Amazing Workplaces’ team interacted with Prasad Reddy, AVP – HR & IT, PreludeSys. Prasad is passionate about building and growing teams. He believes in building systems and establish processes to help people grow. At PreludeSys he is responsible for managing the HR and IT functions under the direction of the COO.
Prasad has used his natural leadership instincts to guide PreludeSys to become a thriving, motivated organization. With over 23 years of experience in the Information Technology services industry, Prasad has harnessed PreludeSys’ strategic growth plans into an operational HR and IT success story to drive delivery and efficiency.
In this email interaction we quiz Prasad about what makes them an employer of choice, their journey to becoming a Great Place to Work, and the various hiring and retention strategies they implement to recruit and retain great talent.
Here are excerpts from our interaction:
What are some of the things that distinguish you as an employer of choice especially for candidates looking for opportunities in the IT space?
Learning Opportunities. One of the key tenets of our people philosophy is nurture to grow. PreludeSys bouquet of service offerings and agile processes offers the deserved Talent offers both vertical and horizontal growth. This is the place where one can paint their own picture within the canvas—the organizational operational framework—and we will provide you the brushes you want and palette of colors—read: the tools required.
What are the key skills and values you look for while hiring?
As an IT services provider with Salesforce and Microsoft partnerships we look for technical skills from these two stacks. Of course, skill levels differ depending on the roles and responsibilities. For our KPO offerings, we look for people with good understanding of anatomy and medical terminology and excellent reasoning skills.
Most importantly, as an organization we look for the passion and one’s ability to handle their responsibilities without much of supervision—a commitment to the work. As an organization, we don’t believe in micromanagement and one trait for which PreludeSys is certified as A Great Place to Work is the accountability everyone takes. That is one of the key traits we look for.
What measures do you take to give equal opportunities for your employees?
Our policies around promotions, learning opportunities, or participation in complex projects do not differentiate between employees—by any means. We take great pride in the fact that now the women employees constitute close to 40% of our workforce.
All the lists of promotions and position hirings are routinely reported to COO and co-founder who directly monitors them to ensure that there are no discrepancies.
The great resignation has become a buzzword globally. In such a scenario, what are the various human resource strategies you implement to attract, engage and retain talent at PreludeSys?
Let me first admit that it impacted us as much as any other player in the IT services space.
Our operating principles helped us attract and engage talent more than a specific strategy. As I mentioned above, the learning opportunities in PreludeSys remain a differentiator to attract and retain talent. Also, our Salesforce offering through ODS—our On Demand Services model—is unique in the industry, and it also offers a variety of learning opportunities.
Another factor in which I take considerable pride is one of our key tenets of the people philosophy framework – RESPECT FOR PEOPLE. Respect is a core operating principle that runs in the DNA of PreludeSys and it helps PreludeSysians feel proud of being a member of this organization.
Share your journey to being awarded as the “Great place to work”?
I must share an anecdote here. PreludeSys founders are schoolmates, and they share that bonding even today. That camaraderie and togetherness run in the DNA of the organization.
As an organization, we always rallied around our People Philosophy tenets of Purpose, Respect for People, Nurture to Grow, and Equal Opportunity. We are driven by our value system of CLAPQ: Collaboration, Leadership, Accountability, Passion, and Quality.
Our people frameworks—built on our People Philosophy and CLAPQ value system—helped us make PreludeSys a Great Place to Work.
Great Place to Work® Certification measures an organization on Credibility, Respect, Fairness, Pride, and Camaraderie. PreludeSys scored exceedingly well in each of these dimensions, thanks to our passionate PreludeSysians.
How was the shift from remote to hybrid? Share your experience about implementing the hybrid work model. How has it worked for you?
As the pandemic situation improved and governments lifted the restrictions and restored normalcy, it gave us an opportunity to come out and be ourselves, individually and collectively.
We understood that work from the office required us to re-organize, and with this re-organization came some challenges. Hence, we thought we should go with flexi hybrid mode where teams (under one manager) will choose the days they would like to be at the office.
We observed that in-person facetime provided a great value to foster team spirit and collaboration, which otherwise would not have been possible. While I am not able to quantify that now, we see that the value is immeasurable, especially for the delivery that calls for tighter collaboration. At the same time, the work from home option for the rest of the days offers a fine balance for our PreludeSysians; they can take advantage of both.
