Ways to become a Best Company to work for

From planning marketing strategies to recruit top-notch employees, to implementing incentive programmes for hard-working staff, to diagnosing and treating organisational problems, today’s HR departments rely on innovation and creativity to keep the company on the cutting edge of competition. Having witnessed the evolving trends of the industry, panellist take a look at these companies and distinguishes their efforts in human resources in Human Resource Innovation.

We continue with the second part of the riveting session, ‘What it takes to be the No.1 company to work for’. The panel for the session were Rupal Sancheti (Moderator) Chairperson, IWN Pune Chapter & Director Sancheti Hospital; Viral Jasani, Director - Human Resources – Sheraton Grand Pune Marriott Hotels India; Sachin Narke, Chief Learning Officer & Head-HR, Forbes Marshall and Tryoden D’Cruz, Senior General Manager HR, John Deere Technology Centre. The panellist discuss the challenges they faced while enabling the workforce and how they managed to face the challenges.

RUPAL SANCHETI: You talked about the values that the founder of John Deere had. How do you make sure that the vision and the values still remain relevant after 182 years, it is difficult, and now 182 years later you are living with those values, how do you do that?

TRYODEN D’CRUZ: When you go to the US or China, the values demonstrated by the leaders there are the same. Every department has a subculture where we do things. But the basic way of treating people, the emphasis you put on people per se, the care that you show, there is very much similarity across the globe in these areas. The core values: integrity, quality, innovation and commitment remains constant. That is how we have kept intact.

RUPAL: (To Sachin) You have a lot of programmes in Forbes Marshall. Which programmes don’t work well? What are the challenges you face in your employees accepting all the programmes?

SACHIN NARKE: I had mentioned reverse mentoring as a programme. Our first batch of the reverse mentoring programme is completed. So if you ask me on a scale of 1-10 how effective it is working, I will say about 4.5, not even the average. The intent to participate in the reverse mentoring programme is there and intent is well-understood. When we started the programme we wanted seniors to volunteer the mentees. They went through a lot of unlearning because when you are in the shoes of a mentor, you have a habit of talking and culturing the youngsters when you get into the shoes of a mentee after a long time, it is difficult to listen. Those who signed up, out of them, only 60% eventually could meet up with their young mentors and then obviously the expected outcome of the programme is not as much as it was expected — while I mentioned about this progress to an outlook that Forbes Marshal has what we really expect to deliver us is, there are certain blind spots. We keep on talking about this perspective gap and I don’t like to divide in terms of age because perspectives are perspectives, it can be across. But if we take that age can be a perspective and millennials have a different viewpoint than the Gen Y or Baby boomers. Are there any blind spots, can we take pride in saying even today that flexi-time is a great thing to have, they may not consider being a great policy. They want something different. Are we missing out on their viewpoint, can we look at certain policies through their eyes, have we changed any policy which says that you are splintering our programme, no we have not. Have we opened up leaders to listen to the youngsters, the answer is yes. I will call it success only after we get to hear this piece done. So if you ask me this one, which is in progress, is not a complete success. But do we have an example of complete failure.

"Hotel industry is no longer the same that it used to be, things are changing, the hotel industry is evolving, especially in India"

- Viral Jasani

RUPAL: You have a lot of millennials in your workforce, so what are your challenges and how do you cope with what they want and what Marriott as a Group can provide? How do you make sure that your care and your communication is intact, where your associates are most important, your people are most important, how do you ensure that they are maintaining the communication?

VIRAL JASANI: When it comes to millennials, as the hotel industry is developed itself over the years — in today’s time, all our guest are well-travelled, they understand the food or the room very well. When you talk about the earlier generations who worked in the hotel industry they would like to work in a certain way and they would say this is the norm of the industry. But the younger generation wants to try different things, again, today’s generation is wellread, they are aware of what is happening over the world, and they are more educated. When I say more educated, what I mean is the younger generation would know what is the food culture in the US and around the world. Their expectation at work place, innovation, their duty timings and shift timings, we work 24/7, 365 days working during festivals, holiday season, and whenever millennial workforce would like to have a free time or me time during those days, these are the few things which we keep in mind.

Again, if you see there are a lot of hotel management schools in our country. A few years back, only a couple of hotel management schools were there in our country but now every city would have around 30-40 hotel management schools. At the end of the day, how many hotel management students join the industry, be it the retail sector, or any service industry, employees are keen to hire a hotel management graduate. So the retention of a hotel management graduate in a hotel industry, which has requires a lot of physical work, spending nine hours, they have a lot of expectations from the industry. Today’s generation feel that they don’t want to do the hardwork, as there is too much of expectations from them. But again, the people who are passionate hoteliers are doing well in the industry. Normally, the hotel management courses range from 3-4 years. As an organisation, every year we have different programmes, we go back to the institutes, we have our own sessions with the students, where they understand the ground reality of the industry and when they join the industry they are well-versed.

Q & A

"HR has woken up to the reality and they have understood that if they want to sit on the table then it is really important for them to show the value that they are able to bring"

- Tryoden D’Cruz

(TO VIRAL) I got married to a hotel management graduate from London and he constantly compares the work culture which he had in London with India. He told me that there is overtime for every hour that he works there. The hospitality industry is so huge overseas, why can’t India reach that level?

VIRAL: I certainly agree that there is a different work culture in the hotel industry outside India and in India. The pay scale of the hotel industry in India, as compared to say when a fresher joins in Dubai or someplace else, there is a huge difference, the major reason can be demand and supply. When it comes to Marriott as an organisation, we have many initiatives, we were the first hotel company in India to start with six weekly offs. In the hotel industry, there is just one hotel company that has got five working days. Most of the hotels have got four weeks offs in a month. There used to be long working hours as you mentioned. Average working hours for annual tenure would mean 12-14 hours, for example, if someone is in charge of this event, he/she has to come before the event starts and has to wait till the event is over. If the event is from 9 to 6, that means the person in charge will come before 9 to do the setup and wait after 6 to close the event. So yes, there used to be long hours but things have changed. Things are no longer the same that they used to be, things are changing, the hotel industry is evolving, especially in India. We are moving towards what is happening in the industry, globally, when it comes to working hours and pay scale as well.

(TO SACHIN) We heard about the work cultures of three different companies. But all three companies come with legacy. That means the company are in the business for a very long time and the company has had culture over time. What would you advice to startups who probably have 1-2 employees today and are struggling to find the right talent or build the right culture?

SACHIN: My submission will be to follow and I like the model why, what and how. The moment we are clear that every business make a profit, we cannot deny that. But is that the purpose because every owner starts with a certain purpose in mind. In a way, he or she is also clear that how the purpose should be met. What I have seen is that in our case, that has become the culture. So when initially the family started, obviously, they started the business and they wanted the business to be done in a particular way. And the values I shared with you came much later but that was more of how they were doing it, they wanted to put it in a particular format and that’s how the value has emerged, so to me, asking that why, the purpose of existence, what you believe in and culture is also what you don’t want. If that is clear then it can be evolved with time.

"Everyone from Forbes Marshall is called a member. The policies are uniform to all of them, there is one canteen, it is not segregated between VIPs, officers and workers"

- Sachin Narke

(TO SACHIN) In your presentation, you mentioned that while doing the cultural transformation you did not face any issues with respect to the union, so do you mean to say that you don’t have union as such or what is the scenario?

SACHIN: We do have a union but the philosophy that has been is whenever we recruit anyone for a shop floor job, first of all, the divide of calling them blue collar or white collar is not with us, we have stopped that long back. Everyone from Forbes Marshall is called a member. The policies are uniform to all of them, there is one canteen, it is not segregated between VIPs, officers and workers. Secondly, we recruit diploma holders that is the basic that we look for because our business requires a lot of customisation so we make to order. If we don’t find that fire in the belly to move forward in terms of educating yourself then we don’t hire that person. My personal take, I may be wrong that typically people get together because of security issues. The reason that they come together is that they want some kind of security and you kind of team up together and start collective bargaining. That insecurity angle if you tackle with providing the right resources, then there will not be any problem whatsoever everyone comes to the right resources. If you provide and channelise that resource, help them to move further with their career, give them a lot of responsibilities then there would not be any need for collective bargaining because you are providing them with the resources and this is what I do personally on the shop floor.

For example, if you are a wielding operator now, you should not be a wielding operator five years down the line and what is it that you want to do. If the answer is not positive and the answer is something like I have joined Forbes Marshall and that is the end of it, then we don’t hire that person. If we see the fire in the belly then we move forward and the company culture is very conducive to that kind of growth. We have a high education policy, we are not restricted by any budget. We say that everyone should go for higher education and doesn’t matter if the cases are in thousands or lakhs, we reimburse the college/school fees provided someone clears the exam in the first attempt. So we want that progression to happen. When your culture is defined by a long tenure of service what might come as a flipside is a complacency, you can be guaranteed certain things. We don’t want that complacency to creep in. Otherwise also a lot of efforts need to put in so that members always feel to go up the ladder.

(TO TROYDEN) As HR becomes more and more strategic are there any parameters to measure and quantify it?

TROYDEN: From a historical point it is difficult to quantify what value HR brings. Historically it has been very difficult, and that has always been a grey area and many people started investing in it. Now HR has woken up to the reality and they have understood that if you really want to sit on the table then it is really important for us to articulate and really show the value that you are able to bring. Most things are becoming quantifiable. There are financial indicators, if you want to look at the productivity then you can look at the revenue that the employee is able to generate. For example, if you are looking at what kind of innovation that you are able to generate then you can link it to the number of patents that you are able to generate. There are a lot of financial indicators and other indicators which are subjective in nature but we are trying to make it as objective as possible to try and quantify the value that the HR can bring.