Zydus Bets On Data To Map Employee Growth

Does away with bell curve for assessment, uses hard numbers for annual appraisals, makes promotions more objective.

- JOE C. MATHEW

SIX YEARS AGO, the human resources (HR) department of pharmaceutical major Zydus Lifesciences Ltd. faced a peculiar problem. Several senior managers and leaders started complaining about the bell curve system to rate performance. They said the system, which compulsorily rates a certain percentage of employees in each division as outstanding, good, poor, etc, in a pre-determined format was making it difficult to record true performance of managerial staff. The HR department held multiple discussions and brainstorming sessions with the leadership team and introduced Zydus Scorecard. "We decided we will not evaluate managerial group on forced bell curve as their job is not repetitive. We evolved, interacted and understood the problem. We made the process more robust in terms of its relevance to the business," says Rishikesh Raval, CHRO, Zydus.