"We are and we want to be the best company to work for"

1. It is not just the human resource manager that masters the art of acquiring and nurturing talent. It is also the leader of the company who knows how to create resources. What is your leadership style?   

 Leadership is about empowerment. I define empowerment as giving every single person in the company the ‘power to make a change’, without having to go through a complex process of approval and audits to take a simple decision.

My personal belief is to make every employee feel that they are the ‘President’ of the company; they should feel equipped, empowered and trained to operate like the President of the company in their location and at their level.

In our business, 60 percent of our workforce operates outside of office. Empowerment is the only way to ensure that even if people do not come to our office every day, they are clear of what they are expected to do and they are trusted everyday every time. Empowerment can only happen if there is trust.

2. How much it is important to trust the leadership? 

 Eventually, all IndiGo employees come to work every day because they trust the leadership; they trust me that as a leader I will take the right decisions and hence the company will grow and they will grow along with the company.

3. As your résumé says, you have never been to any business school or worked at any airline before and you are a lawyer by training and yet, under you IndiGo was voted one of the best companies to work for in 2015, for the seventh year in a row. The entire saga is contrary to most of the traditional hiring principles. Does this help you bring an outside talent in the company and leverage the unique, not-so-sector specific skills?

 The challenge would be same for any engineer trying to sell soap at Unilever… Or somebody who has done his masters in Sanskrit and becomes an IAS officer… It is no different for me.

My team literally took me by the hand and taught me everything that was to be learned in the airline business. Hence, at our company, we have always been on a lookout for highly motivated individuals who can collaborate with like-minded people in an environment that embraces individuality and rewards one’s best work. IndiGo is amongst one of the organizations that welcomes individuals from various walks of life. While it is essential for pilots and engineers to possess the technical skills required for the job, but we actively look for applicants who possess the core skills, which are sector-agnostic, rather than the experience on paper.

4. Despite maintaining the low-cost structure, IndiGo is considered one of the best paymaster among Indian carriers. How to keep employees happy and company profitable?

 In ten years of its existence, IndiGo, besides achieving operational excellence in the domestic and international skies, has been consistently recognized as India’s top 50 Best Companies to Work for by the Great Place to Work Institute. We may or may not be the best pay master, but we should always be one of the best companies to work for.

5. Aviation sector, in last few years, has seen poaching attempts by several airlines. Do you think that paying a better package is the only deal to save the talent and keep attrition in control?

 Generally, any employee looks for three fundamental things before joining an airline -- on time salaries, career progression, and an enabling work environment.

Creating a sustainable work atmosphere is what I believe the key to retaining the employees. IndiGo’s remuneration policies are at par with industry base compensations. We have a sound induction and growth plan outlined under our learning and development programmes for our employees. We also have different flexible contracts available to suit their work life balance.

6. What is the next billion-dollar idea that IndiGo is chasing?

We are chasing a billion one dollar ideas…

 7. How many jobs Indigo has created for women and how you assure their safety? 

 We are one of the few airlines in the country which has an all-female cabin crew and our female cockpit crew members makes about 10 per cent of the total Indian pilot strength.   I have always maintained that women have the power to make a change. We have included more women in our work force. It is evident from the statistics as 43 percent of the entire workforce and 25 per cent of the leadership team comprises women.

8. And what kind of policies have been put in place to retain women workforce? 

 At IndiGo, a female crew continues to fly till she is medically permitted to do so and once they wish to discontinue flying they are given an option of modified duties or a break during the period of maternity. There are numerous ground duty options available if they wish to work in any other portfolio in the interim or permanently.

9. How do you think you have brought back the respect for profession of air hostess?  

 We have been breaking the stereotypes. If you believe your staff including the air-hostesses should be respected, you need to respect them first. We absolutely believe that our pilots and flight attendants are in a very serious profession. Most of the time they are the people standing between life and death when that aeroplane is flying at 25000 feet. We have a huge amount of respect for them. 

Secondly there are also other aspects of the airlines profession, where there was a perception that women are not quite suited for this job, so we make a conscious effort to make other opportunities widely available to them. Such as we also have a huge bunch of engineers in our engineering team which till recently quite a male dominated but now, female employees are taking over.