy Manager- HR, a 34 year old MBA
with HR specialization. He was with the company since 1997 and reported to regional head, Kamal
Kumar at Coimbatore and Sushil Kumar, Manager HR corporate office, Chennai. The Coimbatore
office had hardcore (technical) functions with employees in the average age 29 years and representing
all parts of the country. The male-female ratio was 90:10.ITL requited people on the basis of
employee’s suitability vis-à-vis the job requirement or competencies required to do the job
effectively. A detailed competency mapping exercise was undertaken for all the positions and each
individual’s competencies were identified and mapped against the desirable ones. All this was
document in the Role Description Directory, listing individual’s job responsibilities (KRAs)
competencies needed, performance areas and measurement parameters. This exercise was done
rigorously and updated at regular intervals. For this, the company would hire some international
consultancy firm every time. Individual employee’s performance, irrespective of the level was
monitored and feedback was given on the basis of the task assigned (as per individual’s KRAs) and
task completed (measurement parameters). For middle and higher levels, the feedback was given after
every six months and for junior levels it was given quarterly. This formed an essential part of the
Annual Performance Appraisal System. 360-degree appraisal system was followed for the higher
levels, whereas for lower levels it did not apply. The data generated out of this exercise was solely
used for the employee development. The promotion in the company was performance-based. The
high performers were identified and given fast track career growth in the company. The performance
assessment was an exhaustive process to be carried out in five steps. The first step was that an
individual would fill in the self-assessment from followed by his rating by his HOD on the five point
scale in terms of outstanding, very good, good, average, below average. In the third step, the
employee after discussing with his HOD, would sign the form and it was then sent to a normalization
committee which was constituted of HODs of all the departments. The committee would ensure that
the disagreements would be settled while maintaining the bell curve in performance reports. The
decision of the committee was passed on the HR. The last step was releasing of promotional/
increment letters. In order to motivate employees for higher performance, Performance Linked
Incentive (PLI) were also introduced. The PLI parameters with the corresponding weightage factors
were decided at the beginning of the year and depending upon the fulfillment of the target set in the
PLI parameters, rewards for good work done (monthly), performer of the quarter (POQ), CEO
performer of the award was given to the employees to recognize their contribution towards the growth
of the organization. For good work done, two lunch coupons worth Rs. 50 were given to people from
every functional area and for performer of the year, Rs. 1500/- was given to people from every
functional area and for performer of the year, Rs. 10,000/- was awarded which could be given to just
two or three people in the whole organization.
The company had also introduced a unique 6-sigma system to encourage creative and
innovative culture in the organization. The employees would register their suggestions on daily,
weekly and monthly basis and earn credit points for each suggestion if accepted and implemented.
These points were accumulated in the sigma system and the person earning the highest number of
points in the mid-term evaluation would be awarded a cash prize of Rs.30,000/-.In addition to this,
salary benchmarking was also done after two years to reduce disparity between the existing salary
structure of the company and the salary structure of the leading companies in the telecom industry
after reviewing the figures that would appear in the business bulletins. The company had n also
introduced the accident insurance, personal insurance, benevolent fund for the employee’s family in
case of natural death, insurance for spouse and family members, subject to the limit of designation
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and the premium being reimbursed by the company. The company also had the practice of
celebrating birthdays, monthly fun days and breakfast meetings for the employees. For employees’
wives, there was Teletel Wives Welfare Association that would arrange tours, meals, Porting, gettogethers and various contents to build a culture in the organization, wherein fun would be an intrinsic
part while not losing the business head’s wives. All the expenses were borne by the company.ITL
company had a strong belief in continuous employee development and therefore, gave a lot emphasis
on training every focus. The President, who would be CEO’s wife, headed this association and all
secretaries were regional employee was required undergo at least 11 Mondays training in a year in the
key result area. Training needs assessment and evaluation of training effectiveness were also the
important components of the training program. An individual was required to fill in the need
assessment from himself and performance assessment was also taken into consideration while
nominating an employee for training. There was a CEO development program too, at top
management levels. Technical training was conducted in-house whereas for behavioral training,
external consultants were hired. The company had a tie-up with three international agencies for
EDPs in quality and motivation. It gave weightage to various customer touch points and identified
and framed specific training modules. The company had also framed a policy of conducting openhouse at various levels. The CEO was supposed to have it once in six months at different regional
offices, the Vice President once in three months and the Regional Head once in a month. Mostly, this
exercise could not be rigorously followed due to hectic schedules of the managers. Kamal Kumar, the
Regional Head and Rakesh Sharma HRD head at Coimbatore felt that the company had open culture
as they followed an open door communication policy. Moreover, low panel walls and open cabins
would further help the employees to have free and informal interactions. In spite of this the company
had a very high employee turnover. There was poaching from other players in the fast growing
telecommunication industry. Rakesh Sharma attributed this turnover to the lucrative packages offered
by their competitors and Kamal Kumar was losing sleep over the loss of trained employees to the
competitors. The competitors being well diversified and financially sound could bear the burnt of
losses whereas India Teletel could not afford loss.
1. How far do you think that that HR strategies are in alignment with the corporate
strategy of the company?
2. Had you been Kamal Kumar, what steps would you to minimize the employee
turnover?
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