ManageEngine Looking to Hire 1000 Employees in India, Skills Required - “Good Attitude”

ManageEngine plans to hire around 1,000 employees in the country this year for development, R&D and customer-facing roles

ManageEngine, the enterprise IT management division of Zoho Corporation, announced its plans to grow its Indian workforce by 1,000 employees in 2022. The announcement was made at the ManageEngine user conference in Bengaluru, which was held at ITC Gardenia. The event, that was hosted to celebrate the company turning 20 years old, offered detailed walk-throughs and live demonstrations of all major ManageEngine solutions.

The company announced that it was looking forward to expand its presence throughout the country, and hence these 1000 hires would be placed in development, R&D and customer-facing roles.  “We invest heavily in R&D, product design and integration, so that our customers can accelerate their own digital transformation. We invest heavily in support so that our customers have a reliable partner to navigate a fast-changing landscape. We are in IT for the long haul, so customers can trust us to be around,” said Sridhar Vembu, CEO and co-founder of Zoho Corp. While 10 percent of the employees will be hired from Zoho Schools, a large majority of freshers will be hired from Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad and the NCR Region. 

Hiring Talent for ManageEngine

Speaking on hiring freshers and the talent crunch in the industry, Rajesh Ganesan, president, ManageEngine said to Dataquest that the company believed that nurturing talent was completely its responsibility as opposed to complaining about the lack of talent available in the market. “We do not believe in complaining about talent not being available or employees not being able to do what is required out of them from day one. We truly believe that talent is, in fact, something that we have to nurture. Our priority would be to get the employees and then mentor them to fulfil their job roles. All we expect in return is good attitude, and for them to merge into the culture of our company,” he said.

Ganesan also stated that the company does not expect loyalty from its employees straight away. “We give them our loyalty first, and if we get it back from them we are happy. I say this because technology problems are very easy, business problems are hard, and people problems are impossible. The only way to hold on to talent is by mentoring them and that is what we aim to do. Some companies are restless, do not have patience and expect employees to start contributing from the first day. However, we do not do that at ManageEngine,” added Ganesan.

Why Talent Crunch Isn’t An Issue for ManageEngine

Sridhar Vembu, CEO and co-founder of Zoho Corp says that the company at present has around 10,200 employees in India, and has a headcount of nearly 10,800 employees globally. “We have an attrition rate of 8.5 percent despite not having any bonds or notice period while hiring employees. Our employees can leave the company by giving a one-day or even half-a-day notice,” said Vembu.

The reason for the low attrition rate, Ganesan says, is the culture of work that the company offers to its employees. “ManageEngine offers around 60 products, and Zoho offers another 100 products. Each of these teams operate very autonomously - there is no central corporate policy that is driving these teams, they have their own culture. There is no hierarchy, and anybody can reach out to me at any time. We go out as a team, and make no fuss about it. Also, it isn’t always about work. A manager in my team offers regular sessions on how employees can invest their money. Although we don’t have a Bluebook on how to handle people and each team handles its people differently it’s fascinating how people come together in a way they want to and then end up working together,” says Ganesan.

He also added that while he has stayed with Shridhar Vembu for over 25 years, he has around 20 people who have stayed with him for nearly 20 years without any obligation from the company. “We don’t plan this but people here end up staying and grow organically. That’s the culture we follow at ManageEngine and Zoho,” commented Ganesan. 

What ManageEngine is Looking for While Hiring Employees

For the company, which mainly hires freshers who may not necessarily have the required skills, “good attitude” is the foremost quality that employees need to have. “Good attitude, emotional quotient and maturity are the only qualities that we look for in candidates. They should be able to take feedback, and not get offended. These qualities are hard to gauge in one meeting. This is why we follow a hiring model called incubation. While we do written tests and interviews, we are not looking to get the ideal candidates with all the qualities in one go. We, instead, take them into the team and then let them work on a few projects. The only way to gauge candidates is to observe them over a period of time. In case they are unable to imbibe our culture or wish not to continue with us, we let them go. The reason most companies take a lot of time to hire candidates is because it is difficult to let them go. However, the problem with having a candidate who is not a good fit to the team is that we are doing ourselves and them more harm than good” stated Ganesan. 

ManageEngine Is Looking Forward to Train Freshers in Office

The company believes that the new hires and freshers should be trained in office as opposed to remotely. When Dataquest questioned the company on offering work-from-home to its employees, Shailesh Davey, co-founder and vice president of engineering of Zoho Corp said: “Freshers cannot be trained through remote working means. They will have to attend office, and only then will they be able to understand our culture and our work. They need to be attached to the company, and the our culture needs to be imbibed in them This can only be possible if they are physically present in office.”

Shailesh further commented: “However, if there is again a pandemic like situation we will of course allow them to work from home as long as it is mandated by the Government. Or even after they are experienced, and stick to us for three or five years, their reporting managers can take a call on how they should be working.” The company is looking forward to expand its presence in India further in the upcoming years. “In India, we registered a YoY revenue growth of 63.2% in 2021, while our customer count increased by 26.3%, driven by demand primarily from the BFSI and IT services and solutions sectors," Shailesh noted while adding that the three key pillars driving growth in the country were hybrid work, cloud adoption and the government’s digital push.