Work Culture

Counting on each other

The associates work together and count on each other to meet the goals and deliver the value proposition. ADP India has detailed people processes and deeper employee commitment, along with well phased-out social engagements. By Renuka Vembu

The 2500 people at ADP work with each other and not for each other. This framework, with the focus on associates, forms their core values. Treating everyone with honesty, fairness, and respect, conducting business with the highest level of integrity, and an open culture, informal communications, hard work, and prudent financial management, are the foundation pillars on which they function. The environment at ADP is one with a blend of professionalism yet with an informal attitude. Their motto ‘Home away from home’ forms their DNA.

ADP rests on a vision which states, ‘Each client and prospect counts; each person counts; each deed counts; and each contact between a client or a prospect and an associate counts. Each client and prospect is either prospective future business or a prospective loss, depending upon the quality of our products, services and associates.’

Pride in values

ADP takes pride in some of its people processes—this ranges from their unwavering focus on associate-centricity, to high employee referral rates of over 50%. Since employees form the crux of the organization, they are entitled to special privileges and benefits as well. Some of the unique HR policies framed exclusively for the workforce are:

• Extended maternity leave and child care leave up to one year 
• Leave of absence programs for associates whose spouses work for defense services and need temporary relocation
• Transportation facility for women who are pregnant or people with temporary physical disability
• Company arranged transportation for any woman associate who is at work at or after 8.00 pm; providing security escort for airport/railway station transfers for women associates who have to be picked up or dropped between 8:30 pm and 6:00 am 
• Safe transportation of women associates—security guard in the vehicle if the first pick-up or the last drop is a woman
• Exclusive ladies gym facility with a professional trainer in the premises 
• Flexible work schedules on special needs 

All for associates

For associate involvement in all the processes and also to help them break the monotony and give their minds a creative impetus, ADP has undertaken several initiatives.

Creative workshops are organized to help the associates connect to their passion. Experts from the industry conduct these workshops which also make the employees’ families a part of it. Self defense for women associates, photography, theatre, painting, dance, creative writings, making greeting cards, have been some of the areas which have seen active participation. The self defense workshop saw women learn various techniques from a leading martial art expert in the field who was specially brought in for this purpose—to boost their confidence and handle themselves during times of distress.

Awareness workshops focus on helping the associates get better informed and educated about the various aspects of health. Towards this, ADP has been organizing regular aerobics classes, health check-up camps with leading hospitals, awareness on cancer, aids, diabetes, dental care, etc.

Open-door policy, round tables where challenges are identified by a group of associates and they brainstorm to arrive at the solution too, Employer Of Choice (EOC) programs, CSR polices, sports days, publishing newsletter, and conducting a host of workshops, are many of the projects that they have embarked upon.

Recruitment process

Satyanarayana Vinjamoori, Head, Human Resources, ADP India, said, “In today’s competitive industry, it is a challenge to hire the right candidate. Apart from the key skills that they are required to fulfill, we aim at two A’s i.e. attitude and aptitude. This mix is essential and gives result to a better adaptability to the company’s cultural perspective and the learning curve, resulting in a better workforce in the long run.”

Our hiring process is meticulous, in which we have potential candidates meet up with a cross-section of our leaders at various levels so that the prospective employees get to interact with and view the organizational fit from multiple view-points and vice-versa, Vinjamoori added.

Target-based selection and behavioral interviewing methods are used to match the candidate’s skill-sets to the job competencies which aids the selection methodology for candidates at middle and senior levels. For entry points, competency based fitment and selection is made through an exhaustive aptitude, soft skills and profiling tests, followed by multiple rounds of personal interviews.

Job descriptions and competency mapping for each role/job level is clearly established. These are derived from formally defined ADP success factors that are used as the basis for all ADP locations worldwide.

Training and refining

ADP espouses a culture of learning and has a slew of training programs aimed at all levels in the chain-of-command. Focus on learning initiatives for new hires takes place with a new hire orientation program, domain-specific training, refreshers, and chaperone program for targeted mentoring for new hires. For associates who are already a part of the organization, process refreshers, cross-skilling, job rotation, soft-skills training, leadership training, SME programs, centres of excellence to create competencies in focused areas, are some of the initiatives rolled-out. They also conduct outbound leadership development programs and have a leadership series by the name of INTERNAL in which the senior management shares its experiences.

There exists a structured learning management system across the organization called ‘Learning Edge’. Every associate is expected to clock in an average of 80 learning hours per annum driven by business needs as well as associate aspirations.

Vinjamoori opined, “We believe that leadership is a virtue that is independent of position. Various EOC initiatives at our office are aimed at helping these skills to be polished as all the initiatives are driven by the associates. All the CSR programs, sports tourneys are organized by associates who show interest in organizing, planning and managing teams with support from HR.”

Appraisals happen bi-annually and they have an in-house evaluation tool to handle the same.

Along with family

ADP believes that their extended family has a very significant role to play in the productivity of the organization and they take all efforts to keep the associate motivated and support them throughout. Family day and many other company-wide activities which look to directly engage the associates’ family members such as unique creative workshops like painting, designing, etc., help them get to know the organization better and be a part of it too.

Vinjamoori said, “The ADP newsletter which has updates about the company is another example of directly engaging with our extended family, wherein the newsletter is sent to the family of the associate and contains updates about the progress and activities of the company for a particular period. Another good exponent of this focus is the New Year greetings, which go out from the company to all members of our extended family. In keeping with a tradition, the design of the greeting is in-sourced, and a special creative workshop is conducted for our associates and their family’s for this purpose. Once the designs are rendered into the medium of our choice, each greeting card is personally addressed to the family member of the associate, and also is personally signed by the MD of DP India.”

CSR activities

CSR is a forum in ADP where volunteers work on causes of social significance, both internal and external. They have a group who are involved in causes ranging from blood donation camps to working towards eco conservation to educating people on eye pledging to spreading awareness on AIDS.

Under the ‘Go Green’ campaign, the company distributed more than 500 saplings to their employees who planted them in their locality or near their houses.

ADP India ran a three-month eco-awareness and action drive in the city of Pune. The drive was aptly named ‘Let’s Go Green’. They used the mass media to promote and mobilize interest on the various eco issues like water conservation through rain water harvesting, pollution control through pooling or public transport, tree cover increase through planting of trees, prevention of global warming by use of CFL lights, and paper recycling. They also ran a signature drive where they had over 1 lakh citizens of Pune participated and a matching financial contribution was made by ADP to Pune Municipal Corporation.  

Their focus for this year, at the workplace, is to Go Green, for which they have been carrying out several initiatives. The Go Green campaign involves awareness for both internal (posters, lectures) as well as external (traffic safety campaign in Hyderabad, eco friendliness campaign in Pune) audience. They have recently launched the e-waste management drive where the organization is facilitating scientific disposal of e-waste. Associates can bring their e-waste and the organization will collect and hand it over to their processing partner.

ADP had adopted the village of Chinamaynavani Lanka in Andhra Pradesh during the tsunami. Some of the other initiatives include supporting orphanages, old-age homes, contributing to relief efforts (China earthquake, Bihar flood) and blood donation drive every six months.

renuka.vembu@expressindia.com