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| We
caught up with Mr. Subash Rao, the HR Head of Cisco Systems (India)
Private Limited, and talked to him about Work-Life Balance. Cisco
has been ranked among the top 5 companies in the Hewitt Best Employer
survey, and we spoke to Mr. Rao about the measures taken in Cisco
on ensuring Work-Life Balance for its employees, and his view on Work-Life
Balance as a concept, and its importance in the current context. |
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| Work-Life
Balance is….. |
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As
the competition for Talent increases, the differentiation between
companies will be on newer dimensions, and providing employee
friendly policies is critical. |
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| Traditional
Employee Value Propositions like compensation, benefits etc.
will become hygiene factors, pushing companies to be different
and provide something more. Work-Life Balance is one such differentiator
- it also correlates with the changing demographics and lifestyle
of employees and has a better buy in with the newer generations
want to work hard and also play equally hard! |
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| Living
the Work - Life Balance value…. |
| We
believe firmly in supporting Work-Life Balance and have created a
culture facilitating and encouraging employees to manage their personal
and work lives in an integrated manner without compromising either,
without being judged or perceived as not serious. |
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| Steps
we take towards ensuring Work-Life Balance…. |
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Cisco
has a whole gamut of policies and infrastructure which facilitate
employees seeking to balance work and personal priorities. Employees
are provided laptops, data cards for web access, broadband access
at home and remote access to our systems. |
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We
do not track attendance and office times as most employees are
on global teams and end up participating in calls and meetings
from home outside of normal business hours. |
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We
have forums like the Women's Action Network (WAN) and mentoring
processes which enable employees to seek support and guidance
to manage their careers and life more effectively. |
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Flexible work arrangements, transport facilities, remote working
tools, Employee assistance programs, etc. are all a part of
Cisco's value proposition. |
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| These
do affect employee performance…. |
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Our
employee satisfaction and employee engagement scores are quite
high, with flexible work environment actually often being cited
as one of the reasons why employees like to work at Cisco. |
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| Business
benefits may not be directly linked to employee engagement,
but I believe it accrues from all the positive feelings and
longer tenures of employees when they are enabled to focus on
work without the additional burden of feeling like their personal
obligations are neglected. |
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| India
vs. globally... |
| I
feel many Indian companies are somewhat slower than companies in the
US or UK in terms of being genuinely accepting of flexible work arrangements
and employees trying to balance work and life priorities. Policies
and options to balance work and life can only be successful if employees
are confident that availing them will not be perceived negatively
by their immediate managers. It is not uncommon for managers or colleagues
to joke about a person taking a "half day off" when the person leaves
office at 5 pm. Such innocuous jokes can lead to a feeling that long
hours at the workplace are a necessity. |
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| As
companies become clearer on work goals and objectives as also means
to measure them, surrogate and misrepresentative substitutes like
hours worked will matter even less. |
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