Jacques Creeten, the managing director of Federal Express India (FedEx), started by handling packages in Brussels (Belgium) in 1985. His boss - who used to be a truck-washer - saw potential and trained him as a supervisor. Now Creeten presides over a 207-employee strong company in India.

Many of Creeten's employees in India mirror his experience. Heena Keswani joined FedEx India as a receptionist in 1997. Three years later, her manager asked her if she would like to do something besides taking phone messages. Keswani moved to operations for seven months and then to customer service. What's next? "I'd like to try for team leader," says the 34-year-old Keswani. "I always had the option of moving back to being a receptionist, just in case I had no ambition."
Managing ambitions is what defines FedEx. And it doesn't happen by chance. FedEx has created an architecture that lets it monitor the ambitions of its staff at an individual level and allows them to grow in the direction of their own choice. Other companies make the same claim. But what differentiates FedEx from the pretenders is the way each employee can tailor his or her own career path. There are other perks too - one can get one of FedEx's 500 aeroplanes named after his or her kid. But the one thing that makes FedEx a special place to work in is the incredible personal growth opportunities it offers.

At the hub of this is a simple philosophy called 'People, Service and Profit' (PSP). PSP functions as a sort of virtuous circle. "Look after people, and profits will follow. In India, about 40% of the company's expenditure is people-related," says Creeten (See interview). In the last 30 years, PSP has translated into several strategies on how to deal with people. Creeten says: "You look at our business planning, our hiring policies. All of this is structured around PSP. It is about basic human dignity and respect. It also makes very good business sense."

FedEx has a system of addressing grievances called 'Guaranteed Fair Treatment'. Employees can take up disputes with immediate managers or with the head of the company if need be. In case of ambiguity, the employee gets the benefit of the doubt. Another example of fairness is the policy that the first right of refusal for every job goes to the employee. This is taken a step further by checking whether peers can see themselves working for this person. Almost 60% of FedEx's Indian employees have been through internal promotions.

But delivering by the next business day is the reason for FedEx's existence. Remember Tom Hanks' charming, yet hard-hitting 'We live or die by the clock' speech to Russian FedEx workers for tardy delivery of a parcel in the movie Castaway? He was trying to say that even a small error means that a large number of packages are delivered late. Creeten says: "We are a very performance-based company. Every person knows upfront what his performance objectives are and he also knows upfront what he can earn." So the crux of PSP is a fairly laborious performance management and compensation system.

Here's how it works. FedEx conducts an 'India Performance, Perception and Satisfaction' survey every year that grades its performance on 27 factors like brand awareness and value for money. FedEx's marketing manager for the Middle East, India and Africa Birender Ahluwalia says: "This survey shows what is required to hit that revenue target. This could mean getting new business by introducing a new product."

For instance, last year, one of Ahluwalia's goals was to introduce packaging solutions for an Indian exporter. A service called 'FedEx Solutions for the Fashion World' was introduced keeping in mind the distinct packaging needs of the textile industry. Next, every member in Ahluwalia's team broke down this goal into specific personal objectives in four different ways - customer objectives (communicating this service to the customer through direct emailers), internal processes required (co-ordinating with the FedEx Packaging Design and Development Lab at Memphis), the financial objectives (the impact on the revenue growth numbers) and the skills and competencies the employee needed to fulfil these objectives. In this case, since India was the initiator of this particular solution, it meant spreading the learning to other countries.

CEOSPEAK Jacques Creeten What is the basic premise of 'People, Service and Profit'? It is very simple. If you look after your employees, then profits will follow. Over the years, this has translated into a number of strategies on how we deal with our people.... People are our biggest business differentiator. But PSP is much more than just procedures. The policies let you provide a sense of security to your people. It's very clear and uniform, but that alone cannot deliver PSP. Not everything is driven by numbers.... We also have a series of awards and recognition that we give our employees. What makes FedEx tick? Lots of companies proclaim that people are their biggest differentiator. We don't have a secret. You'll find these things in every textbook. The biggie is that we actually do what's in the books. How does FedEx deal with people performance issues? If a person fails in his performance, then the person does not get disciplined, but he gets pulled into a constructive action plan.... It's not like I fire off a warning letter to you. If you buy a car and it breaks down, you repair it, not throw it away. From a cost point of view, it's much more cost-effective to improve (people) rather than to throw (them) away. It just doesn't make sense.

Employees are encouraged to identify their weaknesses through a personal development programme (PDP). These could be general things like communication skills or dealing with conflicts in the workplace. What FedEx is asking through such initiatives is - what do you need to improve on to get the job done?

This is where the organisational support comes in. FedEx has an online training library with 600 courses on things like leadership, project management skills, even something as basic as presentation skills. Employees can log in and take any course, but need to pass. For example, to pass the course for presentation skills, one needs to make a PowerPoint presentation to vice-presidents. This training then automatically goes into that person's personal profile. An employee can also look outside the organisation for training needs. FedEx gives each employee $3,000 per annum as education reimbursement allowance - no questions asked and regardless of seniority. So even the coffee-boy can apply for this.

Employees like Vidyut Kanth, senior marketing specialist, swear by these policies. Kanth joined FedEx as a salesperson six years ago. He first did a three-month certificate course from the Delhi-based Indian Institute of Foreign Trade through the tuition refund to understand the intricacies of a global logistics business. Kanth was interested in moving to the marketing function. So to facilitate that, advance data analysis was identified as one of his weaknesses under the PDP and he was trained in that. Last year, Kanth decided to beef up his CRM technology skills since one of his responsibilities is to handle regional loyalty programmes. So Kanth tutored himself in Siebel - also reimbursed by the tuition allowance. Says Kanth: "My manager helps me work out my absence from work so that I can take time off for training. It makes it very difficult to leave this place."