|
WORKCULTURE:
orbit-e Consulting
Headquartered
in Bangalore, Orbit-e Consulting was established in April 2000 by
six entrepreneurs. Today the company provides Internet enabled solutions,
wireless solutions, back office systems and undertakes complex system
integration tasks with a strong focus on financial services. Orbit-e
has grown to a strong team of 85 working in India with another 26
based in the US. With an average age of 27, it is a young and aggressive
company. In the last 18 months the organisation has bagged projects
from the BSE, Bharati, Mantraonline, GlaxoSmithKline, FedEx, Nokia,
EverGreen and Mario.
Orbit-e
is built around the three “E’s” energy, enterprise
and enthusiasm, and the dream of impacting the way Global 2000 corporations
do business. This gets reflected as one walks into their office.
There is energy, an entrepreneurial spirit and a sense of accomplishment.
Out of the 85 employees based in India, 68 are engineers from IIM
Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta. 17 of them look after support
services. The company has a ratio of one MBA to every two employees,
which essentially makes for seventy percent of the employees who
are engineers, engineer/MBAs or Masters Degree holders. The average
stay at Orbit-e is four years while the senior management team has
eight to twelve years of experience in various technology domains
such as process consulting, technology architecting and delivery
and systems integration with at least one of the vertical industries
the company is focusing upon.
Lyndon
Saldanha, director-human resources at Orbit-e says, “We hire
people with fire in the belly to perform, maintain high energy levels,
are committed and have leadership qualities and the ability to work
in a team. Ours is an open culture where no idea is ‘stupid’,
and no person ‘junior’. We respect differences at work,
and encourage innovation. Our HR vision is to create an absorbing
work atmosphere, where people feel motivated by challenge and responsibility,
learning continuously, and are rewarded for taking initiative and
driven by excellence.”
One
unique factor that differentiates Orbit-e from other companies is
that here employee’s create their own work schedules. They
are free to choose any timing they want. The hiring process at Orbit-e
begins with three to four rounds of discussions with the candidate.
During these sessions different people from Orbit-e talk to the
candidate. The idea is not to make the process taxing for the individual,
but to allow both the organisation as well as the individual to
get a good feel of each other. “We hire fresh management graduates
from the IIMs only. From a compensation perspective we are competitively
placed as compared to other leading organisations in the business,”
says Saldanha.
All
those involved in the interviewing process at Orbit-e are consultants
and do hands-on client work, which gives the candidate an opportunity
to get first-hand information on what it is like to work with the
company. These people are fully involved in the decision-making
process, and the company encourages candidates to ask questions
regarding their work-lives. Freshers go through four days of training
in pre-sales and consultancy and then they are exposed to one specialised
domain. Orbit-e mandates 14 days training in a calendar year for
all employees. The training is spread out across lectures, presentations
and nominations to external courses and seminars. Saldanha points
out, “We spend around two percent of our payroll cost on training.”
Rohin
Dharmakumar, business analyst at Orbit-e joined just eight months
back from IIM Calcutta. He says, “What I like the most in Orbit-e
are the flexible timings. An Orbitean can decides his or her work
schedule. We are free to wear what we are comfortable with. You
won’t find ties and formal wear here. The dress code ranges
from formals to smart casuals anything goes. We are free to use
our workstations the way we want provided that we spend a large
part of our time there.”
Orbit-e
has another interesting programme called Resource Manager Programme,
which is a powerful human resource strategy to enable active participation
of all employees in building the organisation. Each resource manager
is responsible in assisting the employees in mapping aspirations,
defining career growth paths, helping to create the requisite environment
to achieve the goal set and ensuring competence building through
training programmes. Deepa Machani, senior consultant says, “I
like the work culture of Orbit-e. The company allows its employees
to participate in decision-making, giving us more responsibility
and provides opportunities for personal growth.”
|
