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Why Godrej is telling its employees to ‘Speak Up’...

When we asked Adi Godrej about the one factor that makes Godrej stand apart from other organisations, the master of Godrej Group promptly replies, “Our people. The 20,000 plus Godrejites, who are an integral part of the group’s fabric, have made our success a possibility. This focus on people has made us create policies and practices that help us to cultivate and manage talent. It also helps us to focus on empowering people and create better value for all our stakeholders.”

Not a hollow boast, as most Godrejites have been with the organisation for over a decade and are prospering in a healthy work environment. Healthy? Yes, smoking within the sprawling 20,000 acre Vikhroli campus of Godrej is strictly prohibited. Moreover, the Godrej Group is considered to be a pioneer in creating a green atmosphere at their workplace. “We have always focused on greener initiative and that’s not only for our employees, but that’s for the overall society as well,” explains Jamshyd N. Godrej, Chairman of Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

Godrej has successfully metamorphosed itself into a professionally run, blue chip company. Even members of the family accept, that to make the organsiation a professionally run one, they had to change the earlier model of management hierarchy. Keeping pace with time, Godrej adopted a participative management model, well supported by team spirit and employee improvement programmes. The philosophy of change management has seeped deep into the Godrej DNA. After the success of switching from a family-run business to a professionally managed company, the Godrej management has once again embarked on a new exercise to change the outlook of the company. In April this year, Godrej changed its existing drab logo and came out with a vibrant new logo that conveyed that Godrej is more youthful and is changing faster with time. A new and happening corporate campaign was designed to convey this new look to the outside world. Though reams and reams have been written about the outlook changes happening at Godrej, not many are aware of the structural changes occurring within – their HR policies!

The HR divisions of various companies under the Godrej umbrella have suddenly become more buoyant and are encouraging more participation of new joinees in the decision making process. Walk into any of the Godrej offices and you would see that all desks in the office smartly sport a tent card with ‘Bedhadak bolo’ written on it. In the office of Godrej & Boyce, you would even see hanging boards featuring the Godrej brand ambassador, Preity Zinta speaking ‘Bedhadak bolo’ into a mike. “This is to motivate and encourage people to come out with innovative ideas and discuss whatever they think is right,” elaborates Kamal Nandi, Vice President – Sales & Marketing, Appliance Division, Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.

The entire change management process, over the years, has done wonders for the Godrej Group. Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. was awarded ‘The Best Employer 2007-08’ by global human resources management and outsourcing company, Hewitt Associates. And one of the key factors of becoming best employer has been the company’s insightful HR policies. With a huge sales force working day in and day out to sell the company’s flagship FMCG products, it becomes important for the HR to keep the employees motivated at all time. The fierce competition in the FMCG arena, the pressure of selling low involvement and ‘me-too’ products and meeting daily targets can take a huge toll on an employee’s morale. States Sumit Mitra, Executive Vice President (HR), Godrej Consumer Products Ltd. (GCPL),“The people challenges in GCPL are taken care of by fast tracking leadership development, to cater to the changing environment and global business opportunities. In GCPL, we internally follow a structured Talent Management process, called TTM.”

In fact, tracking the potential leaders has done a lot of good for GCPL and sources from the company confirm that young leaders would soon spearhead and create different brands for GCPL. The million dollar question is, how exactly is GCPL tracking these future leaders? Replies Mitra, “Employees who have demonstrated high performance levels are evaluated on their potential through an assessment of their leadership competencies. The organisation draws up a talent list annually through this exercise. There is a structured career discussion and review process between employees in the talent list.” During this career discussion session, the employee’s aspirations are captured, which is followed by addressing his development needs through data thrown out of the assessment centres.

But the biggest HR issue, which leading FMCG companies are facing is attracting fresher talent in the sector and sustaining them. And GCPL is not an exception as Adi accepts the fact that attracting and sustaining creative talent is a major challenge for Godrej also. Here, GCPL has set a classic example of how relentlessly paying heed to employees development programme can make employees glued to the organisation. Asserts Mitra, “GCPL has been consciously working on its Employee Value Proposition (EVP) to identify the needs of its employees and potential target recruits. Communication of the EVP and living up to it in terms of practices in the organisation has been the core reason for our success in attracting and retaining talent. Training & Development is an integral part of GCPL’s EVP.”

However, EVP not only provides adequate training but also addresses the current and future needs of the employees as per the requirement of the organisation. The emphasis at GCPL is on self-learning. For this GCPL has created a learning portal, called ‘Gold’ – (Godrej Organisation for Learning and Development) that encourages and entices self learning. The portal is a tool to improve the leadership capabilities and also functional skills through a bouquet of e-learning modules. “We also place a lot of emphasis on learning through cross functional project groups, special assignments and coaching,” adds Mitra.

Nurturing future talent is now a key challenge for GCPL and like other ventures of Godrej, this division is doing it through a structured process like EVP and Talent Management. And the EVP tagline of “Bright Future, Brighter Living’’ supported by learning and empowerment is beckoning employees to stick to Godrej. That’s what change does. So, for you employers out there, Hail Change!

For more articles, Click on IIPM Article.

Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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