then he focused basically on high attrition rate of sasken putting incompetent managers as the sole reason behind it.Urged the managers to be utmost sincere and straight forward to their team guys and not play games. He brought in the concept of one to one interaction of managers with each team member at least twice every month.He also clearly told us that we have to project ourselves to customers as people giving the full solution to rather than in small bits & pieces.He stressed on the need for long term planning on how to capitalise on the experience/expertise gained by people.
on the whole meeting was fine but, mainly discussion was between the seniors n rajiv.being a fresher,I felt a bit left out when they started discussing some management strategies.he sighted some usual management problems n how to overcome them with simple illustrations.but,the CEO told nothing about his future strategies,his vision of a changed sasken. I found no time to request him (non-business) matters like poor toilet maintenance, poor canteen facility @ FAC B etc.the CEO satisfactorily answered all the questions posed by the guys. For one point that there was high attrition rate because of the poor quality of work found no proper answer from him.he defended this point by comparing pure RnD work of sasken with other IT giants.this way the whole meeting was conducted for complete 2 hrs.Such kinda of meetings should be conducted frequently.BTW dat awesome experience was not just another breakfast for me.
(note:- d author's seat was against to rajiv,so was nt clicked in d top 3 cliques ..so sad)
d following article was published on d news section of sasken website:-
"Breakfast with CEO"
‘Breakfast with CEO’ is an initiative of the Central Marketing Group that enables Sasians to get up close with Rajiv Mody. Conducted across the different centers of Sasken, Rajiv met with Sasians from Fac-B on the 26th of September.
The following Sasians were chosen at Fac-B: Amarender Choula, Robert Kingsly, Ranganayakulu Konduri, Srinidhi Koushik, Deepali Chourasia, Abhishek Srivastava, Vinay Rao, Swati Ravichandran, Nithin Sujathan, Anupama Sharma, Ashish Hegde, Dipti Panda
Dipti recalls ‘The first time I had met Rajiv, I was one among 60 people during my induction program. This time sitting amongst a group of 13 members took me a bit closer to him. I nervously entered the discussion room at 9.20 a.m. Rajiv joined us exactly at 9.30 a.m. with a great sense of punctuality. The meeting started with brief introduction from all the gathered members regarding their experience with Sasken and the kind of work they are involved in. He then spoke about the T20 world cup and the triumphant young Indian cricket team. He pointed out that a lot can be learnt from these games.”
Robert Kingsly relives a few moments “Breakfast with CEO of a company is usually a rare opportunity, hence is obviously exciting. In the case of Rajiv, his simplicity makes the event very attractive even to the junior most engineer of the organization. His ability to identify himself with the employees across various levels of hierarchy is quite impressive. Rajiv emphasized on the responsibilities of the managers, towards creating an Eco-system for the engineers to feel Sasken as a great place to work. Compensations alone may not keep an employee bound to the Organization.
Over a longer term of the career, ups and downs in compensations get evened out. Rajiv has a vision to grow Sasken significantly beyond what it is today. Most of the growth patterns do not follow the conventional logical sequences. They happen in a non-linear fashion as quantum leaps. Sasken's unique positioning as a complete end-to-end telecom solutions provider gives the necessary competitive edge for the growth to happen.”
Deepali in an excited tone, “It was one of the best breakfast conversations that I have ever had. It was good interacting with Rajiv on our plans to become "Better than our customers" and to start looking at improving the efficiency every day. It is really great that Sasken gives such wonderful opportunities to employees wherein they can directly talk to Rajiv to discuss issues and express views on how things are being done.”
Vinay Rao adds “On the whole, time just flew by and what added to the whole session was some wonderful breakfast”
Ashish Hegde remembers “It was not a mere one or two line introduction that Rajiv took from us. Instead he showed great interest in exactly what kind of work each one was doing here in Sasken. He seemed to know everything, from IC design technology to mobile application software!
After the elaborate introduction and a good tasty bowl of fruits, Rajiv chose to talk on forthcoming challenges that we Sasians will have to face because of the increasing Rupee value. He also showed his concern regarding the high attrition rate in Sasken. He suggested that Managers should have more one-on-one's with their reportees so that the employees’ problems get heard and solved on an individual basis. This, he felt, would reduce attrition considerably.”
And Swati up close “It was a wonderful experience and I feel each employee should go though it at least once. The most valuable takeaway was to understand the business scenario/challenges/areas of improvement for Sasken as a whole from Rajiv himself. It will surely help me align better with the larger vision/direction that Rajiv spoke about.
He was very open about answering all sorts of questions that came up. The breakfast itself was formal and almost ceremonial in nature, which makes it even more special.”
