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Q Dow Corning and the HR practices at Dow Corning have gained recognition and
won and received top rankings in Employee practices across the world. What is
your ‘Success Mantra’? What is next on your agenda?
A. Dow Corning intends to create a culture of innovation and engagement among
its employees. Employee Engagement is the focus in all our HR practices. The
contribution of the Management in driving this culture of innovation and
engagement also makes all the difference.
The process of establishing good employee management practices is a journey
for us and not an end. It is nice to be recognized for our work on fostering a
good employee engagement and cultivating a working employee culture. However, we
do not wish to sit back on all the accolades. We need to keep working and moving
ahead every day. The process is continuous and there is still a lot to be done.
Our focus continues to be our employees and our objective is to ensure that
they stay happy at work. At Dow Corning, we recognize that there are commitments
beyond office responsibilities, like their duties towards their family, friends
etc. and our efforts will continuously be focused on how we can provide
efficient methods to ensure and improve their work-life balance.
Q What are some of the key initiatives for enhancing work-life balance among
employees?
We believe in the three pillars that complement any initiative started by
Dow Corning. They are ‘People’, ‘Planet’ and ‘Profit’.
We recognize that there is more to the life of an employee than work. If the
employee is happy at home, he will be happy at work and can contribute.
Therefore most of our initiatives link work-life and home-life. We encourage our
employees to work from home and also have flexi timings to ensure that along
with their office responsibilities, their family duties are covered effectively.
It also helps employees to connect with colleagues across the globe, who work in
different time zones. The employees have the flexibility to decide when and how
they want to work. This helps in improving productivity and leveraging their
energy. Thus the employees get the freedom to organize their own lives and
achieve their goals.
We also have an Employee Wellness Calendar which carries schedules for
different initiatives, events and activities like Yoga, nutrition workshops,
camps, etc. Every month employees offer to participate in these programs.
Moreover, with a view to further encourage wellness activities, a certain
portion of remuneration is allocated towards Wellness programs that employees
may take up.
Dow Corning also encourages employees to participate in community
improvement programs. One of the programs is the Citizen Service Corp program,
which is a global initiative for community development. The first program was
started in Bangalore in 2010. Besides this, some of the activities carried
include Science days for increasing awareness among children and teachers,
besides the communities around the plant and NGOs to teach and learn science in
an way that generates interest in learning. Dow Corning has also taken up
initiatives in the past where employees have volunteered to build low cost
houses for people in need. These initiatives help employees in acquiring various
skills on the task as well as to contribute in some way to the wellness of the
Planet.
Q In a globally spread organization like yours, how do you create and
maintain a high degree of engagement level amongst your employees?
The process of creating and maintaining the expected employee engagement
level is an on-going journey. Dow Corning endeavors to create an engaging work
environment with open communication lines for all employees. It also encourages
freedom to innovate and contribute, so that employees find the flexibility in
work and help Dow Corning cultivate loyalty by allowing them to maintain a
balance between their personal and professional needs. The employees once
engaged, plan and decide themselves to stay and contribute; spending time to
realize their ambition for the company to excel. They have the freedom and
flexibility to innovate and contribute to their company.
It is my belief that the engagement of an employee with the organization is
completely a two-way affair. If you treat your employees fairly and ensure good
lines of communication you will help them feel happier at work. This in turn
encourages them to invest their efforts in the organization. The Company has to
create conditions that will enable employees to be innovative. Sharing
practices, sharing successes, and sharing failures also become very important.
Q What can employees do to find meaning in their jobs?
A. At Dow Corning, employees are encouraged to seek quality in the work they do
and in the portfolio that they hold. I also see more and more young people (born
after 1980) wanting to bring a sense of social responsibility into their working
lives. They want to work for a company that is working towards the welfare of
the Planet and is making improvements in the lives of People, besides making
Profits in the business and operations.
Q You talk about “The freedom to invent your own future”. How does this work?
A. We are a company based on innovation and each innovation is important to us.
The innovations could relate to process improvement, product improvement or
people improvement. This culture of “freedom to unleash innovation” enables each
Employee to recognize that he/she can define or re-define his/her own future by
continually improving his/her “Skill and Talent portfolio”.
If you look at our structure, ‘People’ are a huge investment for the
company. Every year the company invests in People. The investment is almost
equivalent to the investment in one major plant! Quantitatively, you may observe
that the annual investment in every employee is about half a million USD.
To be ahead of the pack, Dow Corning encourages all employees to be ahead on
innovation and need to invest. They are to be engaged employees as against
compliant employees. They need to want to be a success and want to make the
company a success. This has enabled the company to be always ahead of the
competition.
Q What are the HR practices followed by Dow Corning that differentiates it
from its other Companies with HR Best practices?
A. Some of the differentiating practices and focus areas of HR at Dow Corning
are as follows:
• Employee Engagement: This is the basis for all organization wide initiatives;
• Talent Management: Everything in Dow Corning revolves around the ‘Talent
Management’ activities. We focus our efforts to integrate the employees with the
work systems of the company. Every activity from the time of Talent Acquisition,
to building and managing the Talent, is developed and managed as part of our HR
practices;
• Leadership Development: Leadership Development is also very important and is a
major focus point for HR though, at Dow Corning the Line Manager is responsible
for making sure that they have talent and are able to retain it. They are also
responsible for improving and cultivating talent under them. Here the HR shows
the direction to the people and articulates; but decentralizes the systems so as
to allow them the independence to be accountable. The focus is on ensuring
development of leaders from various levels so as to deal with issues of
stagnation. Dow Corning places emphasis on leadership development for delivery
of results on time and empowerment of employees.
• Succession Planning: In addition succession planning is also a major focus of
HR within the company. Dow Corning has a global process that identifies key
positions and high potential employees for leadership development.
Q What in your opinion is the reason that your employees have rated the
company so highly in the GPTW study?
A. For us the objective of participating in surveys and audits is to learn and
not to benchmark ourselves.
The employees at Dow Corning feel that they are a part of the success story
of the company. They are very attached to the company, as a result of which our
attrition is in single digit.
Our policies are also very employee-friendly and focus on the three P’s –
People, Profit and quality of life on the Planet – gives the employees scope to
learn and grow beyond their job profile.
Everyone likes to be a part of the company that is successful and which
provides them open and engaging environment, opportunity to innovate, and engage
at global levels. No matter where the employees work in the world, they have
opportunities to interact with colleagues from 60 nationalities, and learn to
appreciate other cultures and grow personally through the experience of global
projects.
Q How challenging was it to employ the Dow Corning policies in India? Were
there any specific challenges that the company faced in implementing the HR
policies in India?
A. We put together a design team each time we start an initiative. We do not
look at specific initiatives in specific regions. We ensure that the Policy
design team has a representation of all the regions. It is at the time of
creation of the programs that the local cultural and regional variations are
addressed. The programs are designed with a standardization of at least 80
percent across all the regions and a built-in flexibility for local adaptation
of around 20 percent.
Some elements of the culture of India are kept in mind during the
implementation of various initiatives and programs. The challenges faced in
India are typical of most Asian countries. The hierarchical mindset of the
Managers in Asia can be an issue sometimes. It is possible for people to be a
little more open to suggestions and ideas. But the best part of working in
different countries is that they are equally flexible and understanding.
Although the initiatives may surprise some of them, the essence of benefits
prove attractive once it is well understood.
Q Many of the employee initiatives are lost in implementation, especially in
the middle management level. How does Dow Corning maintain the consistency in
implementation all across?
A. The secret is an ‘Open Culture’ with various open lines of communication;
especially the peer-to-peer communication or the Horizontal communication is the
key.
Some notions to explain how this is possible are:
• The Leaders and managers need to look out for the interests of the employees
first rather than their own interests;
• The ambition driving them should be Company’s success rather than individual
success. They should be convinced that they are doing business to make it a
success;
• Innovation is encouraged; but it needs to be recognized that it is the team
rather than the individual that can bring success. None of the initiatives can
be done alone.
Q Can ‘Employees First, Customers Second’ be the new path to success?
A. I believe so. Employees are an important part in contributing to the
experience of customer satisfaction. The more passion they bring into their
work, the more it gets reflected in the work they do. At the end of the day, it
is correct to say that engaged employees bring loyal customers.
Our Customer surveys have always indicated a satisfaction with Dow Corning
employees.
Q What do you think is the most effecte: top-down or bottom-up approach to
engagement?
A. It has to go both ways. Basic communication is important. Sharing of
practices, success stories, failures and experiences plays a major role in
creating a culture of innovation within the organization. This sharing is to be
done in both top-down as well as bottom-up ways. It encourages employees to ask
for help when required and provide advice to peers on queries and situations
when help is sought.
Horizontal communications between peers is critical and more important for
having an innovative work space. Dow Corning recognizes this aspect and
cultivates such a cohesive environment of employee communications.
Q Human Resources is continuously under pressure to demonstrate the business
value of the HR function. How do you calculate the ROI to portray the value of
HR programs?
A. Dow Corning believes that the wealth of the company is its people
(employees). The skills and the talent that they bring to the business is the
main Investment. The Management recognizes this and understands that they have
to invest in people as it is the employees who will be creating various new
opportunities for the company. It is very critical for all the Leaders/Managers
to realize this, understand the talent and skills of their people and look out
for the best opportunities to apply them and get the most out of them. This is
the ROI that is relevant to any company. The HR and the leadership team need to
nurture them to ensure that they make a difference to the business, everyday.
Q Women’s advancement to leadership roles… How much easier or tougher is it
today?
A. The role of women in an organization depends on the market that the
organization serves externally. Saying this, it is also essential to acknowledge
that the leadership gap between men and women is slowly closing. We are
certainly making progress and the culture of the organizations is increasingly
more open to include women at various levels. This has been possible with the
various socio-economic changes around us. Society has also become very flexible
and is open to providing assistance of various forms to working women;
especially working mothers. There are many talented women around us and it is
definitely right that they get the space at the top that they rightfully
deserve.
As a company, we do not tolerate discrimination on any grounds and it is
dealt with strict procedures outlined by the Code of Conduct.
Q You have held various HR roles; which has been the most self fulfilling?
A. The current role that I am handling as HR Director in Asia has been more
enlightening for me as an individual. I learn something new every day in this
role and this has added greatly to my personal development.
In my other roles, my exposure and growth was more in the domain and
technical areas. In this role, here, I have grown as an individual. Being in a
different country and experiencing different cultures, I have learnt humility,
and realized that I am unique and different just as everybody else is! I have
also learnt that people need to maintain their individuality and uniqueness and
not try to be pretentious. I have also learnt to be more patient in my dealings
and try to understand people from different perspectives.
As I work globally, the role has also helped me to appreciate various
elements of local and regional culture.
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