Infosys ranked #3 on Forbes ‘World’s Best Regarded Companies’

It is indeed a moment of pride to see Infosys ranked #3 on Forbes ‘World’s Best Regarded Companies’ . The list comprises of the world’s 2,000 largest public companies down to the top 250 best-regarded businesses ranked based on trustworthiness; social conduct; the strength of their products and services; and how they fare as employers. 

It is indeed a momentous occasion for me, having spent over 10 years of my career with Infosys to drive new business. We are a company which truly cares for its people.

I recently traveled from the U.S. to Infosys Pune to host one of our prospects. I arrived three days ahead of the prospects visit and was preparing on the site visits, proposal walk thru etc. The question to showcase our culture weighed heavily on me. I spoke to a lot of folks to gather some thoughts to help our prospect understand the true culture which epitomizes Infosys. We went through a lot of ideas.

The fact that our campuses are so beautifully designed, with elegant buildings, cafeterias sprinkled across to enable folks to actually get up from their seats and walk/intermingle, was possibly beside the point. We had the Employee Care Center which can house 2500 people (on double occupancy basis) in case of a city outage. The well-manicured lawns, the large cricket grounds which would attract inter-company tournaments, gyms, sports, training and medical facilities. But the real quest for what epitomizes the true culture of the company was still eluding me.

Given my jetlag, I used to wake up early and jog in the morning across the campus. On each of the days in the morning I used to notice a river of humanity (25,000 Infosys employees work on Pune campus alone) streaming from the bus station into the cafeterias for breakfast and then to the software development blocks for work. But one thing stood out on each of the days. There was a girl who was on a wheelchair. She would be cheerfully pushing the wheels to get her cup of coffee and Indian breakfast every day before heading to her work building on the third floor.

I could not help but notice her every single day and I walked up to her to understand her experiences working at Infosys. She shared that being born in a conservative culture, it was devastating for her parents to realize that she had special needs. Despite completing her engineering degree, she struggled to find a job. She had applied at many IT companies in the city – but there was one problem, all the shiny building had STEPS or a stair cases to access the building. For her even 3 steps was like climbing a mountain.

One day she came across an ad from Infosys and she applied. To her delight she noticed that Infosys had access ramps to the building where she was interviewed. After being selected she realized that Infosys had built access ramps to every building/cafeteria. This was not part of the original campus design which had steps. But the company had specially invested in re-engineering some of those designs to build ramps for people with special needs. Even the elevators were designed to align perfectly at each floor to avoid any bumping.

That opened up a whole new world to her, as she could now easily access any part of the campus – any floor of any building, to cafeterias, libraries, Employee Care Center and even the gym. It brought in the most important thing in her life – HOPE, which propelled her to unleash her dreams and achieve what was considered impossible till date.

She said Infosys had over 200+ employees with special needs working with the other teams.

It is these set of values and ethos which are the building blocks on which our founding fathers have built an institution called Infosys. This is what truly differentiates Infosys - it epitomizes our culture. The company leadership really did not have to go out of their way to hire such teams, they could easily pick from the cream of able-bodied graduates, but it placed values before profit.

Forbes listing us at #3 for trustworthiness, honesty, fairness and social conduct is a recognition of these deep seated values at Infosys.

 We thank everyone who helped us uphold our founding values as we enable global enterprises to navigate their digital journeys.