ENGAGEMENT IN A SHARED SERVICE CENTRE IN INDIA Elaine Farndale
The Shared Service Centre (SSC) is the global services arm based in India for a major global retailer, providing information technology, business and finance services to retail operations across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Having only been established five years prior, the SSC already has over 3,000 employees, and is continuing to grow even through difficult economic times. Engagement levels amongst employees within the SSC are reported to be high, both for work engagement and organisation engagement. In this case, organisation engagement refers to the retailer brand (rather than the SSC in particular) because of its dominant global reach.
The high levels of engagement are positive news for the firm, as it sees these resulting in higher productivity, increased employee satisfaction and motivation and a willingness to be developed and grow independently. Importantly, engaged employees are considered critical to business success because of the extremely dynamic external labour market in India. Here, turnover levels can be as high as 45 per cent in industries where five per cent in developed Western economies is more the norm. There is, therefore, constant pressure for the firm to focus on engaging and retaining its highvalue employees. A combination of national culture values and economic opportunities together determine how long an employee will stay with the firm; if people are offered more money by a competitor, the natural tendency is to grasp those opportunities and move on. However, a strong driver of employee engagement in the Indian context is building a close connection between employer and employee. In this firm, senior management in the SSC,
as well as line managers are seen by employees as highly supportive. As part of an initiative to retain employees, the SSC established a corporate program to encourage employee engagement. This program is led by the HR Director, and receives direct support from the SSC’s senior management. The program is implemented through the HR function in partnership with the different business units. HR supports line managers directly to ensure that employees can function and perform well, as well as helps to manage employee learning and development. HR is also responsible for delivering transparent and fair performance management processes. The SSC places great emphasis on training as an important outcome of performance appraisal; hence it offers a work environment where employees can learn, develop personally and be innovative.
Questions
1 What are the antecedents and outcomes of engagement described in this case?
2 How do you think the location of this firm in India is affecting how engagement is managed, compared to if this firm were located in a developed Western economy?
3 Why might it be either beneficial or detrimental for the firm to launch an initiative to increase levels of engagement with the local (SSC) operations, potentially challenging the already high organisation engagement with the global retailer brand?
4 What role do you think the different parties in the SSC (e.g. HR, senior management, line management, colleagues) play in supporting employee engagement? What activities might they undertake to carry out these roles?
