HR Best Practices

Talented people want to feel highly differentiated. This makes constant differentiation and clear responsibilities as basic requirements for teams at GS Lab. Several basic practices such as goal setting, knowledge sharing, career-path management, and mentoring are followed to facilitate this. Our basic tenets are:

	Open and transparent Management
	Employees responsible for managing all aspects of own work
	Trust-based systems and processes
	Demanding and professionally aggressive leadership Team-based operations, no hierarchy
	Listening to bottom-up improvement suggestions

Goal Setting

GS Lab believes in achieving performance through a formal goal setting process run collaboratively by the employee and his mentor. The goals are kept aligned with the organization’s goals by executives who are the ultimate recipients of the goals set for each employee. Each employee is responsible for maintaining a structured workbook which is reviewed periodically by the mentor with the objective of tracking the progress towards the goal achievement.

Managing Performance

Each GS Lab manager has a mandate to be a mentor and is judged on how well she achieves performance through clear goal setting rather than supervision. Each manager with direct reports is required to provide negative as well as positive feedback promptly. All managers are required to be hands-on in the skills their engineers are required to possess and are also required to be intimately familiar with the work being done by their engineers. Prompt feedback and goal setting make the annual painful appraisal process typically found in most companies unnecessary at GS Lab.

Promotion Process

GS Lab has a carefully designed promotion policy based on consistency of performance. Each promotion requires increased performance levels on the metrics at the earlier level. This is achieved through frequent and realistic goal setting and clear communication of expectations. A review panel ensures that all promotions are made through a rigorous and detailed process based on set criteria for eligibility and selection. It is the responsibility of each individual to understand the criteria for their progress through the goal setting process.

Open Career Planning

GS Lab strives for its employees to have a very long and fruitful association with it. However, it understands that many employees may wish for a change of job for a variety of reasons. GS Lab expects – on grounds of professional decency towards all – that everyone maintains an open career planning culture. All employees are strongly encouraged to regularly discuss their career options with mentors. This helps GS Lab guide each employee to make the right choices and ensure a smooth and amicable hand over.

GS Lab values the contributions of all past employees to its growth and maintains a fruitful post-employment relationship with each past colleague.

Knowledge Sharing

GS Lab actively encourages knowledge sharing by using a mix of social and formal techniques. This sharing is strictly governed by the IPR policies in the Company to protect our customer IPRs.

For sharing not governed by any IPR protection:

	Several wiki’s are deployed at GS Lab for customer-level knowledge sharing.
	Bi-weekly technology lectures are conducted by staff as well as Management on various technical and non-technical topics.
	Designated subject-matter experts are made well-known to younger staff to enable quick resolution of specific queries.
	Weekly group meetings are mandated for each group.

GS Lab practices HR processes that advance employees’ careers while remaining in tight sync with the customer’s business goals. This leads to highly motivated employees who recruit very well for their teams, ensure retention, and provide a highest possible customer satisfaction.