Shyamal Verma SHRM PC20200364

Section B

Cypress is in the semiconductor industry, where it is a B2B supplier to OEMs. Because of the
B2B nature of business, Cypress has to ensure the highest quality standards and consistency
to stay competitive. Simultaneously, considering the pace of technology and stiff
competition that Cypress faces, it has to innovate to stay ahead continuously. Moreover, the
buyers have more bargaining power because of the competition and expect the supplier's
lowest possible prices. As a result, the suppliers have to make their product efficient to
meet the expected price. It is because of these factors the buzz word "Faster-Smaller-
Cheaper" was coined within the industry.
To incorporate innovation, quality, and price sensitivity of the OEMs, TJ Rogers introduced
four specific organizational practices. The four "Mantras of Excellence" are:
1) Hire Outstanding People
2) Encourage Challenging Goals
3) Allocate resources to maximize productivity
4) Reward People in ways that motivate them

Hire Outstanding people

a) Hiring Book: When a manager presents an intent to hire an additional employee, a
hiring book is initiated. The hiring book has the following features:
• Reference Check
• Highlights competencies required for the role
• The complete hiring process is detailed in the book, with the observations from
any one part of the evaluation team
• The hiring book can be later used to evaluate the employee during its life span.
• It also allows hiring managers to improve the hiring process for future candidates
by reviewing the hiring book's approach.

b) Managers themselves are involved in evaluation: The HR in Cypress gets involved

only at a later stage; the manager himself finds the candidates with the required skill
sets.

a. Interview Process: The quality of the interview depends upon the

preparation level of the interviewer as well. If the interviewer asks generic
questions, he can expect generic answers, which are not very useful for
evaluation. The capability of the panel member also affects the quality of
hires. TJ Rogers allows only selected members to be a panel members, and TJ
Rogers keeps note of these people, hence acting as an incentive to them.
b. Interview as a learning process: From a recruiter's perspective, Interviews
are an opportunity to learn more about industry trends and sometimes even
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Section B

information regarding competitors. Hence the involvement of line managers

is even more necessary. Although the interview process can be boring after
some time for the line manager but focusing on creativity, TJ Rogers sends
line managers to take interviews to get important info on the industry.
c. Rigorous interview process: The interviews at Cypress are tough and fast to
check knowledge deeply so that the company can select high performers.
A tough interview process also raises the candidates' expectations and brings
in the sense of achievement in the candidate. A rigorous selection process
results in the development of a psychological contract. The candidates can
expect a demanding role; hence the expectations must be met to avoid
dissonance

Reflection: Many people appear for UPSC IAS every year, which is considered the most
difficult selection process in the country. As a result, the candidates expect the job to be
very demanding, and it is in some cases, but for most of the candidates, the pace of the job
does not match the candidate's potential.
d. Use Big Guns: According to TJ Rogers, using top management or recruitment
gives a message regarding the importance of the role the candidate appears
for. But proper care should be taken as using too high a position for an
interview might send in wrong signals.

c) Buy Vs. Build: Cypress always gives a salary raise of 0.5%+the average of the three
highest raises in the industry. This means that Cypress has a "buying" strategy in
recruitment. In contrast to buying strategy "Build" Strategy focuses on hiring young
graduates and start training from an early stage.
Build Buy
• Employees enter from specific • The company hires using
entry points and are trained and lucrative perks and salary usually
nurtured to develop required higher than that of competitors
skill sets. • Recruitment can happen at any
• Recruitment for Higher positions stage and for any position.
are through internal promotions • People might not be compatible
• People are better attuned to with company culture
company culture • The chances of getting fired are
• People usually stay for a larger also high if the performance is
time and have stronger bonds. subpar
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Section B

For Build Policy, the training process can be summarized as below: The Focus Is on
building competencies for future roles.

Reflection: A lot of conglomerates that come to IIM for hiring have a two year leadership
development Programmes. Where they allow new hires to work with top management and
do live projects with them. The top management of these firms also have people who have
reached there via internal promotions and at some point were part of these programmes
This is exactly the “build Policy” we discussed above.
Set Challenging Goals and Appraisals
Cypress follows a Two-pass system where goals and assigned, and then discussion happens
in conflicting objectives. The manager makes the final decisions regarding contradictory
goals. The meeting of goals is an essential criterion in appraisals. The Eight managers, along
with TJ Rogers, review the goals and offer "help" to required employees. This acts as a
warning system to the employees regarding their performance.
Every month a goal report is prepared, which is then published since the report is open to
all; this forces the employee to perform better.
Reflection: While interning for a finance firm, I came across a similar system where, in the
beginning of every week, targets were allotted, it can be a specific project, assisting others,
learning or study projects, or even trivial jobs like making PPTs. The manager monitors the
progress throughout the week and assists for help or assigns POC to assist in achieving those
targets, the weekly feedback was then provided to highlight strengths and weaknesses and
intern of the week system. This ensured that the interns stay on top of their game and stay
competitive. This also measured the amount of workload and pressure interns can take, as
the company had a policy of hiring via a PPO.
In Cypress, The appraiser is a special ranking committee that does the yearly appraisal. The
Committee consists of immediate line managers and employees who may not be directly
acquainted and are not fixed accept the line manager. This ensures that the employees
behave and work in the best possible way as nobody knows who will evaluate them.
Each employee is compared with every other employee in a focus group in the ranking system, which
has employees with similar roles. The ranking is based on two factors, 1) Number of Goals set, 2)
Quality of Goals. Since the pay raise is linked to the employee's ranking, the competition among them
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Section B

is high; thus, employees might put a larger number of trivial goals in the system. Moreover, This
hampers collaboration, which is required in innovation.

Although the ranking system allows differentiating between the top and bottom rankers
effectively, it becomes difficult to compare the performance, especially among middle
rankers. Moreover, the rank also depends on how bad others perform rather than the
system's individual performance.

Is the organization transparent?: Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge

Tacit
• Difficult to express,
• Usually, personal and unstructured
• Subjective, experiential, might be
qualitative
• Includes insights and intuitions
Explicit
• Can be framed and stored
easily
• Usually structured
• Objective and rational
• Books, documents etc.

Compensation:
Equity vs. Merit bases compensation

Since Cypress follows a “Buy” hiring strategy, the employees' compensation depends upon its
previous salary. The excessive compensation to some employees can lead to dismal among the
employees, and hence Cypress provides Equity-based compensation while to reward for high
performance, Cypress provides merit-based compensation. Therefore, while Equity focuses on
similarities, merit focuses on differences.
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Section B

Production and productivity Targets: Cypress has prouctivity and production targets, ensuring that
the company remains competitive on the cost front and does not overstaffing or understaffing.