Infosys #3 in forbes #1 in heart

Forbes# 3 Why ?: We often talk about work-life balance – a much sought after, often misinterpreted, hard-to-achieve concept. But my years at Infosys have taught me that rather than strive for work-life balance, one should aim for what I call ‘Work-Life Equivalence’ – the idea that life is work and work is living. It’s not about the hours spent at work or the designations that one can aspire to. Instead, it is quest you have about learning and opportunities to strengthen yourself with skills, the so-called soft ones, are crucial to living, learning, and growing. Think about it, your achievements, your challenges, the way you deal with pressure – many of them are born on the office floor. And then, when life throws you a curveball, you are hopefully strong enough, brave enough, and wise enough to handle it.

 I’m in my 19th year at Infosys! A longtime if you think in terms of a corporate career, but young in terms of life. When I look back on my career, there is so much beyond just the projects about the life skills, I accrued. As I grew in terms of responsibilities beyond what were my core skills, I discovered that my learnings first as a project manager, then as an auditor and then as part of the management committee, were similar and could be applied on multiple fronts. Whether it was quality or information security or employee safety, the visibility I gained into multiple facets of various roles allowed me to draw learnings that I could apply to both professional and personal challenges.

An experience that comes to mind was when I volunteered to be part of the management committee at the new development center in Chennai. We worked as a startup! And the culture and ethos of a small company were so different from the multinational I was used to. Not only did I take on multiple roles, but I felt the real passion, responsibility, and burden to succeed! It was perhaps the most interesting phase of my career.

At Infosys, I have handled a gamut of responsibilities – from recruitment on and off college campuses, handling lateral inductions, being a part of hackathons and ideathons, addressing food, transport and employee related escalations, working with HR teams, and interacting with various team members who come from diverse nationalities, culture, language. I’ve enjoyed interacting with multiple people and understanding their aspirations, lifestyle & travel preferences, technology, and career aspirations. And all these experiences are woven into the very fabric of what we call a professional career. For me, it has been my life!

And when you add to this the people, the celebrations – the birthdays, anniversaries, clients wins and successes, the relationships you forge (some for life), you realize that life and work are not to be balanced, but to be woven together, each supplementing the other in a rich mosaic of experience.

Infosys has been the opportunity of a lifetime! When I heard that we ranked #3 by Forbes, I wondered why not #1? Because for me, Infosys has given I think what we all ultimately seek – strengthen life along with work.