Measuring standards

INNOVATION: Tata Power has introduced an index that measures managers on human resources and quality.

If stock markets track performance of listed scrips, Tata Power has an index that will track the performance of its managers on areas like quality and people management. Taking a cue from stock market index, Tata Power has launched an initiative termed 'Pepex' or the 'People Index'.

Its a 5000-point index and, akin to stock market indices, 'Pepex' will either move up or down based on the performance of the company's managers on areas relating to people and quality. It is currently being piloted in the hydros division of the company.

The index will be tracked on a quarterly basis and the company has also aligned the index to the performance appraisal of its managers. The objective "� to ensure that managers do not lose track of quality issues and people issues while running their day-to-day operations.

Says Ronald Sequeira, Vice President, Tata Power Company: "There are certain activities that managers are expected to do to drive the business, managing people being one of them. However, when managers are caught in a real work situation, people issues tend to often lose focus.

The group believes in the philosophy that "something measured gets done".That's why we have designed Pepex (people Index), which outlines some of the areas that we as a company should measure." In this 5,000-point index, weights are assigned to all these areas that the company plans to measure.

These areas include Quality (that encompasses 5S, ISO, Total Productivity Maintenance, benchmarking), Participation (that incorporates areas like suggestion schemes, cross functional teams and Corporate Social Responsibility which is a key to every employee), and Learning which looks at sharing of knowledge, knowledge hubs and training. The weightages for all these areas will vary from situation to situation.

The company claims this is not yet another "feel-good" HR practice, instead there is a business focus that the initiative will attain.

For instance, when a company starts measuring quality initiatives, managers will be obviously alert at churning out better quality product and output. And in their quest to generate quality output, managers will also be forced to think out-of-the-box and bring to bare certain innovations.