ensar Technologies of Pune, India, provides offshore software development services to Fortune 500 companies around the world. With staff members in 18 countries and growth topping 40 percent annually, Zensar wanted to streamline its employee review process, which took up to two months per employee and impaired the company’s ability to retain talent. Zensar used Microsoft® software to create a Web-based assessment portal with built-in workflow and document storage. Employees and managers now have greater control over their reviews and have shortened the review process by up to 50 percent.

1. The People-Ready Business
Case Study
Zensar Technologies
Employees Use Portal to Route Performance Reviews and
Reduce Cycle Time by 50 Percent
Zensar Technologies of Pune, India, provides offshore software development
services to Fortune 500 companies around the world. With staff members in
18 countries and growth topping 40 percent annually, Zensar wanted to
streamline its employee review process, which took up to two months per
employee and impaired the company’s ability to retain talent. Zensar used
Microsoft® software to create a Web-based assessment portal with built-in
workflow and document storage. Employees and managers now have greater
control over their reviews and have shortened the review process by up to 50“The HR Assessment
percent. Portal is a great example
of using innovative
OVERVIEW software to reduce
Country or Region Solution business costs.”
India In just 16 days, Zensar used Microsoft®
software to create a Web-based portal that Kumar Gaurav, Practice Head,
Industry
employees use to create and track annual Enterprise Collaboration and
Professional services--IT Services Content Management, Zensar
performance reviews.
Technologies
Customer Profile
Zensar Technologies of Pune, India, Benefits
provides software development and  Employee-friendly assessment process
management services for companies  Up to 50 percent reduction in review
worldwide. Zensar has approximately 3,500 process
employees in 23 locations around the world.  Better employee retention
Business Situation
As Zensar expanded internationally, its
manual, paper-based employee-review
process became more time-consuming and
frustrating. Employees couldn’t access
previous assessments or track their reviews.
The People-Ready Business Case Study 1

2. The People-Ready Business
Case Study
Situation took between one and two months for each
employee.
When a company is growing rapidly and
employees are located all over the world, Besides taking a long time, the old system
routine administrative tasks can become made it impossible for employees to access
tedious and time-consuming, which bogs their past reviews and made it difficult for
down productivity and undermines morale. managers to communicate about employee
That’s what employee performance reviews performance or share information. “Our
were like at Zensar Technologies, a managers and employees are all over the
software developer headquartered in Pune, world and move constantly from project to
Maharashtra, India. project,” Gaurav says. “We had to reinvent
the wheel every time an employee was
The company has development centers in reviewed, because paper forms were
23 locations around the world, with inaccessible to anyone outside of HR.”
approximately 3,500 employees in places as Often, employees worked at client sites and
far-flung as China, Poland, South Africa, had client e-mail addresses, which made it
Singapore, and Latin America. With rapid awkward to conduct evaluation-related
growth in so many locations, annual phone calls and to send confidential
employee performance reviews had become assessment documents.
a tangled and burdensome ordeal. “We had
a paper-based, manual process that “As a manager, I had no idea how many
involved sending documents around as e- assessments I had done or had left to do
mail attachments,” explains Kumar Gaurav, unless I tracked it myself. This hurt my
Practice Head, Enterprise Collaboration and ability to plan my workload,” Gaurav says.
Content Management, at Zensar “As an employee, I had no ability to access “Now [employees] can follow
Technologies. “Employees could not track previous years’ assessments or to track the their appraisal on the portal
their assessments-in-progress or save progress of my appraisal. Our hiring market and see when it’s through
assessments from previous years, and HR is quite heated, and our appraisal system management review and with
[Human Resources] was responsible for was hurting our ability to retain talent.” HR. The system is completely
keeping the whole process moving for
transparent.”
thousands of employees.”
Kumar Gaurav, Practice Head,
Solution
Enterprise Collaboration and
The HR staff commenced the process by Content Management, Zensar
Zensar wanted to solve this internal process
sending employees an e-mail message Technologies
problem quickly and cost effectively and
containing an assessment document.
focus on its primary business of creating
Employees would complete the form,
great software for clients. When Zensar
evaluating themselves on their completion of
heard about Microsoft® Office SharePoint®
annual goals, and then send it back to HR.
Server 2007—portal software with built-in
The HR staff would then send the form
electronic forms and workflow capabilities—
serially to the employee’s managers, who, if
it decided that it had found its solution
the employee worked on multiple projects
foundation.
that year, were sometimes located all over
the world. When all the assessments were
“Microsoft software is very easy to use, and
in, the HR staff obtained the employee’s
it’s a very flexible development
consent to the final appraisal and calculated
environment,” Gaurav says. “We didn’t want
a score that was used to set the employee’s
to spend a lot of time on development. We
annual raise and bonus. The whole process
liked the built-in workflows in the new
The People-Ready Business Case Study 2

3. The People-Ready Business
Case Study
Microsoft collaboration software and the Zensar now has a Web-based shared-
ability to easily connect the solution to other workspace and collaboration environment
business software we had; namely, our that employees can use to more easily
PeopleSoft employee data and our network- create and track annual performance
credential data.” reviews. The company has been able to
reduce employee review times by up to 50
In just 16 person-days, Zensar developers percent and has improved employee
used Microsoft software to create an satisfaction, which helps retain talent.
electronic performance appraisal system
called the HR Assessment Portal. With the
Employee-Friendly Assessment
new system, the HR staff still sends an e-
Process
mail message to each employee when it is Using the new HR Assessment Portal,
time for his or her performance review. But employees can record their
instead of sending a document, HR embeds accomplishments online throughout the year
a link to a Web site. With one click, the rather than having to wait until the HR staff
employee can access an electronic form initiates their review. They can also access
that contains his or her previous-year’s their previous years’ assessments, for easy
assessment for reference to begin the reference in completing current
process. assessments. The electronic forms are easy Executive Biography
Kumar Gaurav heads Zensar’s
to complete, with many fields that fill
When employees complete their online self- enterprise collaboration and content
automatically and others that have clear
management practice, where he is
assessments, they exit the system, which prompts. responsible for building a business
automatically generates an e-mail message
from the ground up and developing
to the employee’s supervisor. That e-mail “All employee achievements are now in one skills across multiple competency
message also contains a link to the portal. place, which makes it far easier for centers. Gaurav specializes in
Each time a manager completes his or her employees and managers to record business transformation consulting
review of an employee, the system information, and encourages them to do so,” and has worked with Fortune 500
automatically triggers a review by the next companies to improve their IT
Gaurav says. “Employees and managers
appropriate person. From the portal, strategy, knowledge management, and
don’t have to track down their achievement
collaboration.
managers can search a database for past data once a year; they can enter
reviews and other documents related to that accomplishments as they occur, in one
employee’s performance. They can even central place.”
initiate online conversations with other
managers, which shortens the time spent Employees can also track the status of their
tracking down documents and people. reviews online instead of sending e-mail
queries to the HR staff. “Employees are
When the assessment is complete, the HR anxious to know when they will receive their
Assessment Portal automatically calculates manager’s comments,” Gaurav says. “Now
a recommended raise and bonus for the they can follow their appraisal on the portal
employee, relieving the HR staff and and see when it’s through management
managers of a task that used to take two review and with HR. The system is
weeks per review. completely transparent.”
Managers, too, can centrally track how
many appraisals are headed their way and
Benefits where their staff members are on their
appraisals. “As a manager, the new system
The People-Ready Business Case Study 3

4. The People-Ready Business
Case Study
makes my communication with HR and with work lives makes them more productive,
my own staff much easier. As soon as I happier employees.” Customer Details:
agree on a score for an employee, the Zensar Technologies
compensation is automatically calculated,” Phone: 91-20-66057500
Gaurav says. “The system even shows me a Web site: www.zensar.com
complete view of all my employees’ scores
so I can see how my team is doing in The People-Ready Business.
meeting their annual objectives.” A people-ready business is one
where people can apply their
Up to 50 Percent Reduction in unique skills, insights and
Review Process experience to create new products
As a result of the automated efficiencies it and services, work responsively
has achieved, Zensar has been able to with customers and partners, and
reduce the length of the employee review
drive operational excellence in
every aspect of the business.
process by up to 50 percent—from as long
People-ready businesses support
as two months to one month or less per
people with knowledge, practices
employee. The reduction in time reduces and tools so that they can add the
costs; Zensar has been able to redeploy one extra value that helps differentiate
full-time staff member in its HR department successful organizations in a
to a higher-level and more satisfying competitive, fast-moving global
management position. economy.
“We are growing rapidly, but we want our www.microsoft.com/peopleready
hiring to be focused on profit-generating
positions, not in operational areas such as
HR,” Gaurav says. “The HR Assessment Software & Services
Portal is a great example of using innovative
Windows Server® 2003
software to reduce business costs.”
Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2005
Microsoft Office InfoPath® 2007
Better Employee Retention Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007
Creating the online assessment system has Microsoft Office SharePoint®
also helped Zensar create a positive image Server 2007
with its employees, which helps it retain
talent. Gaurav and staff have been able to
transform the onerous annual review
process into a more transparent, objective,
and supportive process.
“The more we smooth out administrative
tasks such as performance reviews, the
more employees like their jobs,” Gaurav
says. “Making the effort to improve this
particular process lets employees know that
Zensar cares about their accomplishments
and appreciates their work. Any way that we
can remove frustration from our employees’
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published December 2007
The People-Ready Business Case Study 4