the power of many - tata group · industries, tata global beverages, ... succession planning...

Staff, workforce, human resources, employee assets,

talent — the terms are many but the heart of an

organisation remains its people. Managing, grooming,

nurturing and developing this is no easy task. Tata

Review talks to heads of the human resources

function in eight Tata companies — Tata Steel, Tata

Motors, Jaguar Land Rover, Tata Chemicals, Titan

Industries, Tata Global Beverages, Tata Power and

Rallis India — to understand how these leaders keep

the employee engine engaged and geared to perform.

The power of many

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6 Tata Review n April 20136

What are the focus points of the HR practice and the policies that are pursued at Tata Steel?At Tata Steel the prime focus in terms of HR practices is on people development and growth, and employee relations, which is imbibed in the culture of caring for our people. Tata Steel has

With the Tata Steel group rapidly evolving and expanding its reach strategically and geographically, there is need to prepare its leaders, both current and future, to overcome adversities. Consequently, leadership development across all levels is the focus of its employee policies, along with people development and growth. Suresh Tripathy, the head of HR at Tata Steel, in conversation with Nithin Rao, notes that the other key objective is upholding the Tata group’s values through transparency and fairness in HR practices and policies.

‘People are our greatest asset’

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always held the view that people are its greatest asset. It has adopted the best standards for employee well-being and quality of life, strongly promoting workforce rights. The other focal point is upholding the Tata values through transparency and fairness in HR practices and policies.

One of the primary challenges that HR professionals consistently voice relates to retaining and rewarding your best employees. How is this managed at Tata Steel? Our employee engagement practices, facilities and benefits are aligned towards ensuring retention of employees. Our engagement survey results are constantly acted upon to maintain competitive compensation, productive work environment, employee involvement in improvement initiatives, opportunities for learning and growth, performance-based rewards and recognition, high standards of amenities and facilities (housing, medical, education, recreation, social support), and two-way communication, to name a few.

Leadership development also finds frequent mention as an HR challenge, especially of late. What has the experience of Tata Steel been on this issue?

The change in the business scenario across the world has been centrestage at the Tata Steel group. While meeting the current business challenge has been the focus, there is a clear mandate to be continually resolved to not only weather the current economic storm, but to prepare and equip the group for a healthy future as a leading global steel organisation.

Further, the business environment is swiftly changing, bringing in its own set of opportunities and challenges; at the same time, the group is rapidly evolving and expanding its reach strategically, geographically and culturally. The new geographies and the shifting environments of the businesses demand that we prepare our leaders (current and future) to face and overcome such adversities. Hence, for a sustainable future, leadership development at all levels is the focus across the Tata Steel organisation.

Business growth has posed a challenge, of a kind never experienced by the company in the past, resulting in a 45-percent increase in demand for leadership positions over FY10. Further, 17 percent of our senior leaders are retiring in the next three years. This has compounded the challenge of meeting the increased demand in an already constrained supply situation. The executive committee, headed by the managing director, owns the development and succession plans for the top positions and reviews availability of talent across all functions during talent reviews and succession planning meetings.

It has been said that the ethical problems that employees confront are among the most difficult to resolve for HR managers. Do you agree, and how does your organisation deal with such issues? Ethical business practices have been at the core of the Tata Steel business since the time of its inception, in line with the Founder’s philosophy. In order to ensure that all our employees exhibit behaviour that is consistent with the group’s ethical values, Tata Steel adopted the Tata Code of Conduct (formally articulated in 1998) which

About Tata Steel Established in 1907, Tata Steel is a Fortune

500 company and among the top ten global steel enterprises, with a crude steel capacity of more than 28 million tonnes per annum. It is one of the world’s most geographically diversified steel producers, with operations in 26 countries and a commercial presence in some 50 countries.

Consolidated revenues of `1,329 billion in the financial year 2011-12.

Number of employees: 81,000 plus.



is applicable to all employees, vendors and other stakeholders. Our HR managers have been facilitated by clear policies that provide them with guidelines in resolving ethical problems. A framework is also provided for taking action against those found violating the code. Senior leadership support provides further strength to fair and firm redressal of problems, depending on the gravity of the issue.

Tata Steel encourages whistleblowing and the reporting of instances of unethical behaviour to the management, while ensuring full protection to the whistleblower in its ‘whistleblower protection and reward policy’.

Companies talk about encouraging teamwork and creating a culture of collaboration. How important is the role of HR in making this happen?Culturally, at Tata Steel, there has been specific emphasis on teamwork. Our work systems are designed to deliver day-to-day output by people working as teams or clusters; this has matured to the state of being self-managed.

Our incentive schemes and rewards encourage working and delivering as a team. The total quality management way of working encourages continuous improvement in systems and processes through daily management, small group activities and suggestion management.

Tata Steel has created a culture of collaboration through its proactive approach to stakeholder engagement, joint consultative processes and mechanisms for conflict resolution. This has been rewarded with over eight decades of industrial harmony and the licence to operate in the very communities in which the company began operations more than a century ago. Tata Steel takes pride that there are several instances where it has been the employer of choice for a family for three and even four generations.

Tata Steel respects its employees’ right to exercise freedom of association and collective bargaining. It has ensured that every employee is able to exercise this right without fear. That’s why we have enjoyed 85 years of industrial harmony to date, with no strikes since 1928.

Is the recruitment component of the HR department’s responsibility more problematic now than before, especially so in India? How do you tap talent in the circumstances?Recruitment now would not really fall under the label of ‘problematic’, though it is much more challenging than before. With the mushrooming of the economy, each sector actually has to tap the same sources of talent, be they freshers (from campuses) or laterals (from other industries). The number of ‘quality’ campuses has more or less remained the same, though some of them have increased their number of seats. In case of laterals, companies may try to influence potential employees with higher compensation, which may or may not be sustainable. Here, brand image and employee value proposition, to name two factors, give an edge to reputed companies.

How exactly does employee engagement manifest itself in your company? Also, in this context, how important is employee feedback and the company’s response to feedback? Employee engagement is a state of emotional and intellectual commitment. An initiative on employee engagement has been undertaken for white-collared employees at Tata Steel in partnership with Aon Hewitt to measure the current levels of engagement of officers in India.

The survey outcomes: The overall employee engagement score

of Tata Steel is 67 percent. Compared to industry benchmarks —

the metals, mining and manufacturing (India and global) sectors — Tata Steel exceeds the average scores and should now strive to be in the top quartile of the industry.

The employees of Tata Steel believe that its core strengths are its value system and ethics, its strong brand, its commitment to promises made, and the respect among co-workers, which helps create a positive work environment. ¨

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How does the HR agenda unfold at Tata Motors and what are its priorities?Tata Motors has aspirations for a future that will be more global and more competitive, where customer expectations will be quite different from what we have seen all these years. It is a future where our employee demographics will be much altered from what it is now. Our HR agenda is a product of all this.

In late 2010 we articulated a five-year human capital strategy for our company. It is not an HR function strategy but a human capital strategy, and it has been co-created and co-owned by the leadership.

There are near- and long-term agendas. The past 12 months have not been a particularly

As a part of its vision for transformation, Tata Motors has articulated a human capital strategy that sets a five-year road map for the company’s HR agenda. Speaking with Sangeeta Menon, the company’s chief human resources officer, Prabir Jha, looks back at the company’s HR journey thus far and spells out the challenges of the future.

‘Employees are our capital and our job is to grow that’

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easy period for the company. So, how we manage costs, productivity and talent is going to be the near-term HR challenge. The long-term agenda will be different, given the context of the new culture that we have envisioned.

We have reframed the vision and mission for Tata Motors and defined the kind of culture we need to create given the new challenges. Building that culture is easier said than done because it means that all HR sub-systems must be reoriented to be in line with the new culture. Culture reinvention along the ‘Aces’ path (accountability, customer, excellence and speed) is going to be an HR priority and it will have a huge change management component.

Another focus area is managing talent and leadership. A company’s success eventually depends on talent across all levels, with the right skills, the right engagement and the right kind of diversity.

How is the human ‘capital’ approach different from the traditional human resources approach? Employees are our capital and our job is to grow that capital. The term human capital signifies that it is not just the HR function’s job to manage this resource, but it is the leadership’s job as well. For very long people in many companies have erroneously believed that human asset management is part of the HR function’s agenda. But the truth is that while human capital strategy is enabled and facilitated by the HR function, it is actually owned by leadership and management across levels.

HR is no doubt the functional expert, but the deployment ultimately lies in the hands of line managers. The so-called gap between line managers and HR must end. One cannot be a great line manager unless one is a great people manager. That’s why the shift from an HR function strategy to a human capital strategy.

How are you managing this change in approach and attitude?Tata Motors is going through a comprehensive organisational transformation. It started with the new vision and mission document, which allows

people to see a clear link between what they are doing and what the company aims to achieve. Within that mission is an inclusive vision that gives everyone meaning in their work, beyond obvious reasons such as increments or job security. A lot of our HR processes and systems are being revisited towards this end. Building positive recognition for our Aces culture rests on our belief in positive psychology.

Our ‘Pact’ (performance and coaching tool) initiative is anchored in the philosophy that managers must move away from thinking of themselves as bosses to thinking of themselves as coaches. We have workshops and simulations to make sure that line managers start embracing this approach.

The new individualised compensation policy puts a lot of responsibility in the hands of line managers. A significant part of our performance measurement, talent management and assessment criteria today are about using hardwired HR processes to support what is really a soft cultural transition. Finally, we have built high-level branding around various HR interventions to ensure excitement, passion and ownership.

Halfway into the transformation journey, how satisfied are you with the way it has progressed?I am very happy with the journey. Our new HR policies are benchmarked with the best in

About Tata Motors Tata Motors is the world’s fourth-largest bus

and truck manufacturer and India’s largest automobile company. It has manufacturing sites in Europe, Africa and Asia.

The company’s portfolio extends from heavy commercial vehicles to sub-tonne carriers, buses, SUVs and passenger cars.

Consolidated revenues of `1,656.55 billion in the financial year 2011-12.




the world. We have brought in unprecedented ‘outside in’ thinking to HR in Tata Motors. We have revamped our compensation philosophy so people can see their rewards linked to company performance. Historically, a variety of practices were deployed at various Tata Motors locations; we are now creating a single Tata Motors way. We have harmonised and upscaled HR in the company.

Through all this, we are trying to create a more contemporary organisation that appeals to employees from any country, culture or industry; a world-class destination for best-in-class talent. When we look back to when we started the change programme, we see what a long way we have come. I would give us 8 out of 10 on the scorecard.

What role does learning and development (L&D) play in talent management at Tata Motors?We have some path-breaking branded initiatives in the L&D space. For example, ITeach is an innovative practice of getting line managers to take ownership when it comes to sharing their knowledge and experience. This ensures tacit knowledge transfer, breaks silos, develops leadership, reduces cost of third-party training and earns reward points for people sharing their knowledge with colleagues.

The concept of ‘learning advisory councils’ [LACs] has been acknowledged as a world-class practice. Through LACs the business or the functions identify their learning priorities, which they own, review and reinforce. Today the business leads the learning, unlike in the past, when HR would drive the process. We have switched to e-enabled learning to appeal to young, tech-savvy employees of tomorrow; almost 90 percent of our learning programmes are online.

The HR strategy has to respond to the changing needs of not just employees but the entire ecosystem. For instance, we have created a small team from our in-house group of HR professionals to work on the HR agenda of our dealerships, to look at the entire HR life cycle of the people who actually touch the end customer. We adopted the ‘build, operate,

transfer’ framework and have just handed over the responsibility to line operations, satisfied that we have put the HR systems in place.

On the manufacturing side we have a programme called ‘Autonova’, where we have worked on six of the most mission-critical issues of the manufacturing operations of our commercial vehicles business, to build a world-class standard of competence across levels in these identified areas. These are just a few examples of how the HR function’s partnership with business is increasingly becoming strategic.

What do you see as the major HR challenges for the automotive industry today?There are some obvious challenges such as the availability of skills, be it a blue-collar operator or an employee with niche skills. Therefore, the war for the right talent will intensify. Also, we will have to compete as an industry to attract talent. The auto industry is not necessarily the first choice of many potential employees; how we position ourselves as a sector of choice is a challenge. The old image of the auto sector as a manufacturing business has to change; it must promote itself as a consumer sector at par with new-age industries.

How is Tata Motors preparing itself to become an employer of choice?We have been working on this for some time now and the efforts are beginning to pay off: we were recently named in one survey as the ‘best company to work for’ in the auto and manufacturing segment. The challenge is how to keep this alive.

Over the last few years we have been visible on the campuses with ‘Mindrover’, a successful case-study contest for students across Indian B-schools. We took this idea forward by introducing a similar engagement with students from top engineering campuses this year, where we invited them to provide solutions to technical problems.

We also engage with many of these campuses through clearly differentiated internship programmes, where we pair students with



mentors or guides. The feedback from our summer interns has been positive and 80 percent of all our hiring is now through pre-placement offers to such summer interns. This summer, for the first time in Tata Motors, we will start internships for IIT engineers.

Diversity is another important agenda for us. We want to see more women employees at Tata Motors. In fact, our internal employee referral programme, ‘Friend ++’, earns an employee a bonus over their referral award if they refer a woman. We have arguably the most women-friendly policies in the sector, be it on maternity, adoption or a sabbatical. All of these initiatives add to the story of Tata Motors being a great employer.

Is attrition a concern for Tata Motors? How do you retain talent?Quantitatively, we have single-digit attrition, which is good. Most of the attrition happens in the first five years, when employees are keen to switch jobs and try out new things. Once they have completed five years, they settle in more comfortably and that’s where we need to engage and retain them with different learning options, a career architecture that allows them to move across jobs, and leadership mentoring.

Younger employees are uncomfortable with hierarchies, so we need to create a flatter organisation. Even our new offices are designed to reflect this.

What is the Tata Motors experience with leadership development?Leadership development continues to be a challenge because our aspirations are high. The next crop of leaders at Tata Motors will have to be qualitatively superior. So we concentrate on offering different assignments, behavioural training, taking people out of their comfort zone and so on. The leadership development project is going to be about identifying potential leaders at every level, screening, some amount of education support, and a great deal of coaching and mentoring. We are actively evaluating 360-degree feedback as a mandatory input, starting with senior leadership.

As the Tata group becomes more global, what sort of HR imperatives are you having to cope with? How difficult is it to deal with diversity and cultural differences?HR can influence business decisions on whether the company should enter a new geography, by advising if the right kind of talent is available in that market or within the company. This is in addition to enabling all compliances to a variety of local labour legislations. HR can also help by training employees to work effectively in a new cultural and business environment.

Most overseas moves fail not because of hard issues, but often the softer and often taken-for-granted ones. Indeed, no good merger or acquisition exercise today happens without active HR ownership from the word go.

As part of a large group, there must be plenty of opportunities to compare HR practices with other Tata companies. Which are the Tata companies that impress most with their HR approach?The chief HR officers (CHROs) of leading Tata companies meet every quarter to discuss HR practices and issues. We can also pick up the phone and talk to any Tata company CHRO when we feel the need.

We all learn from one another. For example, we can learn from Tata Consultancy Services about how it utilises technology in HR to manage scale, or discover why Titan has virtually no attrition, or learn from Tata Steel’s great industrial relations legacy. Not every company will have every experience; smart learning and sharing, I believe, is the way to go about it. ¨

For very long people in many companies have erroneously believed that human asset management is part of the HR function’s agenda. But the truth is that ... it is actually owned by leadership and management...



Simon Lenton is a recent addition to the ever-expanding Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) organisation, but more than 30 years of experience in management and human resources has fine-tuned this jazz guitar enthusiast’s understanding of the rhythm of a big-company workforce. Speaking about the people outlook at JLR, Mr Lenton tells Christabelle Noronha that HR is more than just a function, that it is one of the pillars supporting the company as it sets about achieving its “performance challenge”. Its people are vital in realising this objective and, as one survey has it, JLR is on a good wicket in this regard.

‘Developing our people for growth is the key at JLR’



What are the focus points of the HR practice at JLR and the policies that are pursued in this regard?Our overall business strategy is focused on our ambition to become an even more successful player in the global premium vehicle market. In HR our strategies are concerned with priming the organisation to achieve the performance challenge through our people. We have five core focus areas: engagement, capable people, great leadership, protection, and enabling change. All of these contribute to delivering a high-performance company.

What are the HR challenges specific to JLR? Have these challenges changed in their order of importance over the years?I am only in my ninth week here in the role, so I don’t have everything clear yet. Nevertheless, I think that many of the key HR challenges in JLR are similar to those faced by other global organisations: managing global expansion effectively, finding and retaining scarce and key skills, and managing the influx of new people to the company.

The challenges facing HR have changed significantly as JLR has become more successful and ambitious, and we feel the growing pains of rising to the challenge of ‘stretch objectives’. I think that some of the HR challenges specific to JLR are related to our long history of differing ownership, which has led to a complex structure of terms, conditions and benefits.

Employee engagement has been for JLR more than just about tokenism. How exactly does this engagement unfold in the company and what are its salient features?Our employees are proud to work for JLR and are absolutely passionate about our products; they have a real commitment to the company. We have many long-serving employees and a very low turnover rate. This level of emotional attachment needs to be nurtured and reinforced through regular, open and honest communication. We involve employees

in continuous improvement activities, set them stretch objectives and demand high performance. In return, we offer competitive pay, industry-leading benefits and a unique employee value proposition — working for iconic brands in one of the most successful companies in the United Kingdom.

How do you get employees to buy into the concepts the company pursues? How important are the unions in this initiative?We communicate regularly with employees, managers and employee representatives to update them on business imperatives and gain their buy-in. The feedback we receive from salaried employees suggests we are getting this right. We work closely with our trade unions and employee consultative body; we talk through proposed changes, understand areas of concern and work together to come up with solutions.

The vast proportion of our production workers are trade union members, so a close and open relationship with our trade union is essential. This is positive, especially since we have been performing well and reaching full capacity in our plants.

JLR has been recognised for its commitment to supporting employees with disabilities, people from ethnic

About Jaguar Land Rover Jaguar Land Rover is a business built around

two iconic British car brands. Jaguar Cars, founded in 1922, is one of the world’s premier manufacturers of luxury saloons and sports cars. Land Rover has been manufacturing 4x4s since 1948 and has defined the segment.

Consolidated revenues of £13,512 million in the financial year 2011-12.




minorities and women. Is there a structure to this programme, and how does the company benefit from it? Our ‘dignity at work’ policy is one of the cornerstones of our culture at JLR. It’s about treating everyone with respect and ensuring that the workplace is a safe, positive and welcoming environment for all. This means we have zero tolerance for any form of discrimination, and this philosophy also flows through to our policies and the way in which we approach workplace issues.

We have diversity councils across all areas of our business. These comprise employees at all levels alongside trade union colleagues. It is they who make the policy and who ensure that it comes to life in their areas. All our new hires are briefed on dignity-at-work principles as part of their induction, which aims to raise understanding and awareness of what behaviour is expected at JLR and how to effectively deal with any issues.

You have hired some 8,000 new employees over the past two years. What kind of challenges does such large-scale recruitment bring with it?The first challenge is in finding the right people to join JLR. We centralised our volume recruitment activities, developed a strong employer brand and used external partner organisations to support us with recruitment advertising and candidate identification and management. The strength of our brand and our reputation as an employer has meant that for many of our volume recruitment campaigns we have had large numbers of applicants, which brings its own challenges, including keeping these candidates engaged in the process and updated on their progress.

Once new hires are on board, there are two crucial challenges. The first is ensuring that our new colleagues can get up to speed quickly; the other is capitalising on the insights and fresh approach they bring to the business. We have established programmes that provide new hires with an overview of the business, give them some experience of our products and enable

them to meet other new colleagues from all over the business.

In a recent interview with Tata Review, chief executive Ralf Speth spoke about the difficulties JLR faces in “getting specialists with advanced skills across many functions, especially in technological areas”. What is the nature of these difficulties?Due to the innovative nature of our business we are often developing or working with new technologies, for example, hybrids. In some cases there are few people in the labour market with the type of skill we need. Recruiting engineers with the right skills to support some more established technologies can also be difficult, especially in areas where there are few manufacturers using or developing this skill in the United Kingdom. For such scarce skills we have had to be more creative in identifying suitable candidates.

Your graduate and apprenticeship schemes appear to be crucial when taking on fresh talent. How do these schemes help in moulding engineers and technologists?These schemes provide us with a great pipeline of young talent entering our business, people with the potential to become our future leaders. Our graduate and apprentice training programmes are comprehensive and equip trainees with the technical, professional and personal capabilities to deliver high performance, as well as providing them with personal development opportunities.

As JLR expands around the world and adds employees from different cultures and regions, what kind of complications are you encountering, and how are you coping with them?Our horizons have broadened over the last few years as our markets have expanded and our employee base has increased. We have been a fairly United Kingdom-centric, inwardly focused organisation, so the challenge is to listen and understand what is required in different markets



and cultures, rather than just provide what we think is required because we have assumed that everyone’s needs are the same.

Increasingly, we are working closely with colleagues, partners, customers and suppliers on a much more global basis, particularly in emerging markets. It is critical that we make decisions and see things from a market perspective.

The company has been on a high for a while now in terms of revenues and profits. Are such moments the best time to forge closer and deeper relationships with employees?We are always keen to build the relationship between our employees and the company and have managed to do so successfully through both success and adversity. We have shared our success through pay increases and bonuses, in recognition of the contribution of our employees to business performance.

Work-life balance is a big issue among employees everywhere. JLR seems to be doing plenty to enable its people to strike the right balance. Could you tell us about your efforts on this front?We have a variety of policies which support flexible working and enable employees to manage their life holistically. Our intense engagement levels mean that employees put in a high degree of discretionary effort, and they feel personally motivated to do so. We are currently looking at what more we can do to enable employees to work more flexibly, to give them further choice and allow them to successfully integrate their home and work lives in a way that suits their personal circumstances. All this while delivering business needs.

Leadership development finds frequent mention as an HR challenge, especially of late. What has the experience of JLR been on this issue?Over the last three years, we have significantly increased our investment in leadership development. We are working to deliver hugely stretched business objectives and our leaders

need to be supported and developed through the stretch. We have worked with world-leading executive education providers to put in place programmes that focus on strategy and execution. These programmes have been designed to create a strong network of leaders across all functions so that we reduce silos and make the most of our collective talent across the business.

There must be plenty of opportunities across the Tata group to compare HR practices in different companies and borrow what’s best. Does that happen in a substantial manner? Tata companies in the United Kingdom have an HR forum where HR leaders come together to share best practices and discuss issues of common interest. In addition, we participate in the Tata Business Excellence Model process, which gives us a great framework to assess our people strategy and HR delivery. Of course, we also benchmark with other auto manufacturers and leading companies.

What do you see as the HR challenges of the future for JLR?It is still early days for me, but I accepted the role because I relished the challenges that JLR had to offer. They are significant ones; people challenges always are. I think, first and foremost, the business has gone through dramatic growth already and it is working to adjust to this, but also to maintain the trajectory. I want to introduce more planning around how we organise, identify and grow the resources we need, and build capability.

I also want to see us improving our effectiveness across the business. As we increase our scale we need to find opportunities and we need to compete with the big automotive businesses on performance and efficiency. I want us to be exceptional at identifying and growing talent and ensuring that it is well rewarded. In particular, I want us to engage our people with the potential of JLR and also with the possibilities they can see for themselves in our shared future together. ¨



“People should not be constrained or restricted in their ability to contribute to the organisation,” says Rackanchath Nanda as he elaborates on what he believes employee engagement is really about. That’s pertinent, coming as it does from the head of human resources at Tata Chemicals, a professional who has spent 27 years learning and understanding

the nuances of HR and how the function can improve the health of a business. Mr Nanda, who moved to the organisation from Tata Communications in May 2012, started his career with the Murugappa group, where he spent nearly 15 years in a variety of roles. He joined the Tata group in 2006 after a brief stint as the HR head of the Dubai-based Landmark

‘The challenge is to attract talent and retain it’



What is the overarching philosophy that guides the HR practice at Tata Chemicals? We are a company that is caring and known to be so, that provides a good working environment for its people, and one that promotes talent from within. These three attributes define, from an HR perspective, who we are as an organisation.

What kind of HR challenges does Tata Chemicals face, and how have these challenges changed over the years?The principal challenge stems from the fact that many of our manufacturing sites are in remote areas, which makes it difficult to get the right people to work at those sites. The challenge here is of attracting talent and retaining it.

Has this challenge got more acute in recent times?To an extent, yes, because it’s a more connected world now and people are more aware of what they are missing. The challenge is about meeting aspirations. When a person passes out from a management school or a graduate training school, the first choice is to be in a city. Our plant locations are far away from key metros, so one challenge is about making our sites more attractive.

Retention is another challenge and it is a greater challenge than it was, say, a decade back. Many of the people we hire from campuses get married after four-five years, and the spouse most likely is a working person. In the circumstances, employee engagement is crucial

About Tata Chemicals Tata Chemicals is the second-largest producer

of soda ash in the world. It is India’s market leader in the branded and iodised salt segment as well as urea and phosphatic fertilisers. The company’s plants are located in India, the United States, the United Kingdom and Kenya.

Consolidated revenues of `139.73 billion in the financial year 2011-12.


group. Mr Nanda gets talking in this interview with Philip Chacko on a wide range of HR issues, among them the challenges Tata Chemicals faces on this front and how the function has changed over the years.

for Tata Chemicals. We have to understand the drivers of employee engagement in current times so that we can manage and make them consistent across the organisation.

Typically, the more important engagement factor is the immediate manager; this person becomes a key determinant. We try to ensure that we train managers to be sensitive about their job requirement and not just their task requirement. Most such training in the past involved individual soft skills, but now we are putting an organisational play to it. A combination of the individual and the organisational will help the engagement quotient of the company; what we do is strengthen the linkage.

Tata Chemicals is now a global entity with operations in different parts of the world. What sort of HR issues does that reality throw up?Only one part of the Tata Chemicals business is global and that is soda ash. But even here, in the different arms of the business, they are fairly insulated operations, whether in Wyoming in the United States, in Magadi in Kenya, our European operations or Mithapur in India. We have had only a handful of people moving across locations.

That said, cross-cultural sensitisation is a key element. You have to understand what is workable in a culture and what is not.



Fortunately or unfortunately, we don’t have a large number of people moving across our plant locations, so there isn’t a big issue with integration and the like.

What we have to deal with is something that is peculiar to the chemical industry, where production facilities are far flung from city life. That’s not how it is with information technology or engineering. Also, with chemicals, because of the nature of the process and the distinct regulatory environment at each of our locations, HR norms are different at our sites. It makes sense, then, to be bound by a common framework rather than to enforce a common HR policy. That’s because work levels are different, salary structures are different, etc. We cannot have a global standard, but what we try to do is make sure that we have in place a common framework that can be applied globally.

We are clear that with HR we will be region specific. The stray cases of people moving from one location to another, we treat these as exceptions for a specific purpose. They have an assignment to finish and they will come back to the parent. That’s the way we have structured it.

You have been in HR for long years. How has the function itself changed during this time?When I started my career in HR it was focused on industrial relations. Opportunities were limited; it was an employer’s market. You could decide how and when to recruit and the options open to anybody joining were limited. But there has been a sea change over the last 15-20 years, with many new sectors and many new opportunities.

There was a time when people who spent a decade or more in manufacturing would stay through their working life in manufacturing. But now people leave and take up another vocation. You may have a very good plant manager saying that infotech is where his or her future lies. Consequently, companies have had to reconsider what they are doing. The environment has changed, the economy has opened up and the focus has shifted from industrial relations to managing your workforce

in a manner that makes it competitive in a globalised world.

What is different now about shop-floor management? For someone in production and doing day-to-day work, the aspirations are not all that many. If he has an issue, he must know who to approach and how to get it resolved. If it gets resolved in a reasonable period of time — in best-case scenarios, as soon as it is raised — he will not have any ground-level issues. Problems arise when the issue is not settled quickly.

Also of relevance is the increasing level of automation and the influx of new technology. This means that the shop-floor worker has to be able to expand the range of his skills continually. He may be very skilled in an old method, but if you automate the line, the skilled become unskilled.

What is the Tata Chemicals method on leadership development?Our journey here began some time back and we have built on it over the years. Most significantly, we have a programme where we identify people of a particular age and job-level bracket and expose them to multiple modules, running for almost a year, where they get a perspective of how to run a business and inputs on personal behaviour.

When you invest in such people, you need to ensure that some of the other processes in the organisation facilitate upward mobility. You cannot create aspiration without having the requisite outlet to release that aspiration. Not everything happens together but an employee understands that over a given period there will be certain opportunities available to him or her.

Recently Tata Chemicals was looking at moving into a new category and some of us got together to evaluate the people within our system who could be moved to assignments there. This is the kind of situation that comes up when you have to fashion the new. The question that emerges is: do you have people in the organisation who are willing to take something that does not exist today and build it to a considerable scale?



How does employee engagement pan out at Tata Chemicals?By and large, engagement is something you can sense when you walk into an organisation; it is the look and feel of the place and it’s not something you can use a tape to measure. How are people reacting when you walk around, how are they involving themselves in their work, what conversations are they having, what about other interactions, and is that laughter you are hearing? There are easily evident signals to be found here.

Most people who come to work are not concerned about issues outside of their work. People should not be constrained or restricted in their ability to contribute to the organisation. That’s how I see employee engagement.

What kind of employee concerns have you had to deal with?At Tata Chemicals we take care of our people, as I mentioned earlier. In the last couple of years we have wound up our biofuels and fresh produce businesses. In both instances, we did not see the people we had in those enterprises as less capable because the business itself was shut down. Instead, we have provided a large window for them to get redeployed.

There definitely are opportunities for growth within the organisation no matter what the circumstances, but people need to be willing to relocate, to pick up a fresh set of skills, and so on. That’s what needs to happen.

What is the equation on work-life balance at Tata Chemicals?My experience tells me that an organisation cannot mandate your work-life balance; it is an individual thing. You have to look at what affects you most and then decide how it should be balanced. The organisation can help if there is an inherent process that is weak, in which case you can strengthen that process. If you see that people cannot complete their activity in a given period of time because of factors outside their control, then you need to intervene. And the best method of rectification in such situations is to have people do the job.

An important point on this issue is when you work in roles where you have to deal with an environment, typically external, where many things are out of your control. You have no way of predicting it or understanding the pattern in which it happens. The solution on this is to have people in that particular role who do not get hassled by sharp spikes and demands on their time. The organisation has to understand which kind of person it needs to put in a certain kind of place.

This balance is not just the work part of it; it’s also about giving employees opportunities to fulfil their own ambitions, to pursue their hobbies, and so on. And that we do to a considerable extent.

Is it more problematic these days when it comes to recruiting?It is more difficult now than it was, say, 20 years back. There is a clear gap in quality because most educational institutions are not preparing students to be employable as soon as they are out of the classroom. These students may be good from a theoretical standpoint, but the skills that a business enterprise requires are not all there.

It is vital, in this context, for organisations to partner educational institutions in crafting the curriculum, and there are multiple ways this can happen. We have to offer adequate internship and exposure opportunities; we have to work with institutions to make the curriculum more job-oriented; and we have to get practising managers to spend time visiting and interacting with the talent pool that is being groomed for employment.

What’s the deal for Tata Chemicals, from the HR perspective of business, from here on?We hope and expect to get better in matching aspiration to opportunity from a career point of view. Because we are in multiple businesses, we are able to offer plenty of opportunities to our people, especially as we enter new areas. As an organisation we have to stay engaged with employees and get even more collaborative. ¨



The people at Titan Industries are encouraged to innovate, to dare to try, to make mistakes and learn from them. R Rajnarayan, senior vice president and chief HR officer at the company, talks to Vibha Rao about Titan’s people policies and why attracting talent is not such a difficult proposition for an organisation that is non-hierarchical, focuses on growing in-house talent and believes in supporting its employees in finding a balance between the work that they do and the lives that they lead.

‘At Titan, people are given the space and opportunity to grow’

What is the HR philosophy at Titan and how does this translate into policies for the people here?The HR practice at Titan has five broad focus



areas. The first is to ensure that the values and the philosophy of the organisation are upheld. This means respect for the individual and giving people space to work, innovate and grow. We try to nurture talent from within; the majority of our people in managerial and leadership positions are those who have come through the ranks.

The second is to maintain healthy employee relations. We ensure that there is a good employee reward system and a healthy relationship with our union. Third, we try to ensure that, in keeping with our growth ambitions, the right talent is on board. On average we add about 1,000 to 1,200 people a year, which is a reasonably large number (this is primarily at the front line).

Fourth, we ensure that our compensation and reward and recognition policies are equitable and the differences between the levels are not too high. We ensure that the reward systems are such that there are certain timed rewards and there is also space for spontaneous rewards. The fifth is to create a good, sound culture that withstands the test of time. Our stated ambition is to show a revenue of `300 billion by 2018. That would also mean a certain increase in manpower because we want to grow organically.

What are the HR challenges specific to your company? One of the challenges specific to our company is that we are a very diverse organisation, one of the few that span design, manufacturing, and sales and marketing, with a distributor network and a large retail spread. We have a wide variety of businesses that are evolving and growing. HR, to remain relevant, has to stay connected to them and add value to the company.

We have manufacturing plants and retail stores in different parts of the country and regional offices in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. We have a large age demographic, with employee ages ranging from the 20s to 50s. One of the challenges of managing this diversity is to make sure that there is a clear understanding and internalisation of who we are as a company and the values that underpin the way we work.

The second big challenge is making sure

that there is a robust talent and leadership pipeline. We have to identify people from within who are capable of taking the Titan spirit forward as we get into new businesses. Finding leaders who can lead start-ups and then move back to established businesses is something that is reasonably unique to us.

What has the Titan experience been with regard to leadership development?Titan has a good, practical, feet-on-the-ground way to develop leaders from within. We believe that training contributes only 10 percent to one’s evolution and development, 20 percent comes through coaching and mentoring and 70 percent is contributed by on-the-job experience. People are given the space to grow, the opportunity to take on different roles and helped in evolving into new ones. There is an understanding that the person might not deliver 100 percent in the initial period, but it is worth the risk. Helping employees with ethical issues is one of the more difficult HR tasks. How does Titan deal with this?We have a good ethics management structure. People who are seen as fair, logical individuals

About Titan Industries

Titan is the fifth-largest watch manufacturer in the world and the largest jewellery retailer in India, with a product portfolio that includes watches and accessories, eye wear, jewellery and precision engineering products.

It is home to a host of India’s leading lifestyle brands, such as Titan, Tanishq, Fastrack, Raga, Sonata, Xylys and Titan Eye Plus.




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are on our ethics council, which is headed by the chief ethics counsellor. The ethics function is run in a transparent manner and our approach to ethics handling and robust practices has been lauded by many. Companies talk about encouraging teamwork and creating a culture of collaboration. How important is the role of HR in making this happen?We have HR business partners who work with both divisions and geographies. The HR role is to empower line managers; we equip them with different methods, tools and techniques by which they can get more out of their teams. We also run training programmes to help people understand the composition of their team, the different personalities in a team, how they can work better and so on.

How does HR deal with employee frustration in recessionary times? These are recessionary times, but it doesn’t mean that everything is gloom and doom. We have had a good year in all our businesses. Recently, in December-January, looking at our expected results in the fourth quarter, we realised we had to focus on the top line and bottom line to ensure that we achieved a topline of `100 billion and a bottom line of `10 billion.

We instituted a programme called ‘Army of one’, wherein people were encouraged to contribute towards topline revenue, and generation and implementation of ideas on reducing costs and wastes. There has been a lot of productive and enthusiastic activity, leading to a sharp increase in revenue and control of cost and waste. We are confident that we will exceed the set targets.

How do you recruit new talent?As a brand Titan is an attractive proposition and attracting talent is not a major issue. We are not top-end paymasters, but we offer the excitement of working with a company in diverse businesses, with brands that are well known and in a culture that allows you to operate independently, learn from mistakes, and take on large responsibilities.

As mentioned earlier, we want to grow to

be three times the size we are today in terms of revenue within the next five years, which means that we have an interesting journey ahead. The combination of who we are today and where we want to be makes us an attractive destination for young talent.

Work-life balance is a term much in vogue these days, but this is a particularly difficult balance to achieve. How does your company manage it?The younger generation places more of a premium on work-life balance and they want to do something other than work. We encourage people to have a healthy work-life balance. We offer flexible working hours to help in maintaining work-life balance in our corporate office, factories and most of our regional offices. We have libraries, a good gym and other facilities to support the after- and before-work activities of employees. We do have people working long hours, so now we are debating if we should turn off the lights at 6.30pm.

How exactly does employee engagement manifest itself in your company? How important is employee feedback and the company’s response to such feedback? We participate in external surveys and have scored reasonably well. We also have an internal employee engagement survey. Reports and scores are shared with managers and all teams. The focus is on improving engagement and on the action that needs to be taken at the organisational and team levels.

We have an annual survey run by the managing director’s office called ‘Tell me’, which has been running for the last 10 years. The feedback is presented to the Titan management council and then to all our employees. The feedback is analysed and specific action is taken. The managing director has a fixed time slot every week during which any employee can talk to him about any issue. Members of our management council also reach out to employees regularly. We are non-hierarchical, approachable and extremely open to feedback. ¨


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Tata Global Beverages (TGB) has been on a transformation journey in recent years, evolving from a plantations heritage to a global beverage business with a portfolio of strong brands. HR is playing a significant role in facilitating this transformation, says KS Srinivasan, head of human resource management at the company, in an interview with Sujata Agrawal.

‘Individually excellent, collectively brilliant’

What are the focus areas for HR in TGB’s transformation journey?TGB’s vision is to become a global leader in branded ‘good-for-you’ beverages. Given this, the focus areas for HR is to build a culture that will enable and fuel our global growth plans. We intend to conduct road shows across various regions to bring organisational alignment, especially in terms of organisational culture.

The second focus area is to make the



About Tata Global Beverages Tata Global Beverages is a global beverages

company headquartered in Mumbai. It owns popular brands such as Tata Tea, Tetley, Good Earth, Tata Coffee and Himalayan mineral water.

Has alliances with PepsiCo and Starbucks.



company future ready by identifying and building capabilities that are critical for the success in the years ahead. We will concentrate on not only building best-in-class functional teams but also global leaders who can work effectively in a matrix structure and in a project-led enterprise.

Could you detail some of the specific challenges and opportunities that TGB faced as it evolved globally?One of the key challenges lay in changing the mindset within the company, to bring about a ‘consumer focus’. Since the company had to face the risk of market fluctuations in tea prices, we had to ensure that we built strong brands and the organisational capability to perform well in highly competitive markets.

We also had to integrate our operations in India (North India plantation division and South India plantation division) into a single branded operation, focusing on both national and regional brands. This involved consolidating marketing and sales structures and managing people’s expectations through the transition.

TGB has integrated the global operations of Tata Tea, Tetley and the other subsidiary companies. What were the challenges here?Being a global organisation with different ideas and cultures makes TGB a vibrant and exciting

place to work, but this diversity also brings with it some challenges. For instance, when launching new global processes and systems, we have to be sensitive to the possibility of cultural misinterpretation. We minimise this by working in global teams with cross-cultural representation.

To create a common culture that everyone at TGB can identify with, we have five directional themes that reflect the aspirations of our company and describe the tactics that we will need to pursue at an individual and organisational level to achieve those aspirations. We have built a consumer-focused structure to enable global working. The three sales and marketing territories are managed regionally to enable local market responsiveness. Functional teams such as HR, communications, finance and global information systems are centrally and globally organised. This structure breaks down silos; team members from all regions work together under one functional head on the development of global initiatives.

The structure also gives talented employees the opportunity to take on bigger or more challenging roles with international reach. The cross-pollination of talent across regions and the sharing of best practices help develop global leaders. We have also put in more relevant mechanisms to measure and reward performance, such as a global reward strategy and the global talent management process. These initiatives have been in place for the last three years and are now institutionalised as a part of our DNA.

You have talked about developing leaders with a global mindset. How are you managing this at TGB? We are working on developing a future-ready pipeline of global leaders who can take forward our ambition to be the global leader in good-for-you beverages. Our large global presence has given some of our key talent global exposure; since 2008 about 30 employees have been given international placements.

Our ‘organisation resource review’ process (a global talent and succession planning tool) has helped us identify 120 critical roles across the company that are needed to deliver our business plans over the next two years. We have built an



internal talent pipeline for 65 percent of these roles. In addition, we have been leveraging the leadership programmes of the Tata Management Training Centre.

Could you share with us what is being done to encourage teamwork and create a culture of collaboration?At TGB we believe that teamwork is the responsibility of every manager. In fact, one of TGB’s directional themes is ‘individually excellent, collectively brilliant’. An example of this is the ‘Culture champion’ initiative. Each region has about 10 culture champions who drive various initiatives to engage their colleagues and provide catalysts for change. Centrally coordinated but regionally accountable, they can ensure that the initiatives are culturally appropriate and global in context. Each year there’s a new set of culture champions. The idea behind this initiative is to have more participatory communication rather than a top-down approach. The role of HR is to support the champions and ensure that the process works effectively.

How does employee engagement manifest itself at TGB? A good example of employee engagement is the ‘Think big’ initiative; a contest that is run across geographies, it invites innovative ideas for positive change at TGB. The initiative generated more than 1,300 new ideas, it captured the imagination of our employees and reinforced a culture where creativity is encouraged and rewarded. It also provided opportunities for people to learn new skills and collaborate across functions. The top five teams were invited to New York to present their business plans to a panel of judges.

We also have a structured mechanism for gathering employee feedback that helps target initiatives and communications better. We conducted a pulse-check employee engagement dipstick survey after completing the integration process; our overall engagement score was 68 percent (with 88 percent participation across regions), which is better than the average score among global companies. We also conduct

HR open houses and involve senior leadership in policy decisions involving changes. Such interactions have led to changes in medical benefits and policies relating to travel.

The term work-life balance is in vogue these days, but is particularly difficult to achieve. What is your view on this and how do you manage it at TGB?We try our best to help our employees find an ideal work-life balance. We have launched many initiatives in the last two years, including flexible work arrangements that allow employees flexibility on the time that they come to work (as long as they complete the mandated hours and are present at the office from 10am to 4pm); paternity and adoption leave; working for two-and-a-half days in a week from home for a period of two months after returning from maternity leave; offering professional counselling to employees and their families; and so on.

What do you see as the HR challenges of the future for TGB? Given that TGB is continuously transforming, it is a challenge to keep employees energised and engaged. It is also a challenge to manage changing employee demographics. Gen Y and Z are very different and we have to ensure that our leaders are well equipped to manage these people. Talent management and succession planning will become more critical and at the same time more complex. We also need to be able to help employees update and develop their skill sets quickly.

To what extent do Tata companies share HR best practices? There are many platforms within the Tata group that enable sharing of best practices. There is a forum where chief HR officers meet regularly with a predefined agenda; the Tata Rem Club is very active and shares knowledge internally or through thought leaders. The revamped group HR site gives an opportunity to HR leaders to connect with their peers within the group. I’m sure that we will see more synergies and sharing between the different companies in the future. ¨



That warm, fuzzy, caring space that denotes a good HR function is being enabled through the use of emerging technologies and mathematical tools that help optimise the organisation-employee relationship. Tata Power’s chief HR officer, Chetan Tolia, explains to Gayatri Kamath how the HR function is changing to map the future employee with the future organisation and how the company is working to become a meritocracy with highly engaged people.

‘Keeping the opportunity pipeline flowing’

What are the focus points of the HR practice in your company? The HR emphasis at Tata Power is on growing our people and filling our opportunity pipeline with



talent from within. This is one of the reasons our employee engagement levels have consistently been high, in fact among the best in the industry.

Traditionally, the HR function has focused on managing the talent flow. At Tata Power we view every role as an opportunity for individual growth and, thereby, the organisation’s growth. If the pipeline gets clogged (with permanent residents), the movement of people through the organisation gets impaired. This can stress the talent pool and possibly result in people feeling disengaged. That’s why we look at the issue from the perspective of growth opportunities.

What we are beginning to do is a rigorous and regular review of the entire organisational design vis-à-vis the needs of the business. You cannot have an unchanging structure; it must continuously adapt to business needs. This helps open up spaces where talent can flow, and thus enhances overall talent productivity.

Another big change is that HR is redefining its boundaries of operation. A new target group is the contract workforce, employees who are not on Tata Power’s permanent payroll but are very much a part of the business. Core activities and processes are retained in-house, while certain specialised services are outsourced, such as handling fly-ash or coal, special services during an outage and specialised turbine maintenance.

The changing business environment has resulted in the number of contract employees growing and typically there are three contract employees to every permanent employee. These figures imply that HR has to play a more active role in contract workforce management. We need to weigh in on entry standards, minimum educational qualifications, training needs, desirable behaviour and so on. The people culture of the external agencies bringing in the contract employees needs to be synergised with ours. We are now re-establishing these service contracts as productivity-linked, performance-based ones. This will create an incentive for service providers to invest in improving their efficiencies, benefiting all concerned.

Another impact is that, internally, we need to reconsider what skill sets the company needs, especially with its permanent employees. The

HR evolution at Tata Power is being led by the business evolution, and we need to focus on those issues that have a great business impact.

What are the HR challenges specific to your company? Among our big challenges is the matching of the talent pool and people expectations with the volatility of the business environment, even as we build capability for the future. The mix of legacy and new business models and the demographics of our people combine to make this a uniquely challenging time from an HR perspective.

Another big challenge is to balance our gender ratio. We want to attract and retain female talent. We need to provide an environment where women are supported in the workplace; they should feel confident that their careers will grow at Tata Power. We are in the process of reviewing policies for maternity support, childcare, etc, and are considering different ways to bring women back into the company after a parenting break. There is a lot of careful planning that’s going into this.

How does your company approach the issue of leadership development?We have several leadership development schemes but we are also looking at new

About Tata Power Tata Power is an integrated, independent power

producer, with a presence in power generation, trading, mining, transmission and distribution.

It is a 100-year-old company headquartered in Mumbai, with plants and facilities across India and a presence in Indonesia, South Africa, Bhutan and Singapore.

Consolidated revenues of `260 billion in the financial year 2011-12.



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technologies that enable live or real-time executive coaching, with 360-degree feedback tools to help manage problems almost as soon as they occur. Leadership effectiveness discussions are conducted with top management (and facilitated by HR) to understand people’s career aspirations, the support they need from management, and the options available for developing their careers. These systems are not for performance appraisal but for performance enhancement. It’s an exciting space to be in.

How do you tap and recruit new talent? A few years ago we went through a growth spurt where we had to recruit laterally in sizeable numbers for our middle levels. Now we are looking at a steady annual intake of 40-120 fresh graduates every year. We do not want to have a gap in this flow. The benefit is that young talent can be moulded and groomed, rotated in different areas and developed over a period of time to fit in with our culture and needs.

We are also looking at recruiting a mix of specialists: management graduates, lawyers, engineers, environment and safety specialists, etc. This implies looking at new recruitment venues and mapping nontraditional skill sets. A new development in HR is the use of analytics, and one area where we are deploying this is in recruitment. We are tracking and correlating a number of inputs — the colleges where we recruit, the number of people who apply, the success ratio, the number of appointment letters issued, the number who join and the progress of those who continue at Tata Power. This data is correlated with other factors such as college rankings, the Tata Power people who visited the campuses, etc. By analysing this data for a 10-year period, we establish what combination of factors has worked best for us. We then finalise our campus visit plans.

How does employee engagement pan out in Tata Power? An engaged employee is one who is fully involved in and enthusiastic about the work, and who will act in ways that furthers the organisation’s interests. Tata Power’s employee

engagement process strives to measure the degree of an employee’s positive or negative emotional attachment to the job, his colleagues and the organisation by collecting employee responses through an annual survey that is administered by an external agency. The analysis is presented to the management team and all employees every year. The solution and action planning is done with the active involvement of employees. This process is branded as ‘Voices’.

Based on the outcomes of the survey, we have continuously deployed initiatives and taken corrective actions to increase the level of engagement among employees. The employees’ belief in the process, the management and the HR function is clearly visible in the commitment to together make Tata Power a great place to work. Participation in this process has been maintained at levels of 95 percent and above.

At Tata Power we also feel that we need to think beyond this. We need to review what we should measure and what we hope to accomplish through this exercise. The answer could well lie in a new system of taking more frequent measurements of employee engagement. Then the exercise may turn out to be even more meaningful to the employee and the organisation.

What do you see as the HR challenges of the future for your company? The Tata Power entity comprises several companies, of which there are 8-10 operating companies, each of which has its own HR function. We need to create a unified HR framework across all our companies. This common platform will have several benefits. It will enable smooth talent mobility, increase the opportunities available for growth, and help enhance among our people the sense of belonging to a large organisation.

What is unique about Tata Power is that we have a stable and engaged workforce. Our engagement levels are high and attrition rates are low. In addition, we have the ability to assimilate external talent. These are the positives that we are building on. We want Tata Power to be recognised in the marketplace as a meritocracy with highly engaged people. ¨


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In today’s changing business environment, the Rallis India HR team works to ensure that employees remain energised and motivated. In a wide-ranging interview, vice president for HR and business excellence, Madan Tripathy, tells Gayatri Kamath that HR at Rallis is all about co-ownership of challenges and actively partnering other business functions in the company.

‘HR functions as a team of business partners at Rallis’

What does the HR practice at Rallis concentrate on? The focus in the Rallis HR practice has been to strike a balance between business imperatives and what our employees want, while extending support for business growth through HR systems and processes. The Rallis business model is changing: we are transforming from a crop protection company to an integrated agri-solutions



About Rallis India Rallis India is the country’s leading agri-input

company, with pan-India operations, four factories and a research centre. Its portfolio has pesticides, herbicides and insecticides, along with seeds, plant-growth nutrients and organic compost, as well as a range of agri services.


Number of employees: 900 plus, and 1,000 plus crop advisors who work on contract.

provider, with a portfolio that includes seeds, plant-growth nutrients and a range of agri services.

We currently have a pilot project called ‘Samrudh krishi’ (literally, ‘prosperous farmer’), involving more than 1,200 farmers, through which the Rallis field representative does much more than sell our products. He provides consultancy to the farmer on weather, seeds, good farm implements, best crop practices, in fact everything necessary to improve the business of farming. Rallis also has a similar initiative, called ‘Grow more pulses’, which involves about 150,000 farmers. This project focuses on the cultivation of high-quality pulses.

In a step towards preparing employees to meet business challenges, the HR function in the company has been restructured so that there are HR business partners — for sales and marketing, manufacturing and support functions — who act as the single window for all HR services to the given function and its employees. In short, the Rallis HR team functions as a team of business partners.

What are the HR challenges at Rallis? The HR challenges in the present context are four-fold. First, to have an appropriate organisational structure, with due importance given to emerging businesses. Second, to develop expertise at the senior management level for

accelerated growth through succession planning, creating a leadership pipeline and sourcing the right talent, particularly for emerging businesses. Third, to enhance the versatility of middle management through capability building and job enrichment. And fourth, to increase the depth of the organisation at the grassroots level.

At the grassroots level, and particularly for customer-facing employees, one of the biggest challenges is to change the mindset from product selling to concept selling and to equip our existing sales force with appropriate knowledge, skills and the attitude to enable responsive problem-solving and proactive growth consultancy. A new competency framework has been developed, resulting in a dramatic change in our frontline sales team. Their self-image is changing along with their job enrichment; they feel a greater connect with the farming community.

Another unique aspect of this competency development is that it is actively driven by more than 30 regional competency champions and internal trainers, who are volunteering to train sales employees spread across 200 territories in India. These participants, in turn, will train our 1,000-plus contract field workers, who connect with the farmers more frequently. Interestingly, it is our area sales managers who have willingly taken on the extra responsibility to act as competency champions and train the workforce beyond their area sales teams.

Leadership development can be an HR challenge. What has the Rallis experience been?Rallis conducts several customised leadership development programmes in partnership with the Tata Management Training Centre [TMTC]. To catch young talent and build a leadership pipeline, we are rolling out an employee growth scheme called ‘Regale’ (Rallis employees’ growth scheme leading to excellence). We have also introduced informal mentoring. Key people with high potential are mentored by the senior leadership, and the chosen people are kept unaware of the focused mentoring provided to them. It is done in a subtle manner, as a low-key informal activity for greater flexibility and effectiveness.



How does Rallis tackle and manage its people requirements?Rallis has a couple of distinctive initiatives to meet its future people requirements, and they address both the business and social empowerment agendas. The ‘Tata Rallis agri input training scheme’, or Traits, is an initiative under which young unemployed undergraduates from rural areas, with a farming background, are trained through an earn-while-you-learn programme. These youngsters undergo classroom training at ‘Krishi vigyan kendras’ (agricultural knowledge centres, where the curriculum has been developed by Rallis) and they get practical training from our field force for one year. At the end of the period they are given employment support for two more years, after which they have the option of joining our sales force or looking elsewhere for jobs.

Traits has about 25 trainees at each of its five centres in India. This initiative not only makes rural youth employable, but also produces a loyal front-line sales force for Rallis. Additionally, we offer fixed-term, two-year training for local graduate students at our manufacturing sites, which enhances their employability as they learn relevant skills.

These schemes not only address our future people requirements but also contribute to our agenda for affirmative action and community development, while adding value to business sustainability. Apart from these, Rallis approaches agri campuses for intake of freshers. For lateral recruitments we have a referral scheme where employees not only help identify talent but also extend ‘buddy support’ throughout the recruit’s probation period.

In what manner does employee engagement manifest itself in your company? Rallis is fortunate to be among the best performers in employee engagement. In the recent Aon Hewitt employee engagement survey, the Rallis score was found to be 80 percent, which is much above the average manufacturing industry score of 65 percent and the ‘best employers India 2011’ score of 77 percent. While in good companies the ratio of engaged to

disengaged employees is about 5:1, at Rallis the ratio is as high as 16:1.

What are the employee engagement initiatives being run at Rallis?I believe that the common thread that connects all employees and drives employee engagement at Rallis is passion in what we do. Apart from normal employee engagement initiatives such as rewards and recognition, two-way communication, transparent HR policies, accessibility of the senior leadership to employees, and similar measures that are common to many companies, we have a host of innovative programmes that also help in motivation and engagement.

One popular programme is ‘Kisme kitna hai dum’ (KKHD, which translates into ‘so what’s your strength’), where our employees voluntarily set robust challenges for themselves, boosting healthy competition. KKHD is demonstrably popular; we have more than 400 entries from an employee base of about 900. Another unique initiative is ‘Mushkil aasan’ (problem solved), whereby anyone in the company can write to our managing director on any issue. We have also started employee-focused programmes such as an in-house talent show called ‘Karishma dikhla jaa’ (literally, ‘phenomenal show’), with senior leaders travelling to field locations to be a part of the local celebrations.

What are the important learning and development practices in the company? Starting with the training needs analysis, we run in-house learning and development [L&D] programmes for technical, functional and behavioural training and also sponsor our employees for external training. We have access to TMTC’s competencies for customising L&D solutions for us. A new initiative called e-vidya, which is a self-paced e-learning programme, launched recently with the help of TMTC and Harvard Business Publishing, is catching on in the company. Two in-house training initiatives deserving special mention are Project Arjun and Project Dronacharya, which are sales-oriented modules that help newcomers learn how to sell to the trade and to farmers. ¨

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