Aditi Technologies belies the belief that gobsmacking employee perks—a hot air balloon ride over the Grand Canyon or a night cruise to Alaska—is the preserve of Fortune 500 companies. Pradeep Singh, founder of the outsourced product development company, says making his employees fall in love with Aditi has been a huge factor in their success. It’s won them three consecutive outings in the Great Place to Work India list. Singh takes us through why putting their employees’ welfare and enjoyment at the centre has resulted in a great culture the company is proud of.

What they want to build: When Pradeep Singh founded Aditi Technologies in 1994, he wanted to create a workplace where people would come to work every day, excited. “I wanted to build a company which is like a playground, where people can learn and have fun at the same time.” His outlook on a people-centric organisation has been shaped by his nine year stint at Microsoft. In fact, some of the practices at Aditi are indicative of those that Microsoft practised in its early days. Singh was deeply inspired by the start-up culture (think being open, progressive, vibrant) of Microsoft in the late 1980s. Microsoft was much smaller then, yet it aspired to change the world and wanted people to have fun doing it, says Singh. This is the kind of culture that Singh envisaged for Aditi.

Karaoke at work is one of the unique ways in which the employees at Aditi Technologies bust their stress

How they’re implementing it:
Singh wanted to build a culture with the simple idea that since people spend more time at work than home, they should have an office that offers the comforts of one’s home. So, from the very beginning, Singh ensured that their office has enough space for leisure activities so that it has an exciting environment for employees to be at. A rooftop cafeteria, carrom boards at several corners, a video game room, an indoor cricket field and a gym occupy a large part of their office space. They wanted these recreational spaces to not only let people de-stress but help people connect, loosen up at work and work better as a team.  

Apart from the fun places to hang out, Aditi’s employee engagement team organises on an average 30 events monthly such as gully cricket and foosball tournaments, floor activities like fireless cooking contest, bay decoration competitions, hackathons and celebrations on events such as Women’s Day and Valentine’s Day. “We don’t need a big reason to celebrate at Aditi. We celebrate everything. When new people join in, we have games like treasure hunt, or making butter milk and lemonade activities.” Singh also throws in regular beer bashes or pizza parties in the office every time a target  is achieved, however small. 

Although people warned him against having so many fun activities claiming employees wouldn’t work, Singh dismissed the fear. “Having these leisure spaces and keeping an eagle eye on people’s movements would have made the purpose of the whole exercise futile. We don’t monitor people,” claims Singh. He says at Aditi they are output-focused, and it doesn’t matter to him how and when people do their tasks.

We don’t need a big reason to celebrate at Aditi. We celebrate everything." - Pradeep Singh 

He laughs though, “Sometimes, I do wonder how the hell we get work done. I see so many people in the cafeteria all the time. Some are always at the video game console.” He adds, “I think the freedom we give the people instills the sense of accountability and ownership. There is a feeling of not letting their peers let down.”

To demonstrate their commitment to their employees' well being, Aditi also has an in-house counsellor. Pradeep Rathinam, the company’s CEO, says they want their people to have long term success in life, not just improve their work performance. In most companies, the HR person takes on the role of a counsellor but since HR is seen as a management’s accomplice, Singh and Rathinam were certain they wanted a trained, external practitioner people could go to. “Today, people share even their matrimonial problems with the counsellor,” says Rathinam.

A quick look at the activities Aditi Technologies has been organising to keep its employees engaged

Apart from helping them with life skills, Aditi invests a lot on learning and development initiatives for its people, including management and leadership workshops in India and abroad. There are regular speaker sessions in their office in Bangalore as well. Last year alone, they conducted a staggering 540 different workshops and training sessions across their seven offices in North American, Europe and India.

There are also different forums for management and people engagement. One of the biggest hits is their two-hour Ask Me Anything (AMA) session which happens once every two months. In this informal forum, senior folks that are planning some changes in the organisation are on the hot seat, and anyone in the company can ask questions online and expect to be answered in real-time. During organisational changes, COO or CEO or both will be on the hot seat, and during appraisal cycle, the HR person would be on it. This is done through company’s social media interface, Yammer, which is like a Facebook wall page where people post their questions. “People engage very enthusiastically in that process. I usually get around 40 questions in just two hours. My hands always get tired typing,” says Rathinam. 

 The fact that employees feel they can be vocal in the questions they can ask, and expect to be answered is a testimony to the culture of trust and connectedness, Singh says. “We don’t have a monologue, our conversations with our people is a dialogue.” This culture of conversation, healthy dissent and irreverence has also been partly possible because of the company’s liberal social media policies. Unlike several companies where access to social media sites is blocked, at Aditi, people are encouraged to express themselves. The company’s Facebook page teems with a range of employee activities such as the cooking contest or the cricket tournament. That page has nearly 30,000 fans—surprising, considering Aditi Technologies is a 2,000 people company. The buzz is evident in the company’s blog where there are numerous entries about people’s musical talents and favourite video games. Together, this has created an environment where people feel entitled to speak out, and have an independent voice. “Every time I give a talk in office, my Twitter handle gets flooded with comments of what people did or didn’t like,” says Rathinam. 

Note: On April 10, 2014, Symphony Teleca Corporation- a US based technology services company, entered into an agreement to acquire Aditi Technologies.