Employee Rewards, Recognition, and Appreciation Policy (along with DEFCONs) [Discontinued]

[Discontinued]

Standard guidelines regarding how Team Performance Evaluations will be conducted

Version 5.0 (In effect starting January 1, 2021)

Our mission is to empower our employees to compete with their equivalents in Silicon Valley, Beijing, Seoul, and Tokyo by 2023 hence making performance reviews essential for motivating, managing, and directing the team members in the right direction. McKinley & Rice’s Performance Evaluation (PE) process has been designed to provide a vital link between the organization’s business plan, its vision, guiding principles, and individual staff members. It is also intended to ensure that the company’s goals and objectives flow from the top of the organization to the personal objectives of each individual. It is integral to fostering an engaged and productive workforce, recognizing and rewarding good performance, and managing underperformance.

I. Performance Evaluation Policy

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that a consistent approach is followed for conducting performance reviews, and that job-related skills, knowledge, and employee competencies and behaviors, are evaluated and compared against set standards and the business objectives.

Principles:

We will implement our appraisal arrangements on the following principles:

Equality of Opportunity: All employees should be encouraged and supported to achieve their potential through clarity of expectations and job role, regular feedback, performance review, and provision of relevant development.

Consistency of Treatment and Fairness: We will act to ensure our performance appraisal process is fair, non-discriminatory and that staff is treated with fairness.

High Standards: We believe by setting appropriate and challenging standards of performance and providing regular feedback and development opportunities, all staff have the potential to continually improve their performance.

Work-life balance: All employees are entitled to a satisfactory work-life balance and performance appraisal is an appropriate mechanism to facilitate this.

Pay and Rewards: Pay progression for employees should reflect their overall contribution to the organization both as individuals and as team members.

Policy Description:

Performance appraisal discussions will be held with the COO after every twelve months. The company would follow a January to December performance review cycle and appraisal cycle.

The team would be informed about their annual increments and bonus in January, and the same would be reflected in the salary for the month of January.

Discussion:

The appraisal discussion will allow an opportunity for both the appraisee and the appraiser to reflect and comment on the previous year’s achievements. The appraiser would be accountable for giving the employee constructive, timely, and honest appraisals of their performance, which should consider both the goals of the organization and that of the individual. The discussion should be a positive dialogue and will focus on assisting the appraisee to acquire the relevant knowledge, skills, and competencies to perform his/her current role to the best of his/her abilities. The appropriate forms will be completed and signed by both parties.

Performance Evaluation Parameters:

Performance Evaluation methods must be designed so as to reflect these goals. Thus, we have identified 4 major categories that will be assessed as an overarching theme that will guide the appraisal process.

1. Each employee starts with 500 points in January wherein 10 points would be equal to 2%.
2. The division of these 500 points would be as follows-

100 points (20%): Project Lead in case of Engineers, the TL/HODs in case of PLs and the CTO/COO/CEO in case of the HODs (Focus on Substance- Project Management, Client Feedback, Adherence to PM systems, Skill enhancement, Adherence to deadlines)- To be given half-yearly. [PROJECT SPECIFIC]

100 points (20%): Human Resource (Focus on Procedure- Adherence to Policies, behavior, leave, accountability)- To be given half-yearly.[CULTURE SPECIFIC]

200 points (40%): Weekly Score weightage (Focus on Persistence, weekly delivery, Skill enhancement, Coding Standards, Client Engagement)

100 points (20%) = C-Suite Feedback (Overall Alignment with the company goals)- To be given annually.

The default consequences of performance evaluation scores will be as per the standards below. Nevertheless, the COO will have the discretion to change the end results at will.

Category 1: 0 < Performance Scores < 50 ; Termination

Category 2: 50 =Performance Scores < 71 ; Warning

Category 3: 71 =Performance Scores < 91 ; Tier-2

Category 4: 91 =Performance Scores < 100 ; Tier-1

Note- An Employee would be eligible to participate in the appraisal process only after the completion of 1-year with the company. Some cases to define the process-

1. A joins McKinley in June 2020- Eligible for appraisal only after June 2021 i.e. increment due in January 2022. Arrears from July 2021-Dec 2021 based on the increment.
2. B joins McKinley in January 2020- Eligible for appraisal in January 2021 due to proximity to the increment cycle. This proximity consideration would be extended ONLY to employees joining McKinley in the January-March quarter of a year. However, the increment % would accordingly be adjusted keeping in mind the duration of work with the company.

II. Bonus Policy

We consider our employees important and hence like rewarding them whenever possible. Our employee bonus policy facilitates giving out bonuses to our top achievers on the basis of discretionary bonuses. It further clarifies how we choose which employees to reward and the way we calculate the bonus amounts.

Discretionary Bonus: Discretionary bonuses are determined at the company’s sole discretion. They aren’t promised to employees and we can’t guarantee anyone will receive them.

~Milestone Bonus/Appreciation Bonus: This bonus will be given for completing an important project before the deadline. This kind of bonus deserves mention in your resume.

~Retention Bonus (We pay if you stay): This bonus will be given if you stay with the company for at least 3 years or after 5 years, 7 years, and 10 years.

~Spot Bonus: It’s more of a surprise announced by the COO/CEO or CTO on the spot as per his will for truly exceptional behavior/performance of an employee.

~Referral Bonus: Referral Bonus is offered to employees who refer to job candidates who get hired & complete a probation period with the company. (Bonus amount will be 5,000 for the Junior positions & 10,000 for the Senior positions.)

~ Diwali Bonus: An amount or amount equivalent of Rs. 2000 would be given to all employees as Diwali Bonus.

III. Leave Travel Concession

Leave Travel Concession benefits would be provided to all members of the team having completed 2 years with the organization. The LTC would be governed by the following rules:

a) The LTC benefit would be given once every block of 3 years.

b) The travel benefits given would include the following-

• To and fro rail fare or airfare (economy) for the employee and his/her immediate family i.e. wife/husband and kids(with a cap of 20k/return tickets).
• The stay for up to 5 days with a cap of 30k additional for the entire family.
• Paid leave for 5 days in addition to the 20 leaves allotted each year.
• The same benefits would also be granted to unmarried couples, live-in partners, and same-sex couples.

c) The following would not be included in the LTC benefits- Local sightseeing, food, liquor, and any purchase made otherwise of personal nature.

IV. DEFCON (Deadline Forecast Condition) Alerts

If you feel that a project is heading in the wrong direction, please don’t just tell others about the issue ambiguously. Please be direct. Raise one of the following.

Not raising the DEFCON at an appropriate time or not raising a DEFCON at all leading to a project failure would negatively impact the PE evaluation for all members working on the project.

[Type N]

• DEFCON1: There is a 10% chance that we won’t be meeting the deadline. I’m not good enough to get the project back on track. I need some help.
• DEFCON2: There is a 30% chance that we won’t be meeting the deadline. I’m responsible for not asking for help sooner. I need a lot of help.
• DEFCON3: There is a 50% chance that we won’t be meeting the deadline. My respective leads and I are both responsible. As deadline overflow is imminent, please ask the client to extend the deadline.
  <DEFCON3 should be alerted at least 15 days before the deadline.>

[Type S]

• DEFCONQ: There is a lack of quality within the project. There is a 25% chance that the client will be unhappy about the quality.

3. Aftermath of Raising & Neglecting DEFCONs

In Case A DEFCON Is Raised:

When a DEFCON is raised, the respective HODs in charge and the PLs should provide a report within 24 hours regarding i) what they are doing to address the issue, and ii) whether or not a deadline extension request is required and iii) what lead to the delay in the project.

Also, the project would immediately come under the purview of the State of Project Emergency Policy. The clauses applicable would be as follows-

(All of the following will be applied to everyone involved with the project, barring the most extreme circumstances, which will be judged on a case by case basis by the COO.)

• The respective HODs and the Project Leads will do a complete project status assessment and notify management of the new project deadline within 24 hours of deadline breach. Failure to comply will result in an unavoidable penalty, the severity of which will be decided jointly by the Strategy Group and the COO.
• Mandatory working hours will commence at 9:00 AM, with ending hours being extended from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM until project completion.
• Saturdays will be treated as normal workdays until project completion.
• All leaves will be automatically canceled until project completion.

In Case A DEFCON Is Not Raised:

That being said, i) should a project go over deadline, or ii) make the client unhappy about the quality, without anyone within said project team having raised any DEFCON, at least 1 person within the team would be held responsible and terminated. Also, the HODs and the Project Leads would be issued a memo to explain the causes of delay and why disciplinary action should not be taken against them.

Notifying the management of impending misses in deadline is the least that is expected of a professional, and thus the above will be observed strictly.

4. Management Duties

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This DEFCON Policy is one of the main pillars of McKinley & Rice’s operations. Thus it will be the Strategy Team’s responsibility to routinely check whether everyone in the organization has fully memorized the policy.