Open door culture helps Synygy retain top company award

PUNE & BANGALORE, INDIA: Pune based Synygy India Pvt. Ltd was recently chosen for the second consecutive time as the 'Most Exciting Emerging Company to Work For', in a NASSCOM-sponsored survey of emerging IT companies conducted by Right Management India.

The Exciting Emerging Companies (EEC) survey solicited employee opinions from sixty companies on workplace issues such as overall environment, career development, job satisfaction, rewards and recognition, and fairness and equity.

CIOL caught up with Synygy India Managing Director Chetan Shah to know more about what makes working with Synygy India an exciting experience.

CIOL: What makes Synygy stand out among emerging enterprises ?

Chetan Shah: Synygy follows a truly ‘open door’ culture, where any manager or executive can be contacted by anyone in the organization. We also know the importance of taking time out for fun activities and we have very broad and unique celebrations such as diversity fair; "Herbert" happy hours and Fun Fridays, summer and winter solstice party to name a few. We are an organization that truly cares about all-round development of its employees and thats what makes us an exciting company to work for!

Being recognized second year is a row is real proof that we have created a sustainable culture and being ranked as the top company in Pune is really a testament to our employees for recognizing our efforts and letting us know that we are doing the right things and so keep doing this.

CIOL: What efforts have been made to make use of technology to increase employees performance and bring interactivity in the organization ?

CS: We believe in adopting technology to improve working conditions. As a step, we have adopted online peer-to-peer recognition programs, in which any employee can recognize any other employee for his/her efforts merely by the click of a button.

We also have online newsgroups, which act as both, online notice boards to share announcements, and an exclusive place for the employees to discuss important issues. Synygy also employs advanced intranet features, which enable employees to finish most of the administrative tasks with just a few clicks, such as managing leaves etc.

CIOL: Do you have any unique HR policies that makes working in your organization distinct ?

CS: Synygy has one of the most challenging hiring processes. We hire tough, so we can manage easy. Since we value people who can deliver results in a way that positively' impacts our culture, we hire first for fit, then job skills.

CIOL: What can you tell us about the Synygy role in helping enterprises to create a better working environments ?

CS: Synygy v11 software is based on the latest web technologies and has been very well received in the market place. Using these latest technologies has very much created excitement amongst our software organization. We have created some cool graphics and animations that have added a “fun” element for our Professional Services organization which is the largest user of our software.

CIOL: How has been 2008 for Synygy in terms of business. What is the projection for 2009 ?

CS: The year 2008 has been another growth year for Synygy. With 2009, everyone is taking a very cautious approach given the global economic uncertainty. We feel that we will be able to weather this uncertainty very well and are not expecting to take any drastic measures like what are we hearing in the news.

Since we a sales compensation management company, the impact to our solutions is less because companies still need sales people to sell. And, more companies are moving to variable-pay and pay-for-performance culture, which actually helps us.