Our employees are at the forefront of co-creating a sustainable future with our clients.

A key aspect of our ESG strategy is to equip our people to succeed in building a better tomorrow. Our policies and practices empower them to be the best they can be through an environment of trust, collaboration, learning and opportunities. We achieve this by nurturing diversity and inclusion, talent, and health and well-being among our employees.

WNS China named 2021 Best Employer in Northeast China

IDG’s CIO 100 Hybrid Workplace Pioneer Award 2021

Diversity and Inclusion
(D&I)

To attract and retain a wider pool of talent, increase innovation and creativity, and improve productivity, we have been focusing on creating an inclusive environment for a diverse workforce. Having a healthy mix of people from different nationalities, ethnicities, gender identities, age groups and educational backgrounds gives us access to a wide range of skills, experience and expertise.

Inclusivity, creating a sense of belongingness, and a respectful workplace are the three pillars on which our diversity and inclusion strategy is built. In addition to the tenets that we apply to all our delivery locations, the flexibility to focus on issues and challenges unique to each region is also provided.

Our key thrust areas in the short term are

Gender Balance

  • Enhance the gender balance within our teams across all levels of the organization
  • Drive gender balance metrics

Engaging a Multi-generational Workforce

  • Build harmonious multi-generational work groups to foster innovation and deliver business goals

Talent Acquisition Strategy

  • Continuously enhance and evolve the talent strategy to ensure fairness and equity

Respectful Workplace

  • Create a work culture that is aligned with our vision and values
  • Ensure respect for every individual and a positive work environment

Culture of Co-creation and Outperformance

  • Nurture a work culture and ecosystem that drives collaboration and excellence

An overview of our workforce as on March 31, 2022, is provided below:

Gender Distribution

Employee Category Female Male
Professional 20,818 21,891
Manager 2,900 6,064
Business Manager 44 283
Officers & Executives 8 84
Contract 386 806
Grand Total 24,156 29,128

At WNS, we build inclusivity by creating a sense of belongingness and building a respectful workplace. Key D&I practices and programs include:

  • Equal Opportunity Policy to assure a workplace that is free from discrimination. Employees are given fair and equal access to employment, compensation, training and promotion.
  • Respectful Workplace Program to enable employees to honor each other’s individual dignity.
  • Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (B-BBEE) Initiatives to advance economic transformation and participation of black people in the South African economy. We have achieved a B-BBEE Level 1 rating, the highest rating attainable, following audits on five pillars, namely ownership, management control, skills development, preferential procurement (including enterprise and supplier development) and socio-economic development. This sets us apart as a socially conscious and transformative organization and a partner of choice as we, in turn, add value to our South African clients’ B-BBEE scorecards.

    We implement various transformative programs including initiatives targeted at empowering Black women, Black people living with disabilities, Black youth who are unemployed or underemployed, and emerging Black-owned companies.
  • Destined for Diversity
    Sustainable employment for people living with disabilities is a challenge globally. In South Africa, people with disabilities comprise less than 1% of the total employees in both government and private companies.

    WNS acknowledges the need to invest in the development of people living with disabilities through the implementation of our ‘Destined for Diversity’ program, which forms an integral part of our B-BBEE initiatives. We have enrolled previously unemployed or under-employed people living with disabilities on a twelve-month learning journey, equipping them with a formal qualifications, essential life and leaderships skills, and workplace exposure to enhance their future employment opportunities. In addition, we provide coaching and psycho-social support. These individuals are integrated into the work environment, ensuring that we value and recognize them for their unique contributions, without highlighting their disabilities.

    We also support our clients in their efforts to meet their skills development strategies by enabling them to outsource the training and hosting for their learners living with disabilities to WNS.
Destined for Diversity Graduate: Mihle Nongxa

The programme has taught me to be confident in myself, to believe in myself and to motivate myself to do better every day. We can make mistakes in our working environment, but we should take that as a lesson. It has also made me see my future while still planning it. Now I can do things that I thought I would fail to do.

I learned how to be a manager and what you have to deal with in this role, like solving problems and issues that you come across. I have learned to communicate effectively with my team and listen to my team members carefully. When there are problems, you need to come up with possible solutions and always make sure you apply the SMART process to your solutions.

I really appreciate the opportunity, NOW I BELIEVE THAT I CAN.

  • Centurion
    This WNS flagship initiative aims to provide an enabling environment for female employees to hone their skills for the next role and help them in their career progression. This will help us with our objective of creating a pipeline of women leaders and strengthening our diversity and inclusion agenda.
  • Campus Program
    Our campus hiring strategy continues to focus on having a healthy gender balance in our fresher program batches for business and enabling unit roles. Our internal guidelines help us ensure that we have diversity and gender balance in our mid-managerial levels, paving the way for diversity across levels and business units.

Economic Times Best Workplaces for Women 2021

  • CEO Millennial Council
    Generational diversity is another key consideration in our people agenda. Considering that the majority of our workforce comprises millennials between the ages of 20 and 35, we strive to engage these young minds in our decision-making process. The CEO Millennial Council is a formal forum ‘for and by’ WNS millennials, giving them the opportunity to choose and drive certain focus areas within the organization.

We aim to enable 100 women leaders to take up key positions over the next four to six years!

  • People Policies and Programs
    We continuously update our employee policies and programs to ensure that our diverse workforce feels included and engaged. We provide a variety of employee services such as transportation, cafeteria, medical facilities, and recreational areas.

Across the organization, we create sensitivity and awareness of and protection from sexual harassment. Our Prevention of Sexual Harassment program educates employees at all levels through mandatory e-learning modules. We have been acknowledged as one of the safest workplaces.

WNS Included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the 2 nd Consecutive Year

Business World People HR Diversity & Inclusion Award

Talent and Skill
Development

As the business and technological landscape continuously evolves, it is imperative for us to keep reskilling and upskilling our people. As a result, our talent strategy incorporates the company’s business needs to develop relevant capabilities in a timely fashion. Our efforts to forge a trained, flexible, digitally capable and resilient workforce are built on the three key pillars of future-ready workforce, robust leadership bench and a focus on talent development.

Future-Ready Workforce

Three-Prong
 

Leadership Bench

We have designed a series of unique programs for WNS for leaders, from future first-level managers up to senior executive leadership.

  • Signature Leadership Development Program, a 12-month journey specially designed for the top 100 leaders in the organization in partnership with Korn Ferry and Harvard, with key focus areas such as driving strategic agility and collaboration
  • Succession Planning, a bi-annual talent review workshop to identify potential successors for critical roles from the leadership bench
  • Aspire, a learning journey (in partnership with Cornell University) to build a strong talent pipeline at the mid-to-upper leadership level
  • Compass, our self-paced learning platform for managers transitioning into new roles
  • Trusted Client Advisor, a curated learning journey for the global client partnering team, comprising four modules co-created with leading learning providers
  • I-Excel, a leadership learning program (in partnership with Harvard Business Publishing and Cornell University), designed for specific cohorts from business units, solutions and support functions
  • Gravitas, a leadership development program curated for senior leaders that focuses on self-introspection, communicating with impact, executive presence and personal well-being

“SEED” program

Industry knowledge encompasses the accumulation of knowledge and awareness of the intricacies of what is happening to specific industries of interest. Knowledge of an industry from a stakeholder’s perspective can never be over-emphasized. It is normally pursued to acquire or create a competitive advantage which ultimately leads to business growth and enhanced client delivery. Industry knowledge requires employees to be abreast with Operational nuances, Transformation & Digital strategies and Workflows in order for them to understand their role in the larger scheme of things. This empowers and equips them to deliver better results for the business and enhanced customer satisfaction. This is also a key contributor for employee growth within the organization.

SSON Impact Award North America 2021 for Creative Talent Management

Brandon Hall Human Capital Management Excellence Awards for Best Strategy for a Corporate Learning University

Employee Health,
Safety and Wellness

At WNS, we recognize our responsibility toward providing a safe and healthy environment for all our employees. The health, safety and wellness of our global employee base have a direct impact on our business, including talent access and retention, employee morale and productivity.

This year, two recordable work-related injuries were recorded across our sites, covering more than 50,000 employees working in 54 facilities.

We keep our workforce updated with the training and information required to ensure their own well-being as well as that of their colleagues. These include formal training programs on first aid and fire safety, chemical handling and spill containment drills, in addition to medical emergency mock drills.

Frequent engagement holds the key to a satisfied workforce. At WNS, we regularly reach out to our employees to gauge their engagement levels and understand and address any issues they may be facing. This year, our annual survey found 88.5% percent of men and 89.8% percent of women to be actively engaged. Additionally, we conducted the following region, business unit and situation-specific engagement surveys to help us tailor our initiatives:

Survey Name Engagement Scores
Rewards and Recognition (LOC) Survey 3.10
Icomp survey 3.72
New joiner Survey:  
15-days survey 4.20
30-days survey 4.60
BTG Survey 3.86
HealthHelp Leadership Survey 4.38

In 2022, WNS was recognized as one of the 25 safest workplaces in India by KelpHR.