With what can only be described a shocker, Satyam Computer Services has fallen from grace. A widely admired company and 4th largest IT services provider in the country, Satyam was considered the pride of Hyderabad, not any more. Former CEO, Ramalingam Raju’s confession that the company had inflated assets and numbers to the tune of almost Rs.8000 crore has surely dented my confidence and trust in who runs a company.
Being in the HR profession, I feel strongly for the employees and can only imagine their plight at this moment of crisis. What can the human resources department do, how do you rebuild faith built upon several years of trust and loyalty? Will Satyam regain its lost glory? Serious questions and some of which I will try to give a view on.
For me the issue here is 'trust'. In wake of the current situation, can employees of any company be it large or small trust the top management. I would suggest that all companies be more transparent in their dealings and seek to involve employees at all levels while taking important decision whether related to potential takeovers, mergers or new business ventures. Of course it goes without saying, the financial books need to be regulated with a tighter noose (What were Satyam’s auditors doing???) It is quite unlikely that internal auditors were not in the know of the financial wrongdoings perpetrated in Satyam for years. Can the auditors merely wash their hands by saying the book of accounts is a primary responsibility of the management and auditors merely audit the documents provided to them by the management? The auditors need to explain what process they adopted in authenticating the inflated profits and fictitious assets referred to by Raju. SEBI needs to do a recheck on the prevailing measures and it would be wise on their part to have a look at the many of the big IT companies for a start! I’m not sure how a Satyam employee would be able to work. Reading an article on a news site, many Satyam employees are looking for opportunities elsewhere and it comes as no surprise that the job portals had a jump in the number of resumes being posted from 5000 to 14000 within a few hours and that number would surely have gone up with news that the company may have to let 10000 employees go as they struggle to find the cash required to pay a mammoth amount of Rs.500 crore per month. One of my colleague’s friends who just joined Satyam a month ago after receiving an offer of 8 lakhs has revealed he wouldn’t mind moving out even if it meant taking a pay cut.
Satyam’s Human Resources division would no doubt had a tough time with trying to allay the fears of employees and uncertainty of what the future holds. However, I see this as an opportunity for the HR to rise as leaders in troubled times (after all HR guys are the go-to people for most issues in any organization). The first step would be to ignore rumours being spread by media with all that is happened and furthermore to be patient with the proceedings. The next step should be to advise employees againstmeeting the media be it directly or anonymously. As a constant reminder it would be wise to have meetings and discussion with employees to stress the importance of sticking together- we will weather the storm. This is a good time as any to have employee engagements on their campus with activities such as team building games and motivational speeches to bring spirits up and also take away from the distraction of what has happened. The point I’m trying to make here is that the company need to shown that employees are valuable to them and will go to all possible extents to regaining their trust and HR can drive this point home. All said and done, the task of retaining employees will be extremely difficult and the possibility of a temporary reduction in pay over a extended period will not help the cause.
With a new board in place and potential bids coming in for the company, the uncertainty has grown but the new CEO has been honest, which is a refreshing change given the state of affairs, telling one and all that things have not been done in the right way, that mistakes have been made and it will take time to bring back a sense of normality. Speaking to a senior manager at Satyam, I was informed that although the media has portrayed an image of despair and gloom around Satyam, the reality is that people are going on about their work and HR has done a good job at keeping things on track. He further explained that all the work done by Satyam has been of high quality and hence they have large projects. HR has reminded people that their hard work and service to clients and projects has been a driving force towards retaining clients and building the company.
