Genpact: Instilling social responsibility in its staff

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Q: You are continuing to look at this as a voluntary sort of engagement within the company, but the government is now looking at making corporate social responsibility mandatory and make it a part of Company's Bill. So, we don't know what the final details will be or whether it will be made a part or not, but it's in the draft that a certain percentage of your profits will go towards corporate social responsibility. How would you respond to something like that?

Bhasin: I think that's a wrong thing to do. Yes, you should contribute X amount of effort, but that effort is probably more valuable in skill development or in creating employability, for instance, we work with junior achievement, I am the Chairman of Junior achievement in India. Our volunteers go to schools to train people so that they become more employable. Now, I could give that school money and it will go straight down the pit or I can actually spend the money on our people to go out there and train with time and effort. So I think getting that right is absolutely important. I think the less regulation the better. I can't imagine that most companies, perhaps I am nive about this, but I cannot imagine that most companies would not do a lot of this work automatically.

Overtime as we become bigger and we are a New York stock exchange listed company and as we get into the gun-sides of the many other NGO's and other people, a lot of questions would be asked of us by investors and third parties who would say you employ 40000 people in some of the developing countries of the world, what do you do for the environment around you. I think these are hugely legitimate questions that frankly we shouldn't be waiting for them to ask. We should be answering it ourselves. I think the only way we can answer it ourselves is to say we will put away X amount of money, more importantly we have a hospital which does emergency rescues here, which we have funded and we will continue to do more like that. They go out and save two lives a day on the Gurgaon highway, now how do you put that, I can quantify that. But the impact of that is so much more profound, if you think of what it can do.

Asmara has been coming to the center Vishwas Vidyalaya for the last few years, but for the last one month about 70 children and young adults like Asmara have been learning something new, something fun.

Neelam Jolly, Chairperson, Vishwas says, "Jolly: Like any other child once you give them opportunity, once you give them an exposure, they will really reach whatever level other children can reach. So now when we shifted into this school, Genpact very generously helped us with the cabling and all that and they said that we will put a computer lab. So, this is one computer lab which is going to help our children in learning the basics and in the long run, god willing, we want to have a training program for adults where they become employable."

Building an inclusive society is at the core of Genpact's business as well. A special school which started by helping become computer literate and giving them a medium to express themselves with a touch of a finger.

Q: This is all about being able to quantify and actually being able to put a number to, whether it is resources or impact? In terms of resources is there now a target in mind about what you will actually be deploying not just in terms of manpower but also monetarily?

Bhasin: The monetary targets will vary each year based on the pressure we would have on margins or last year was an economic recession. I had no monetary target.

Q: To get the 6000 employees to double to 12000 employees, you are not going to put more money down that?

Bhasin: We will put more money in next year for instance. You know clearly but frankly no matter what money I put the impact of 12000 employees volunteering for a reasonable period of time each month is unmatched, it is beyond any money I could pour, it is beyond a calculation of 2% or something like that.

We put money in as well and we do it. We have done a cyber lab for the police in Haryana. We as I said, we have put in the hospitals, we will put money into education, we will put money into training programmes or taking the schools to train the teachers so that they can train the students and become more employable.

So there is hard cash going out, don't get me wrong. And there will be hard cash going out. What I hear back from a lot of NGOs by the way and a lot of people in this work is if for instance I go to the police and I have gone to the transporters in Gurgaon and said what do you need? They don't need the money, they are saying tech us, give us the skills and we have enormous training programmes, it would be very sad if all we did was give money. Frankly I think companies that just hand out money are finding the easy answer. That's the easy answer.

Q: Before I wrap up let me ask you, what to your mind is the Heart of Business?

Bhasin: I think it's to do good for the community around you. We don't exist to make money alone. I think that's a very narrow view of the world. None of us, I always, at the annual meeting I always tell people. I say, five years from now you won't remember how much of an income you made that year but you will remember what new grounds you broke, what new areas you got into, what friends you made, what good you did for society around you. That has to be the Heart of Business.

Genpact's 40,000 employees are the Heart of its Business and it is hoping that these 40,000 employees will contribute back to society with their time, their skills and their resources.