INTRODUCTION

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

The internal working of every organisation has certain commonly perceived psychological characteristics or traits which are collectively called its culture or mileu. These traits generally vary from organisation to organisation to organistion are relatively stable over the time and influence the behaviour of people in the organisation. Thus every organisation has its own unique culture.not only thiseven different departments of same organisation may have different cultures depending upon the perception of members of the departments. Various personal characteristics such as values,needs,attidutes,exceptions etc. determine the manner in which members are likely to perceive the various aspects of internal working.

The culture of your organisation is the state of its health. A healthy organisation is one which obvious effort made to get people with different backgrounds, skills, and abilities to work together towards the goal of the organisation.

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An effective, culturally diverse organisation is one whose culture is inclusive of all of the varying groups and constituencies it intends to serve. The organisations values, vision, mission, policies, procedures and norms constitute a culture that is manifested in multiple perspectives and adaptability to varying values, beliefs and communication styles.

For many companies the proper implementation of an organisational culture survey cans provide valuable information that can be used to guide and increase its success. However, Companies that choose to implement a survey must be prepared to respond to both positive and negative results, and work with employees to make improvements in the work environment. Failure to respond to employee feedback can ultimately increase the number of workforce problems experienced within organisation.

DEFINING CULTURE

Perception about an organisational goals and decisions that a manager should take to achieve these goals come not only from the formal control system but also through the informal organisation. Both informal and formal structure combine to create what is called organisational culture.

It influences morale and the attitude of the individuals towards his work and his environment. Organisation culture has been a popular concept in the theory and research for sometime and has received a great deal of attention in the past 25yrs.

Organisational culture is a system of shared beliefs and attitudes that develop within an organisation and guides the behaviour of its member.

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It is also known as corporate culture:, and has a major impact on the performance of organisation and specially the quality of work life experienced by the employees. Organisational culture consists of the norms, values and unwritten rules of conduct ofan organisation as well as management styles, priorities, beliefs and inters personal behaviours that prevail.

CONCEPT OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE.

Culture implies a pattern of beliefs and behaviour. It is cultivated behaviour in the sense that it is learnt from the members of the society.

Organisational culture is the totality of beliefs, customs, traditions, and values shared by the members of the organisation. The culture characteristics of an organisation are relatively enduring over time and relatively static in their prosperity to change.

Together they create a climate that influences how well people communicate, plan and make decisions.

Strong values let people know that is expected of them. There are clear guidelines as to how employees are to behave generally within the organisation an their expected code of conduct outside the organisation.

NATURE OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE The features of organisational culture are as under: Like an individual every organisation has its own personality. The personality of the organisation defines the internal environment of an organisation. It differentiates an organisation from the others.

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It relatively enduring or stable over the time. It is perceived by the members and outsiders. It exercises a significant influence on the attitudes, behaviour and performance of organisational members.

Schein observed that at least six popular meanings could be ascribed to organisational culture. These are: The observed behavioural regularities in the interactions, language and rituals of the organisation members. The norms which evolve over a period of time in working groups. The philosophy which guides the decisions and policies of an organisation. The rules of the game one must learn in order to be accepted in the organisation. The dominant values which are exposed by the organisation (or by the dominant members of the organisation). The climate that pervades and gets conveyed in the day to day functioning of the organisation. COMPONENTS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE It can be difficult to identify the large number of organisational culture areas that exists. Recent research has identified over 460 different types of work environment characteristics that have been measured. Many of these characteristics can be classified into the following major areas: jobs, roles, leader, organisation and workgroup. In many companies there are particular areas where employee feedback would be useful. The basis of organisational culture lies in the following: Individual autonomy: i.e. the degree to which employees are free to manage themselves or not accountable to others.

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Position structure: i.e. the extend of formalisation, centralisation and direct supervision.

Reward orientation: i.e. the extend to which rewards are related to performance and the required system of behaviour in the organisation.

Consideration: i.e. the extend to which the people in the organisation offer social emotional support to each other and work as a team. Whether the supervision is production oriented or people oriented?

Conflict: i.e. the extend of differences present between individuals and departments and the way which they are resolved.

Risk taking : i.e the degree o freedom to experiment with new ideas, take risks and commit honest mistakes without fear of punishment.

Communication patterns : the degree to which organisational communications are restricted to the formal hierarchy of authority.

Outcome orientation : the degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used to achieve these outcomes.

TYPES OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE Authoritarian and participative cultures: In this type of culture. There is centralisation of power with the leader and obedience to orders and discipline are stressed. Any disobedience is punished severely to state an example to others. The basic assumption is that the leader knows what is good for an organisation and he always acts in its interests. Participative culture tends to emerge where most of the organisational members see themselves is equals and take part in decision making. Mechanistic and organic cultures:

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The mechanistic organisational culture exhibits the values of bureaucracy and so is called bureaucratic culture. Organisational jobs are created around narrow specialisations and people think of their careers mainly within these specialisations, authority is thought of as flowing down from the top of the organisation to the lower levels and communication flows through prescribed channels. There is a great deal of departmental loyalty And interdepartmental animosity. This sort of culture resists change and innovation.

In Organic culture formal hierarchy of authority, departmental boundaries, formal boundaries, formal rules and regulations, and prescribed channels of communications are forward upon. There is a great deal of emphasis on task accomplishment, team work and free flow of communication-formal and informal. There is a widespread understanding within staffing of the problems, threats and opportunities the organisation is facing and there is willingness and preparedness to take appropriate roles to solve the problems. The culture stresses flexibility, consultation, change and innovation.

Sub Culture and Dominant Culture: Each department of an organisation may have its own culture representing a sub culture of the system. An organisation culture emerges where there is an integration of all the departments into a unified whole. Within any given unit, the tendency for integration and consistency will be assumed to be present but it is perfectly possible for coexisting units of a larger system to have cultures that are independent and even in conflict with each other.

Role and significance of organisational culture

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Each organisation is recognised by its culture. Whenever people name an organisation, the culture attached to the organisation is immediately recalled. An organisation is distinctively different from other organisations by virtue of its cultural values, beliefs and norms. Besides this the following functions are performed by the organisational culture.

Organisational culture creates the boundary beyond which no employees are permitted to go. They automatically observe the organisational standards and norms of behaviour.

An organisation is well recognised by its culture, the culture of an organisation provides its stability. People prefer to continue with the organisation. Employees, customers, financers and other related persons prefer to remain with the organisation.

The social recognition of the organisational culture makes the organisation grow and develop in all dimensions.

Organisational culture acts as a motivator that guides and controls the employees. Satisfied employees get more and enthusiasm for performing the respective jobs.

The attitude and behaviour of the employees are directed towards the achievement of goals through a sound culture. Disciplined employees make other employees disciplined and well behaved.

Advantages of organisational culture 7|Page

The advantages of a sound organisational culture are ultimately reflected in employees performance and satisfaction. The image of an organisation is increased and people are satisfied with the performance of the oragnisation. Peoples satisfaction lies in the employees smile. It is instrumental to increased production and satisfaction.

A strong culture ensures better performances. Culture enhances organisational commitment and increases the consistency of employee behaviour. It reduces ambiguity and tells implicitly what to do and how to do.

There is a great deal of departmental loyalty and inter departmental animosity. This sort of culture resits change and innovation.

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A FEW DIMENSIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

VIGILANCE
Prior to pondering whether or not to communicate an ethical, compliance, or legal concern, an employee must first be in a position to detect violations. "What are the standards in this organization?" "What is my role in upholding these standards?" Accordingly, the first step in supporting employee communication and reporting behaviors is to influence a culture that promotes not only awareness of an organization's commitment to integrity, but a shared understanding of organizational standards. A look out for threats to organizational integrity also must be cultivated among organization members. Thoughtful attention to training employees on the values and standards outlined in the organization's code of conduct will facilitate awareness building. However, the most fundamental and powerful values of an organization are not written down and exist only in the shared norms, beliefs, and assumptions reflected in the organization's culture. These norms, beliefs, and assumptions guide how organization members think and act. The organizational culture informs members how to relate to each other and to outsiders, how to analyze problems, and how to respond to situations encountered in the organization. To promote a shared understanding of which "code" to follow, the formal code of conduct or the unwritten code of culture, the dynamics of organizational culture on an employee's ability to accurately interpret the ethical standards of the organization must be addressed. To support a culture of vigilance, employees also must be educated on the relationship between organizational integrity and the organization's strategic positioning. Employees who observe wrongdoing may not report it because they cannot fully estimate the resulting damage. Therefore, the organization should ensure employees are in a position to identify the

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potential consequences of ethical, compliance, and legal breaches, including opportunity costs and harm to the organization, its reputation, and stakeholders.

ENGAGEMENT
The cultural dimension of engagement is multifaceted and complex. Engagement is concerned with organizational and individual factors that contribute to a personal state of authentic involvement in the organization. Organizational processes used to recruit, orient, socialize, and manage employees influence engagement. Employees sense making, psychological contracts, and perceptions of fairness in organizational dealings influence the degree of authentic involvement by them. Managing these organizational processes and individual perceptions to facilitate high degrees of organizational commitment and identification encourages a culture of engagement that supports internal whistle blowing. If an organization member is not committed to high ethical standards there may be a tendency to rationalize questionable behavior as a common or even necessary practice in performing job duties. On the other hand, if an employee has high ethical standards that are not supported by the organization, there is a tendency for the employee to experience internal conflict. Such conflict will arise when organizational demands on employees are inconsistent with personal or professional values. The result is decreased commitment and an unwillingness to exert effort on behalf of the organization. Once employees enter the organization, socialization methods, including training on ethical standards can be used to deepen employee commitment to organizational values and norms.

CREDIBILITY
A culture of engagement that supports organizational commitment and identification, however, may not be sufficient for prompting employee disclosures. An employee will also seek to "test" the organization's commitment to integrity. Leadership behavior is a key determinant of employee perceptions and beliefs. 10 | P a g e

The most powerful strategy that can be relied upon to facilitate credibility is employee belief in espoused ethics and values including organizational expectations for employee disclosure, attending to and monitoring congruence in the organizational culture. The role of leadership is central to this strategy. Aligning leadership behaviors with formal policies and consistent modeling of espoused values are important practices for fostering credibility. Demonstrating personal commitment to organizational values builds trust and creates a safe environment for employees to come forward and report concerns.

ACCOUNTABILITY
Accountability for communicating knowledge of wrongdoing will be carefully judged by employees. "Is it my job to report?" "Isn't this someone else's responsibility?" "Why should I get involved? After all, I am not the only one aware of what is going on here." Again, values, beliefs, and norms embedded in the organizational culture and picked up by employees will influence employee reflections.

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HOW DID ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE START

While organizational cultures developed in different ways, the process usually involves some version of the following steps: A single person (founder) has an idea for a new enterprise The founder brings in one or more other key people and creates a core group that shares a common vision with the founder The founding core group begins to act in concert to create an organization by raising funds, obtaining patents, incorporating, locating space, building and so on At this point, others are brought into the organization and a common history begins to be built Most of todays successful corporate giants in all industries basically followed these steps. Three well-known representative examples are Motorola, McDonalds and Wal-Mart. McDonalds: Ray Kroc worked for many years as a salesperson for a food supplier. He learned how retail food operations were conducted. He also had an entrepreneurial streak and began a sideline business with a partner. They sold multimixers, machines that were capable of mixing up to six frozen shakes at a time. One day Kroc received a large order for multimixers from the McDonald brothers. The order intrigued Kroc and he decided to look in on the operation the next time he was in their area. When he did, Kroc became convinced that the McDonalds fast food concept would sweep the nation. He bought the rights to franchise McDonalds units and eventually bought out the brothers. At the same time, he built the franchisee on four basic concepts: quality, cleanliness, service and price. In order to ensure that each unit offers the customer the best product at the best price franchisees are required to attend McDonald University, where they are taught how to manage their business. Here they learn the 12 | P a g e

McDonald cultural values and the proper way to run the franchisee. This training ensures that the franchisees all over the world are operating their units in the same way. Kroc died several years ago, but the culture he left behind is still very much alive in McDonalds franchisees across the globe. In fact, new employees receive videotaped messages from the late Mr. Kroc. Wal-Mart: Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., opened his first Wal-Mart store in 1962. Focusing on the sale of discounted name brand merchandise in small town markets, he began to set up more and more stores in the Sun Belt. At the same time, he began developing effective inventory control systems and marketing techniques. Today, Wal-Mart has not only become the largest retailer but also one of the biggest firms in the country. Although Sam died a few years ago, his legacy and cultural values continue. To ensure that these values get out to all the associates, the company has a communication network worthy of the Pentagon. It includes everything from a six-channel satellite system to a private air force of numerous planes.

ACCESSING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Although some organizational scientists argue for assessing organizational culture with quantitative methods, others say qualitative methods yield better results. Quantitative methods such as questionnaires are valuable because of their precision, comparability and objectivity.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE INVENTORY

The OCI focuses on behaviors that help employees fit into the organization and meet the expectations of coworkers. Using Maslows motivational need hierarchy as its basis, it measures twelve cultural styles.

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ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AT TCS HISTORY OF TATA CONSULTANCY SERVICES

YEAR 1968 to 2000

Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) was founded in 1968 as a division of Tata Sons Limited by J R D Tata.Its early contracts included providing punched card services to sister company TISCO (now Tata Steel), working on an Inter-Branch Reconciliation System for the Central Bank of India and providing bureau services to Unit Trust of India. In 1975, TCS conducted its first campus interviews, held at IISc, Bangalore. The recruits comprised 12 Indian Institutes of Technology graduates and three IISc graduates, who became the first TCS employees to enter a formal graduate trainee programme. In 1979, TCS delivered an

electronic depository and trading system called SECOM for the Swiss company SIS SegaInterSettle. TCS followed this up with System X for the Canadian Depository System and automating the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. TCS associated with a Swiss partner, TKS Teknosoft, which it later acquired.

In 1981, TCS established India's first dedicated software research and development centre, the Tata Research Development and Design Centre (TRDDC) in Pune. In 1985 TCS 14 | P a g e

established India's first client-dedicated offshore development centre, set up for client Tandem. In the early 1990s the Indian IT outsourcing industry grew rapidly due to the Y2K bug and the launch of a unified European currency, Euro. TCS created the factory model for Y2K conversion and developed software tools which automated the conversion process and enabled third-party developer and client implementation.

2000 to present
By 2004, TCS's e-business activities were generating over US$500 million in annual revenues. On 25 August 2004 TCS became a publicly listed company. In 2005 TCS became the first India-based IT services company to enter the bioinformatics market. In 2006 TCS designed an ERP system for the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation. In 2008 TCS undertook an internal restructuring exercise which aimed to increase the company's agility. TCS entered the small and medium enterprises market for the first time in 2011, with cloud-based offerings. On the last trading day of 2011, TCS overtook RIL to achieve the highest market capitalisation of any India-based company. In the 2011/12 fiscal year TCS achieved annual revenues of over US$10 billion for the first time. In May 2013 TCS bagged a Six Year contract from DoP worth over 1100 crore Rupees.

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

TCS and its subsidiaries provide a range of information technology-related products and services including application development, business process outsourcing, capacity planning, consulting, enterprise software, hardware sizing, payment processing, software management and technology education services. Its established software products are TCS BaNCS and TCS MasterCraft.

SERVICE LINES

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TCS' services are currently organised into the following service lines (percentage of total TCS revenues in the 2012-13 fiscal year generated by each respective service line is shown in parentheses):

Application development and maintenance (42.80%); Asset leverage solutions (2.70%); Assurance services (7.70%); Business process outsourcing (12.50%); Consulting (3.00%); Engineering and Industrial services (4.60%); Enterprise solutions (15.20%); IT infrastructure services (11.50%).

OPERATIONS
As of 31 March 2013, TCS had 199 offices across 44 countries and 124 delivery centers in 21 countries. At the same date TCS had a total of 58 subsidiary companies.

LOCATIONS

The Tata Consultancy Services campus at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. India: TCS has development centres and/or regional offices in the following Indian cities: Ahmedabad, Mangalore, Bangalore, Baroda, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi,

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Gandhinagar, Goa, Gurgaon, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Jamshedpur, Kochi, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Nagpur, Indore, Noida, Pune,Chandigarh and Trivandrum. Africa: TCS has regional offices in South Africa and Morocco. Asia (ex. India): TCS has regional offices in Bahrain, Beijing, Hong Kong, Hangzhou, Shanghai, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, UAE (Dubai) Australia: TCS has a regional office in Australia. Europe: TCS has regional offices in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. North America: TCS has regional offices in Canada, Mexico and the United States. South America: TCS has regional offices in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay.

Tata Research Development and Design Centre

The Tata Consultancy Services campus at Madhapur, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

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The Tata Consultancy Services campus at Siruseri, Chennai, Tamil NaduTCS established the first software research centre in India, the Tata Research Development and Design Centre, in Pune, India in 1981. TRDDC undertakes research in Software engineering, Process engineering and Systems Research. Researchers at TRDDC also developed MasterCraft (now a suite of digitisation and optimisation tools) a Model Driven Development software that can automatically create code based on a model of a software, and rewrite the code based on the user's needs. Research at TRDDC has also resulted in the development of Sujal, a low-cost water purifier that can be manufactured using locally available resources. TCS deployed thousands of these filters in the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster of 2004 as part of its relief activities. This product has been marketed in India as Tata swach, a low cost water purifier.

TCS BPS
TCS BPO recently named as BPS is the second largest player in the outsourcing industry in India behind Genpact according to NASSCOM rankings for the year 2011-12. The BPO division had revenues of US$ 1.44 billion in the FY 2012-13 which was 12.5% of the total revenue of TCS. TCS BPO has more than 45,000 employees which serve over 225 customers across 11 countries. The rate of attrition in BPO division during the financial year 2012-13 was 19.5%. Other than major Indian cities, TCS BPO is also present in Tier-II locations like Pune. TCS is also expanding its BPO centre in Kolkata, where it already employs 2,000 people. Tata 18 | P a g e

Consultancy Services has opened a business process outsourcing facility in the Philippines following the path of India-based BPO companies which have operations in that country.

EMPLOYEES
TCS is one of the largest private sector employers in India, and the second-largest employer among listed Indian companies (after Coal India Limited). TCS had a total of 276,196 employees as of March 2013, of which 31% were women. The number of non-Indian nationals was 21,282 as at March 31, 2013 (7.7%).The employee costs for the FY 2012-13 were US$ 4.38 billion, which was approx. 38% of the total revenue of the company for that period. In the fiscal year 2012-13, TCS recruited a total of 69,728 new staff, of whom 59,276 were based in India and 10,452 were based in the rest of the world. In the same period, the rate of attrition was 10.6%.The average age of a TCS employee is 28 years. The employee utilisation rate, excluding trainees, for the FY 2012-13 was 82%. TCS was the fifth-largest United States visa recipient in 2008 (after Infosys, CTS, Wipro and Mahindra Satyam). In 2012, the Tata group companies, including TCS, were the second largest recipient of H-1B visas.

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Company Profile:
Tata Consultancy Services Limited (TCS) is an Indian multinational information technology (IT) services, business solutions and consulting company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. TCS operates in 44 countries and has 199 branches across the world. It is a subsidiary of the Tata Group and is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India. Its main function is to provide call- centre services. TCS is the largest Indian company by market capitalization and is the largest India-based IT services company by 2013 revenues. TCS has been recognized by Forbes as one of the World's Most Innovative Companies.TCS ranked 40th overall, making it not only the highest ranked IT services company to make the list, but also the top Indian company. Just as an organization needs the right talent to drive its business objectives, people need the right environment to grow and achieve their career goals. The moment the employee steps into TCS, he/she would be greeted with that unmistakable feeling of being at the right place. Along with that, working with TCS affords with a sense of certainty of a successful career that would be driven by boundless growth opportunities and exposure to cutting-edge technologies and learning possibilities. The work environment at TCS is built around the belief of growth beyond boundaries. Some of the critical elements that define the work culture are global exposure, cross-domain experience, and work-life balance. Each of these elements goes much deeper than what it ostensibly conveys.

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IMPACT OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE ON TCS

Experience Certainty:
At TCS, achieve real business results are achieved that allow to transform, and not just maintain the operations. The IT services, business solutions and outsourcing bring a level of certainty that no other competitor can match. Clients will experience your requirements being met on time, within budget and with high quality; greater efficiency and responsiveness to business; and the ability to shift investment to strategic initiatives rather than tactical functions.

Career Path, Freedom to work across Domains:

At TCS, it has an established environment that focuses on individual aptitude, talent, and interests. As a proven practice, cross-domain experience is promoted that provides employees with opportunities to function across different industry verticals, service practices, and functional domains as well as varied technology platforms. While all these factors help hone the skills across platforms, they also offer customers a talent pool with expertise that exceeds their industry benchmarks; at the same time, they continuously present employees with the opportunity to explore the domain where they believe they would fit the best.

Work life balance:

Even as TCS concede that finding a perfect balance between career demands and personal life is not easy, TCS have extended the work culture to include 'life' as an integral part. The many work-life programs respond to the needs and aspirations of the employees while

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retaining fun as a key element. At TCS, employees strive to address the need for an increased flexibility in order to navigate the different spheres of life.

Innovation:
Cultural transformation is impossible without the leadership of top executives, so Tata created the Tata Group Innovation Forum (TGIF), a 12-member panel of senior Tata Group executives and some CEOs of the independently run companies. "TGIF's main objective is to inspire and share best practices" says Sunil Sinha, CEO of Tata Quality Management Services and a member of the forum. But executives also have employed other strategies to build a culture of innovation. Here's how they did so within TCS. First, leaders approached the challenge both top down and bottom up. TCS Chief Technology Officer Ananth Krishnan says these involved establishing formal systems for encouraging innovative thinking and processing of ideas. "If I come up with an innovation, whether it's an incremental or a disruptive idea, I need to know whom to go to with it, and there needs to be an organizational process for moving it forward," says Krishnan.

TCS created multiple channels, and managers are trained how to direct an employee's idea: incremental innovations are handled and funded by the business unit in which the idea originated; platform-level innovations that might extend an existing offering are directed to one of the company's 19 global innovation labs, leading-edge research centers focused on specific technology areas or business sectors. Disruptive ideas tend to originate in the labs, but if one emerged from a business unit it would be directed to a lab or funded through an incubator fund run by the CTO's office. How all of the ideas are evaluated and funded is almost less important than the fact that TCS employees know ideas are welcome and that good ones won't die in a pile on someone's desk. 22 | P a g e

TCS has also incorporated innovation into its formal annual review process, making it one of the nine categories on which employees are evaluated. If an employee wins the company's Young Innovator Award, he or she will see more than a salary bump. "It certainly accelerates your career track," says Krishnan. "I might pluck you up and put you in one of our innovation labs."

Knowledge Sharing:
Knowledge management has been an integral part of the TCS culture and knowledge sharing is the buzz word. Knowmax is a platform provided to every TCS employee where they can go through various knowledge sharing sessions online and also can share their knowledge for the improvement of the organizational knowledge pool. There are also other platforms such as iCalms, IdeaMax etc.

Compensation and Benefits:

Leadership Review Management is used to evaluate the performance of leaders across the organization and TCS Gems are awarded to each employee on accomplishment of a milestone or any reward. The TCS Gems are redeemable according to the need of the employee.

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ORGANISATIONAL CULTURAL INNOVATION AT TATA CONSALTUNCY SERVICES

Culture potpourri: People from diverse backgrounds and geographies have come together in pursuit of a common vision. Open door policy: Our corporate culture is open and inclusive; irrespective of your experience, you will immediately be welcomed into the team, and would always have a significant role to play. On-the-job learning: Intense training and development programs facilitate on-the-job learning.

Mentor programs: Our mentor programs foster supportive relationships that help develop skills, behavior, and insights to enable you to attain your goals. 'Global Family' identity What sets TCS apart is the support, encouragement, and nurturing provided to you at every step... just like a family. Community Services: Maitree was started with an objective of bringing TCS associates and their families closer and include them as a part of the TCS extended family.

TCS Maitree:
Maitree was started with an objective of bringing TCS associates and their families closer and making them feel a part of the TCS extended family. Soon after, with a view to carry on the

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TATA tradition of enabling the community, the scope of Maitree was enhanced to include socially relevant activities and endeavors. Over the years, Maitree has become a part of every TCS employee's life. From cracking quizzes to conquering tall peaks, from shaking a leg to bending it like Beckham, employees have reveled in the excitement and fun of all Maitree events. And that's not all. Workshops on theatre, yoga, origami, flower arrangement, chocolate making, and a host of others have allowed the employees to learn and know about things they always wanted to. All in all, Maitree provides everyone at TCS the opportunity to establish relationships that extend beyond work and thereby, help build bonds that makes work so much more fun.

Maitree - Even beyond the TCS Community:

In addition to working towards bringing our associates and their families closer, Maitree also strives to enable the development of the society. Our approach to social initiatives entails being pro-actively involved and working at the root level. Some of the projects we have undertaken include working with the differently-abled, aiding under-privileged children across various schools in Mumbai, and helping rural community in Vazapur, among others. Many programs initiated by Maitree, like employment opportunities for the differently-abled, HIV/AIDS sensitization, peer education, Green Audits to check the excess consumption of energy resources have now been accepted as best practices by the organization. The different initiatives are: Advanced Computer Training Centre for visually impaired at the MN Banajee Industrial Home for the Blind at Jogeshwari, Mumbai Rural Development Initiative (at Panvel) Thalassaemia Drive HIV AIDS awareness program

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TCS WORK CULTURE STRATEGY-BUILDING CULTURE OF INNOVATION

Indias Tata Group has made innovation part of its DNA, setting up a way for handling new ideas and making creative thinking a performance criterion . Its not that there had been no innovation inside Tata Group, the 117-year-old Indian powerhouse responsible for that nations first steel mill, power plant, and airline, among other achievements. But when Indias long protected economy was opened in 1991, Chairman Ratan Tata decided that for his companies to survive and thrive in a global economy he had to make innovation a priorityand build it into the DNA of the Tata group so that every employee at every company might think and act like an innovator. Today those 15 companies have produced such innovative products as the $2,000 Tata Nano car, and include firms such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the Mumbai-based IT services and outsourcing power, which earned almost $6 billion in revenues in 2008. THE TCS STRATEGY Cultural transformation is impossible without the leadership of top executives, so Tata created the Tata Group Innovation Forum (TGIF), a 12-member panel of senior Tata Group executives and some CEOs of the independently run companies. TGIFs main objective is to inspire and share best practices says Sunil Sinha, CEO of Tata Quality Management

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Services and a member of the forum. But executives also have employed other strategies to build a culture of innovation. Heres how they did so within TCS. First, leaders approached the challenge both top down and bottom up. TCS Chief Technology Officer Ananth Krishnan says this involved establishing formal systems for encouraging innovative thinking and processing of ideas. If I come up with an innovation, whether its an incremental or a disruptive idea, I need to know whom to go to with it, and there needs to be an organizational process for moving it forward, says Krishnan. TCS created multiple channels, and managers are trained how to direct an employees idea: incremental innovations are handled and funded by the business unit in which the idea originated; platform-level innovations that might extend an existing offering are directed to one of the companys 19 global innovation labs, leading-edge research centers focused on specific technology areas or business sectors. Disruptive ideas tend to originate in the labs, but if one emerged from a business unit it would be directed to a lab or funded through an incubator fund run by the CTOs office. How all of the ideas are evaluated and funded is almost less important than the fact that TCS employees know ideas are welcomeand that good ones wont die in a pile on someones desk. TCS has also incorporated innovation into its formal annual review process, making it one of the nine categories on which employees are evaluated. If an employee wins the companys Young Innovator Award, he or she will see more than a salary bump. It certainly accelerates your career track, says Krishnan. I might pluck you up and put you in one of our innovation labs. CREATIVE DISSATISFACTION In addition to formal systems, TCS takes steps to stimulate innovative thinking. We train people to think about improvement all of the time, to have what I call a culture of creative dissatisfaction with the status quo, says Krishnan. TCS has made innovation a component of training programs, from its leadership institute, to which

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50 senior managers are sent every year, to its four-day Technovator workshop, at which its programmers are taught to think creatively. Five hours of an employees 45-hour week can be used for personal projects, such as learning a skill or developing an idea. To better capture nascent ideas, the company launched IdeaMax, a Digg-like social network that lets any employee submit, comment, and vote on ideas. Since it was launched last year, IdeaMax has collected 12,000 ideas, several hundred of which have become projects. Every quarter, I review the top 10 most popular ideas, says Krishnan. The wisdom of crowds works for us. The company says it has been steadily meeting its innovation goals. Last year 10% of revenues were directly traceable to innovation activity, says Krishnan. TCS also has set goals for customer recognition of their innovations. When we launched our innovation initiative three years ago, we said one third of customers must be able to recount an innovative element of their project, he says. Now weve raised that to one half. Is that enough? I dont know. Maybe we should raise it again. What can executives learn from TCS about building a culture of innovation? LEADERSHIP LAYS THE FOUNDATION The CEO is the cornerstone of any effort to build a culture of innovation. He or she needs to communicate the importance of innovation directly to managers and to celebrate innovative efforts, including those that failed but were valiant attempts. Hire the Right People. But In a targeted effort to build its capacity for breakthrough innovations, TCS hired more PhD graduates. But broadly speaking, the processes are as important as the people when it comes to building a culture of innovation.

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BUILD INNOVATION INTO THE ORGANIZATION A culture of innovation wont take root if you dont have clear systems for approving and funding ideas, for example, or an employee review process that includes innovation criteria. Use Social Media to Tap Ideas and Encourage Collaboration In addition to IdeaMax, which will roll out to all Tata companies in September, TCS created Just Ask, a platform that allows employees to post and answer questions internally. Ten thousand questions were asked and answered within the first months of its launch. CELEBRATE INNOVATORS In addition to the Tata Group-wide Innovista innovation competition, TCS runs its own Young Innovator Awards to reward and recognize successful innovators.

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PROPEL THE INTERVENTION: CULTURE BUILDING AT TCS

PROPEL was introduced as a revolutionary intervention with the dual objectives of facilitating the exchange of ideas and helping in immediate problem solving, while also encouraging bonding and self-development among and within teams. As the organization and its relationships grew, it brought its own challenges, whereas change remained a constant. PROPEL was introduced as a platform and a tool to help bring about this change, in consonance with the TCS belief of Let us make it a joy for all our stakeholders. Promoting continuous improvement at a cross-functional level was one of the envisaged objectives. Change management was enabled through alignment with growth strategy; by creating platforms for dialogue on the current and emerging experience of the organization.

PROPEL has helped the organization build a culture of collaboration, creativity and also networks of relationships through its two modes:

1. Confluences: Listening to the voice of the employee in a team scenario, by creating a platform for open sharing of thoughts on a relevant theme. This is achieved through a balance of fun, introspection and interaction, while evoking commitment to self development.

2. Camps: Platform for problem solving, focus on the Quality, Cost and Delivery measures of throughput resulting in transfer and adoption of best practices within and amongst relationships in the organization.

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TEAM ALIGNMENT THROUGH PROPEL FRAMEWORK

Team alignment was a PROPEL application initiated for members of this large relationship, to reflect on its own state, to build a coherent statement of current realities and to channel potent restlessness and dissatisfactions within the relationship, into a convergent blueprint of responsiveness and new levels of maturity. It looked at redefining desirable role behaviors, and hence conveyed responsibility for movement at the collective as well as individual levels, for the team. This was brought about through the following stages:

1. Initiation: The Spiral dynamics framework was used to map the relationship in terms of its evolution. Tools were administered to a group of Project Managers to identify the gaps between where the team is (current state) and where it should be (desired state) and the steps to be taken to bridge this gap. Spiral Dynamics posits that the evolution of human consciousness can best be represented by a dynamic, upward spiraling structure that charts our evolving thinking systems as they arc higher and higher through levels of increasing complexity.

2. Awareness sessions & Workshops: Overviews on Spiral Dynamics and its application to achieve team alignment was shared with the team. In Jan 2012, a workshop was organized with the team to discuss the findings based on the analysis of data. A few key observations were: Differential perceptions of current reality by leadership and the rest of the team Need to make a few critical role shifts Need to align the broad directions and future steps

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This workshop allowed the team to clearly discuss their perceptions of the teams current situation and the following observations were agreed upon:

Need to negotiate expectations and sufficiently understand interdependence Reluctance to confront and bring issues to a head Stress Results and task oriented disposition

These results were then compared to the leaderships expectations from the team. Greater the convergence and alignment between leadership and the team on the current state and the directions for movement, greater the power of focused deployment of energies, and empowered, autonomous decisions and actions within the team. Gaps were identified, developmental areas were prioritized and broken down and categories identified to pinpoint where the greatest impact from team development efforts will be achieved.

3. Gap analysis: This was done to enhance understanding of the different roles for each job position, identify the ones suitable for the different job positions and come up with action items to address the themes agreed upon. As a next step, each member had to identify the gaps based on the role selected. For e.g.: The below roles were identified for a team member job position:

Self-developer Team Player Craftsperson

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The roles would vary depending on the location as well. Onsite members would have roles that require higher customer interaction.

4. Implementing improvement plan: Follow-up meetings were held at 6-8 week intervals to monitor progress made as well as to identify areas of improvement using Demings Plan-DoCheck-Act (PDCA) cycle. The Team Alignment tool was created in September 2005 with an aim of cascading the team alignment concept to the team member level in a shorter span of time.

5. Next steps: The team now has a 30, 60, 90 day implementation plan for the same. Incorporation of the three high priority action items arising from the team alignment exercise, as goals in the team was contemplated. Additionally a PROPEL camp was planned, to agree upon the steps to be taken to close the action items for each of the roles.

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QUESTIONNAIRE
1. How satisfied are you with the culture in your organization? Very satisfied Satisfied Not satisfied Very dissatisfied

2. What parameters do you like in your present organization culture?

3. What changes do you wish to see in your organization culture?

4. To what degree the organization culture is contributing towards your organizations success? Very High High Moderate Low Very Low

5. When do you consider your organization to be successful?

6.

Are Training programmes conducted? Not at all Rarely On joining only Regularly On request

7. Have you undergone training programme(s)? Yes No 8. If yes, to what degree the training programme help you in performing your job better? Very High High Moderate Low 34 | P a g e

 9.

Very Low Why? What was the degree of feedback you received after training programme? Very High High Moderate Low Very Low

10. Do you think the organization offers you a set career path? Yes No If yes, the degree of guidance and assistance provided to move in the set career path is Very High High Moderate Low Very Low 11. Are you given enough opportunities for your self-development? Yes No 12. Are you aware of the parameter on which performance appraisal is based? Yes No 13. The degree of correlation between your efforts put in and received Performance appraisal Very High High Moderate Low Very Low 14. Is there a reward system in place? Yes No If yes, what is the degree of correlation between Performance appraisal received and expected rewards Very High High Moderate Low Very Low 15. Are employees involved in determining the parameters used for appraisal? Yes No 35 | P a g e

CONCLUSION

I feel with positive initiatives and proper management bad cultures in an organization can be changed. TCS is an example of a company which is true to its values. It never compromises on quality and values. Even in dire situations, it always takes a stand which is ethically and morally correct.

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REFERENCES

http://www.tcs.com/about/corp_responsibility/documents/tcs_corporate_sustainability _report_low_resolution_09.pdf

http://careers.tcs.com/CareersDesign/Jsps/WorkingatTCS.jsp http://sumedhas.org/new3cont/The%20OD%20Journey.pdf http://www.mbanaukri.com/careers/news/tcs-work-culture-strategy-building-cultureof-innovation/ http://jobbuzz.timesjobs.com/company/Tata-Consultancy-ServicesLtd/review&txtCompId=741&currreqtb=review

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