Separator

Snapdeal: An Equity Oriented Culture Entrenched at a Deeper Level

Separator
Pravin Kutty, Head - Human Resources

Pravin Kutty

Head - Human Resources

Many companies have been striving to establish complete equality between their men and women employees. Almost all of them are failing miserably because laws and campaigns can’t shatter the glass ceiling as long as the gender discrimination is nipped at the cultural level to alter the attitudes of every employee in the company. Snapdeal, however, has cracked the code of bringing an unbiased culture by nurturing an environment of equality. “All our talent management processes are gender agnostic. Gender equality is entrenched deeply in our DNA,” explains Pravin Kutty, Head - Human Resources, Snapdeal.

Irrespective of the gender, Snapdeal vests importance on testing the candidate’s cultural compatibility via a behavioural interview along with gauging technical depth while hiring. “The thought process must be wired in line with our culture and the rest can be trained later,” affirms Pravin.

A strong proponent of transparency, Snapdeal takes ample time in explaining its entire journey to all prospective candidates so that they will be aware of what they are signing up for. “We take pride in both the highs and lows with the learning we have gone through,” adds Pravin.

Driving Performance
Despite being a 10-year old company, Snapdeal inclusive and transparent culture drives collaboration, innovation, empowerment, and ownership. The company follows an open office culture where everybody is free to walk up to anybody and discuss what is on their mind. Snapdeal maps its people’s performance and provides constant feedback in order to push them to improve and take more ownership. By providing feedback on a quarterly basis, Snapdeal facilitates them to understand their current skill status and areas they should be focusing on. Performance mapping has also helped identify and recruit top talent for critical roles and high potential people for key roles. “Adequate automation is employed to make performance management more seamless, well captured and unbiased. This also helped many employees move to a higher level at a faster pace and retain them for a longer duration,” explains Pravin.
All this, along with a fair compensation policy, has helped Snapdeal build a workforce, where 30% of the team is women. “The work culture is well attuned for women employees’ success because there aren’t different lines that people have to follow to achieve a level of performance, promotion or reward. Talent is purely seen as talent and not where it comes from,” adds Pravin.

Striking the Right Work Life Balance
Rewards, milestone celebrations, and get togethers are an integral part of Snapdeal’s culture. There are quarterly get togethers for the team and numerous fun activities in the office itself. The special allowances are reserved for teams to enjoy outings with their fellow colleagues. It also organizes formal bring your family events like Bring Your Kid to Work Day, where children of employees get to play in a small game zone and a watch movie or magic show.

Adequate automation is employed to make performance management more seamless, well captured and unbiased


It also has a flexible work culture and generous leave policy to ensure perfect work life balance. Snapdeal also firmly believes that maternity is a crucial phase in a woman’s journey. This is manifested from the five month long maternity leave Snapdeal had implemented way before it was extended by law to 6 months now, and the other small gestures such as providing them special parking facilities and welcoming the new mothers with a cake-cutting celebration. “We render all the possible support whether it’s normal delivery, C-Section, miscarriage or other medical complications. We set the stage for her to ease back into the job with flexible leaves outside the maternity leave and work from home option if ever required to,” avows Pravin.

Although the company doesn’t force anyone to work on unearthly hours(except for its contact center where women are n’t scheduled for night shifts), if anyone decides to extend their working hours, they can request a cab from the admin team. This standard 9-5 time laced with its generous leave policy ensures the perfect worklife balance.

Raising the Bar
In 2017, Snapdeal was all over the tabloid for downsizing its employee base, as it had built a huge team for a much larger size of business than what was required. Quickly realizing that product companies are supposed to be focusing on enhancing performance before increasing size, the company rejuvenated itself. Having stepped up its game in this regard, Snapdeal has boosted its performance fourfold over the past couple of years whilst heedfully maintaining the right team size which stands at 770 at present. “We are a self critical organization who constantly ask ourselves whether we are doing everything we can for our employees and strive to surpass our own benchmarks in this area,” concludes Pravin.

Key Management
Pravin Kutty, Head – Human Resources
Pravin brings the whole package to the table with a PG in IT and a Diploma in Business Management along with a vast 20+ years of experience in the Service Delivery & HR sector. He is a process re-engineering expert and startup specialist with the innate ability to build things from scratch, partner with business and manage employee relations.

Headquarter:New Delhi