Birlasoft

Maximizing Human Potential

As a part of the CK Birla group, Birlasoft believes in enduring relationships and a family-like culture for all, based on the foundation of care for our stakeholders. While there are common elements that bind us together as One Birlasoft, we also understand that each one of us is unique in their abilities and perspectives. We provide an environment of inclusion where anyone and everyone is an integral part of the Birlasoft family and is able to bring their whole selves to the organization.

This is evident from the time someone connects with the organisation as a prospective employee to the time of their exit. There are multiple programs and initiatives that help us achieve this. We have a very well-defined Diversity, Equity and Inclusion charter. Our learning programs and objectives focus on grooming people to their maximum potential.

The total rewards program ensures that we maintain fairness and equity for all our employees. And the continuous performance enablement (CPE) – our performance management program is built on the philosophy of fairness, transparency and meritocracy thus enabling employees to realize their potential through challenging themselves more and focusing on their development.

Additionally, to extend this objective to communities, we have a dedicated team that focuses on driving the corporate social responsibility agenda for the organization. This provides our employees to not only focus on their own potential but also maximize potential of not so privileged groups.

Birlasoft Diversity Equity Inclusion Philosophy: -

We are committed to nurturing an inclusive environment for a diverse pool of talent with equal access to opportunities within the organization.

Birlasoft believes in being an equal opportunity employer, where all qualified applicants receive consideration for employment based on merit regardless of their race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, disability status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Our Strategic Pillars: -Coexistence| Collaborate |Considerate |Care

We are Birlasoft recognize, reward, and nurture talent who drive progress and believe in being the power of DEI. With a focus to create a workplace where everyone feels included, valued, and can thrive in a bias free environment, we have curated policies, procedures, initiatives, and ERG groups. We readily integrate diversity and inclusion strategies in recruitment, performance management, training and other processes to continually strengthen the inclusive environment. Inclusion is at the heart of all Diversity initiatives.

We believe in empowering not just one gender but create a workplace that supports the ‘Coexistence’ where we all ‘Collaborate’ while being ‘Considerate’ to differences in working styles but also ‘Caring’ for the special needs.

We have a dedicated council (encompassing 11 Members and an Executive Sponsor) consisting of leaders from across the organization with the responsibility of leading, sponsoring, and promoting DEI and transforming Birlasoft into an inclusive workplace while promoting diversity and nurturing talent across diverse groups. The DEI Council is critical in developing the overall strategy, finalizing key initiatives, and tracking progress towards goals and outcomes.

The DEI Council is critical in developing the overall strategy, finalizing key initiatives, and tracking progress towards goals and outcomes. Birlasoft believes in being an equal opportunity employer, where all qualified applicants receive consideration for employment based on merit regardless of their race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, disability status, genetic information, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We have a DEI Charter with three focus areas:-Affirmative Hiring| Sensitization for Culture building | Development & Retention

We have Supportive policies like: -Equal Opportunity Policy ,Flexible Benefits Policy, Maternity Benefits Policy,POSH Policy,RPWD Act 2016,Smart Working Model – Policy, Grievance Redressal Policy,Child care policy.

The company strives to maintain a work environment that is free from any harassment based on the above considerations, and this policy aims to comply with applicable regulations as prescribed. A diverse culture ensures we have attracted the best talent and helps us build innovative solutions for our clients. We believe in understanding the requisites and creating specific solutions that enable teams to deliver better results with mutual understanding and respect. We aim to achieve diversity in the organization by partnering and championing inclusion to create a diverse workplace.

For the same, we have the following initiatives: -

Hiring diverse Groups: -

To continuously promote diversity at Birla soft we target to hire from diverse groups across levels be it hiring from campus or lateral hiring. For Campus Hiring, we work with gender specific campuses to bring more women on board and build their careers with us. To keep the target crowd engaged and have a healthy offer to joining conversion ratio, we plan engagements activities with the campuses through the year. We try to keep gender ratio at 50% for campus hires. For lateral hires, we plan women specific recruitment drives across technologies and locations. We also run employee referral drives planned for gender specific hiring. We have identified and empaneled vendors to hire diverse workforce across PwD, veterans and gender specific hiring. We also promote Birlasoft as an equal opportunity employer on our hiring platforms through focused campaigns.

We have various Hiring Initiatives like: -

• Sensitization of RPO/Top performing vendors – RPO & high performing vendors have been sensitized on supplying 50% women candidates for the open requisitions and being evaluated on the supply and closures of diversity candidates.
• Special employee referral scheme – Rolling out special employee referral scheme basis business requirement and needs to encourage more referral of women candidates.
• Career fair organized for women candidates – BSL is participating in women career fair organized by one of our vendor partners & thus increasing the pipeline of women candidates.
• Team Sensitization – Sensitization session for the TSC team to ensure proper diversity is maintained against the open positions.
• Webinars - Curated online webinars to showcase leaders to engage with the women audience & promoting them.
• Sensitization of hiring manager, interviews and recruitment team on considering diversity
  candidates.
• Career Reentry – A program helping women return to the workforce after a career break and supporting them transitioning in a new role.

Ensuring equity in various HR processes: -

The critical HR processes like promotions, compensation review and performance management have been designed in a way that we ensure equity for all.

Performance: We bring in objectivity and fairness in the performance process through involving multiple stakeholders before finalizing the rating. Not only the manager, but also the skip level manager, BU head and the HR business partner play a critical role at various stages of performance appraisal and calibration process. This ensures the process is free of any biases or preferential treatment.

Compensation: At the time of compensation review, the data is analyzed comprehensively, and the final outcomes are decided purely based on the compensation philosophy, budget, market benchmarks and individual’s performance ratings. When we look at as-is data on average compensation for males and females across various grades, there is no fixed trend. For some of the grades, average compensation for females is greater than average compensation for males. For the rest, the compensation gap on an average is ~7%. The compensation is decided purely based on merit and potential. Gender has no role to play.

Promotion: The promotion process is also based on principles of objectivity, transparency, and fairness. The criteria to get promoted is well defined and has elements of tenure, performance ratings and mandatory learning hours. These elements are applicable for both – fast track promotions and bi-annual slot-based promotions. For FY-23, out of the total female headcount, 15% got promoted, whereas only 11% of males got promoted out of the total male headcount. Within leadership promotions as well, female percentage (14%) was higher than male percentage (13%) getting promoted.

Other DEI Initiatives: -

BEmpowered: - BEmpowered is a women's leadership program. It aims at strengthening the succession pipeline by grooming female leaders in the organisation to take on more senior roles going forward. 45+ women have participated in the BEmpowered program and are showing elevated performance levels in their respective roles For this initiative DEI team and Learning & Development teams came together and focused on enabling the women leaders to be able to -

a). Recognize the natural strengths that they bring to their roles

b) Distinguish between external and internal constraints

c) Develop the necessary assertiveness skills

d) Recognize and let go of some self-limiting behaviors

e) Take charge of their careers and create a personal brand for themselves

f) Project confidence through their communication and presence

This is designed in 2 phases 1st phase is a learning intervention of 26 weeks encompassing the above objectives followed by a Mentoring Program of 6 weeks.

#SheEmpowers: – Customer connect Ever so often; we invite established women leaders from our customer network to share their inspiring achievement story. The leader shares experiences, & insights from her success journey and answers questions related to career and leadership. We have heard engaging career journeys and mantras of success from the established leaders of PACCAR, Unilever, Cummins, ESAB and Conduent.

Her Voice unplugged: - This women’s collective was conceptualized in response to the growing challenges and complexity surrounding women leadership in the workplace. This is forum that brings together Birlasoft’s senior women executives in leadership positions from across the Globe. The intent is to help women connect, inspire, learn & bond with each other personally and professionally. Sessions are organized on a monthly basis and have proven to have helped leaders find her unique voice, provided networking opportunities and have become a forum where open and honest discussions happen. Till date we have conducted close to 30 sessions since the launch of this initiative.

Connect UP: - This initiative is an early career mentoring program focusing on young women (grades 4A to 5A). Through interactive conversations, the program encourages young women professionals to share their experiences at the workplace, discuss career aspirations & how to make the most of the opportunities ahead with women leaders at Birlasoft. These discussions are run in a Q&A format and quarterly themes are identified for moderated discussions. These quarterly planned sessions have provided opportunities for women to network, learn from experienced leaders, and share their own experiences. These sessions cover more than 1500+ young women employees, and the program has been active for almost 3 years now.

Exclusive Conversation with a #WomanChallenger: - A truly inspiring story that captured the spirit of International Women's Day! Despite dealing with visual impairment at a very young age she never stopped herself from exploring life to the fullest.

Birlasoft is us:- A light yet engrossing conversation between select leaders and employees from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and thought processes. Intrinsic and extrinsic examples of DEI at the workplace, internal programs that have yielded alluring outcomes, the positive impact for customers, and how togetherness leads to terrific times ahead!

Development Sessions: - Curate sessions that help scale up knowledge through sessions that motivate, inspire, and energies the employees.

Little Champs: - Little Champs was a fun way to get Birlasoft’s extended family involved in the IWD festivities. We had employees’ kids participate in various fun activities planned throughout the month of April.

Rendezvous with Verve: - We rely on diverse, multidisciplinary teams that work on their collective capabilities. Having said that, simply bringing a diverse bunch together doesn't guarantee high performance; it requires inclusive leadership that actively works towards building a truly inclusive workplace.

Unconscious Bias: - Training for Managers and above encompassing Self Reflection: Move past Biases, Choose Behavior That Supports Inclusion, Developing Diverse Talent, Career Guidance for career advancement, Fairness & Equity, Understanding Challenges and Helping in Addressing Barriers.