People Need To Be Trusted To Get The Best Out Of Them

Ashutosh Telang - Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), Marico in an exclusive interview with BW Businessworld speaks about Marico’s HR initiatives, increasing digitization impacts, future of HR department and more -

Marico is undertaking various HR initiatives. How do you think it will better the productivity of the organisation?

Marico’s belief and philosophy right from the inception aligns with creating a highly productive organization. Our organizational design is based on two core beliefs - Trust and Empowerment. We believe that one of the key roles of the organization is to create conditions, which make people consistently produce/deliver superior performance. We also believe that people need to be trusted to get the best out of them. Thus, for us, trust and empowerment go hand-in-hand and are the underlying principles on which roles are designed at Marico.

This belief system significantly influences the HR initiatives that get taken up within the organization. We are enthused and excited about various HR initiatives that we have rolled out or have planned to roll out in the coming months, which focus on enhancing member productivity. Cited below are some examples: Leveraging integrated and App based Technology solutions, Organization Structure Designs, iLearn, is our e-learning platform and Workplace by Facebook which is facilitating social learning.

Tell us about your initiative ‘Young Board’?

We find that today’s young talent is bright, energetic, technology savvy and keen to contribute, both to business and society.

Marico’s first Young Board was constituted over 3 years ago with the objective of involving the younger generation in organisation building initiatives. The Young Board is a cross-functional team comprising eight young leaders from different functions across India and international businesses to ideate big bet ideas, identify new opportunities, potential pitfalls and share recommendations on key organizational initiatives. Each Board is constituted for one year and it is mentored by the Top Management Team Members and personally by the MD & CEO.

We have recently constituted the third Young Board and they are also showing promise with their ideas and work.

How is the increasing digitisation impacting your HR initiatives?

We believe that, in order to create a sustainable business which thrives in future, we will have to transform into what we like to call a “Digital Consumer Company”. This belief has fueled many HR initiatives and is also changing the way we are working as a function.

Considering social media is a preferred source of communication and engagement among the millennials, we have taken conscious steps to leverage social media as an important channel for communication & engagement with potential talent. We connect with potential talent through Linked In, Instagram and Marico Campus Connections, our Facebook page on a continuous basis. We use social media to share company news, information and run contests like our flagship campus connection program – Over the Wall, to connect with potential talent. In addition to this, we use applications like Talview to conduct recruitment processes virtually.

We have already shared about how we are leveraging cloud based integrated systems and Apps to improve accessibility, data accuracy, analytics and overall automation levels which is helping us release management bandwidth to dedicate time for strategic interventions. One of our recent experiments has been of using VR (virtual reality) technology to orient new joinees on the manufacturing processes at one of our factories.

Prompted by insights that people appreciate being recognized among their social circle, we introduced Maricognize, our social recognition program a few years ago. The program has a bouquet of monetary and non-monetary awards that members can use to appreciate each other across levels, functions and geographies.

Technology has also influenced the way we connect and communicate with our workforce. We are among the early adopters of “Workplace”, the organizational social networking platform from Facebook. Today, we have about 900 members active on a weekly basis on the platform. They share knowledge, news about company’s brands and products, recognitions received by Marico, events in their units/locations, new & interesting activities conducted in the marketplace and wish members on their special days like birthdays, work anniversaries, etc.

You are focusing on creating a future-ready workplace. What are the steps that you are taking in this regard?

At Marico, we have created a special task force whose mandate is to challenge existing practices, explore opportunities, crowdsource ideas and recommend practices and policies that will create the workplace for the future.

Innovation Jam is our initiative to crowdsource innovative ideas from all Marico members on a specific theme and topic. We recently completed one such Innovation Jam with the focus on sourcing ideas to create the Workplace of the future. All ideas received through the Innovation Jam are reviewed by Marico’s Innovation Council consisting of senior leaders representing different functions to select the winning ideas. The winning ideas are auctioned through the Marico innovation process. Members and teams submitting winning ideas are rewarded with cash prize and recognized publicly

A Digital Think Tank of young IT Savvy Managers was set up to generate technology-centric innovation ideas. Their mandate was to drive growth, innovation and consumer connect, improve productivity or change our way of working by leveraging technology. The group has come up with several disruptive business ideas which have been taken up by the organization.

A Growth Hacking Team has been constituted to work on ideas & projects identified by the CXO team as potential growth drivers for Marico’s future.

“Bottoms Up” is our very own reverse mentoring program. The program leverages the savviness and skills in our younger members to mentor more experienced or senior members in the organization. In the first wave, young social media and digitally savvy managers mentored Marico’s top team for 6 months.

The enhancement of benefits in our parental policies is another example of how we are working towards supporting our members to integrate their professional and personal lives. Apart from the maternity and paternity leaves (details provided in question on flexibility at workplace), we also gift the new parents a Wellness package which can be used by them to learn good parenting techniques and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

We believe that our core values, philosophies and initiatives like these have contributed to Marico being ranked No. 40 in the India’s Best Companies to Work For 2017 study conducted by the Economic Times & Great Place to Work Institute.

Marico has an active ALMA (ALumni of Marico) network. How do you maintain good relations with your ex-employees?

We consider our ex-employees as a part of the extended Marico family and believe that association should continue even if the individual is no longer an “active member” at Marico. We value our talent even when they are not working with us and keep in touch with them through our members (current employees) and our active ALMA (ALumni of MArico) network. We keep in touch with them by sharing updates and news about the organization periodically. We also invite them for milestone celebrations since they have contributed to Marico’s growth journey.

The Ex-Marconian pool is an important source for hiring key talent and has facilitated in re-hiring members across different grades. In fact, more than 50% of the re-hired members, in the recent past, are in Leadership roles.

We have also opened Innovation Jam – our idea gathering initiative for our ex-members and received contributions from them.

You implemented workplace by Facebook to enhance your digital footprint. How’s that working for you?

We adopted Workplace by Facebook last year because we understood that technology (digital, mobile, social media) had changed the way people communicate now. We also understood that Millennials prefer open, connected, informal and digital communication channels. With close to 47% of Marico’s workforce being Gen Y it had become important to include new media for communication, engagement and collaboration which would be accessible to all members.

Since last year, Workplace has been used by members to communicate, share, collaborate, learn, listen, celebrate, recognize and connect formally and informally across the organization. Close to 900 active members contribute to Marico’s culture and social fabric through Workplace on a weekly basis. Shared below are some examples

Transparency & Openness is a core value at Marico. Workplace has aided us in living that value in its true spirit and #stayconnected with other members and the organization.

How do you think will the structure and functions of HR department change in the future?

The changing future of work, expectations and aspirations of the workforce and demands of business in the VUCA world is definitely changing the role of HR. We are truly living in exciting times for HR. Human resources is embracing changes and ingeniously adapting from Technology, Psychology, Marketing and other fields.

HR will have the challenging role of navigating through paradoxes to align talent and business needs. For example, HR will need to create meaningful and personalized experiences for talent while ensuring consistency of experience at the macro level; the function will need to manage talent in a gig economy while enabling stability to support business operations sustainably. Automation, analytics & artificial intelligence will reduce significantly the transactional element in HR roles and impact the design of roles in HR. For example, transaction processing will continue to be automated and if required, consolidated in shared service setups to derive efficiencies, savings and synergies.

The future role of HR will be that of an organizational architect, a career counsellor, a culture builder, community facilitator and a conscious keeper. Accordingly, the structure, deliverables and competencies required by HR will also change.

HR itself could embrace Holacratic structures with people playing different roles in different teams to support business and build own capability as per the new roles requirements in HR.

Do you think the traditional eight hours of work system should change? What other flexibilities should an organization provide its employees?

At Marico, we have always believed in building “commitment” rather than having a “contract” with our members.

We value the quality of work done and don’t count the number of hours worked. We believe that while it is essential for a member to ensure quality and timely delivery of work, it is left to him/her to decide when and how (s)he chooses to do so, provided it doesn’t affect the work delivery.

Hence, our attendance policy doesn’t recommend the maintenance of attendance registers or any system for measuring hours of work, except where it is statutorily required (e.g. factories).

We also understand that professional and personal needs differ at different life stages and we have endeavoured to be sensitive and flexible to their requirements. For example, members can take 2 days contingency leaves to take care of any emergencies or unplanned personal exigencies. And there is no limit on the number of times this leave can be taken in a year. This works for us because we trust our members to take this leave only when it is required by them.

Our parental policies manifests our beliefs and provide flexibility to both mothers and fathers. Marico provides fully 26 weeks maternity leave to our women members; this has been enhanced from the 17 weeks that was provided till last year. Women employees can supplement this with their accumulated privilege leave in case they need additional time off. The flexibility provided to Marico Mothers has helped us bring almost 100% of our women employees back to work. Marico is ranked among the Top 100 in the 2016 Working Mother & AVATAR Best Companies to Work study in India. New fathers can avail of 15 days paternity leave immediately following the birth of their child.

Marico offers its members (except at extremely junior levels) the flexibility to design their own compensation structure. We offer cafeteria-style reward structure which allows members to choose and design their compensation package based on their individual needs.