1. 5
TimesJobs.com Bureau
Y
OUNG techies entering
the workforce today have
previous generations. They
are passionate, driven and
need a compelling reason to stay with a
To understand the ingredients
that technology companies are
experimenting with to create an
employer brand that young talented
techies want to be associated with,
TechGig.com invited technology leaders
from Altimetrik, Dell, Happiest Minds,
MetricStream, Mindtree and Mphasis
Next Labs in Bengaluru recently.
Becoming business technologists
During the panel discussion,
Madhusudhan KM, CTO, Mindtree,
highlighted the changing expectations
of young techies.“The tech workforce
today is coming prepared and knows
how exactly their customers would
interact with the system. They want to
of the project they are working on.”
Adding to this, Gopalakrishna Bylahalli,
SVP and CTO, Happiest Minds, said,
“The expectations of technologists is
changing. Now they want to be more
aligned to the business than to just a
To enable the right nurturing
environment for such aspiring techies,
Gopalakrishna said employers need to
change their traditional approach to
engaging techies.
“Techies may be experts in say one
or two languages but they should not
be bound to a particular team. They
should be given a free hand to explore
technologies they want to aspire to
know,”he said.
Though all the panelists said in one
voice that there is no one formula to
engage young techies, there are certain
key factors which are resulting in Gen Y
stickiness to an employer.
Choose mentoring over managing
Madhavan Satagopan, CTO, Altimetrik,
suggested doing away with the hierarchy
pyramid and replacing mangers with
mentors. “What we did was eliminate the
titles‘lead’and‘manager’and introduced
the title mentor. The moment you have
a mentor structure, the connotation of
reporting hierarchy goes away,”he said.
“The younger generation knows all
the technologies, while middle level
managers know the business context
and customer management better. So we
said: Don’t control or inhibit the younger
generation. Instead coach them on how
they can channelise the unbundled
energy to do something that impacts the
business outcome.”
Engage through hackathons
Dr Jai Ganesh, vice president and
head of Mphasis Next Labs, shared that
hackathons and ideathons are a thing
that techies look forward to, especially
within IT services companies where a
major chunk of jobs may be repetitive in
nature for coders.
“In IT services industry, there are many
tasks, say software maintenance which
requires skills only in certain legacy
technologies. For such techies, activities
express themselves.”
Build environment for innovation
Anil Bhat, associate vice president R&D,
MetricStream, said employers need to
build a failure tolerant and innovation-
led work environment where employees
are encouraged to think out of the box.
Manish Gupta, director-enterprise
solution, Dell, said getting techies
with innovative streak has become
the need of the hour. “Over and above
the tech skills, what is becoming more
vision to innovate, going beyond the
straightjacket JD and ability to assimilate
the larger picture and deliver it,”he said.
The panel agreed that to engage tech
talent, business leaders need to look
beyond regular activities and bring
about a change in the work culture,
Engaging young techies: Is there a secret sauce?
TechGig.com Conversations, Bengaluru
VOLUME-V I ISSUE 8 I AUGUST 2015
www.content.timesjobs.com
(Left to right) Dr Jai Ganesh,
vice president and head of
Mphasis Next Labs; Madhusudhan
KM, CTO, Mindtree, Anil Bhat,
associate vice president R&D,
MetricStream; Nilabh Kapoor,
regional head, TimesJobs,
Kanchana Dwarakanath, moderator;
Manish Gupta, director-enterprise
solution, Dell; Madhavan Satagopan,
CTO, Altimetrik and Gopalakrishna
Bylahalli, SVP and CTO,
Happiest Minds.
WHEN IT COMES TO
ENGAGING TECH TALENT,
BUSINESS LEADERS NEED
TO LOOK BEYOND THE
REGULAR EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT ACTIVITIES