Sikka suggests new 'habits' to Infy staff to make 2015 a year to remember

Asks employees to question, be curious and mindful, to speak up and challenge the norm

Infosys Chief Executive Officer Vishal Sikka (pictured) on Thursday reached out to employees through a blog post, asking them to adopt “new habits and behaviour” which, if implemented, might make 2015 a “year to remember” for the company.

Sikka, who had earlier questioned several norms of the Indian information technology (IT) services sector and termed its state “depressing”, asked employees to be “mindful” and “curious”, to “speak up”, and to “learn and teach”. He also urged them to ask questions, challenge norms and review practices.

“Mindlessly following instructions is best left to drones and automation. We humans are differentiated by our intelligence and imagination,” he said. “If each one of us puts our minds to it, 2015 will be a year to remember, a year when we will have once again established what being an IT services company is all about and when we will have helped established a new tone, a new standard, a new purpose to our work. It will be a Happy New Year.”

SIKKA'S MANTRA

• BE MINDFUL: If every one of us found just one little way to do more, with less, for more with our own work, what a great wave of renewal we would have sparked!
• BE CURIOUS: Think of the ideas that will create value in unexpected new ways
• MINIMISE YOUR DISTANCE TO REALITY: Bridge the distance between you or your work and the end-user, the code and its economic viability
• SPEAK UP: Mindlessly following instructions is best left to drones and automation
• LEARN AND TEACH: Each one of us, by renewing our own functions and exploring the new, can show others the way

In November, Sikka said the Indian IT services sector was on a downward spiral, adding it must take a “better direction”. He said the sector was running on a treadmill of lowering costs, hiring people faster, training them less, and putting them into jobs faster. He had termed the sector’s focus on cost arbitrage and lowering costs a “depressing reality”.

In the blog post, Sikka told Infosys employees there was a need to “distance ourselves from the labour arbitrage” and the “same mess for less” of yesterday, moving towards innovating and “doing more with less, for more”. For this, he asked employees to inculcate better thinking and find their unique wisdom.

“Guided by this strategy, enabled by our emerging creative confidence, I cannot help but think nothing can stop us from reviving ourselves, from transforming Infosys into the next-generation services company that will lead our industry and begin a great Human Revolution,” Sikka said.

If each one of us puts our minds to it, 2015 will be a year to remember,” Sikka said. “A year where we will have once again established what being an IT services company is all about, we will have helped establish a new tone, a new standard, a new purpose to our work.  It will be a Happy New Year!”