Cadila Adopts Four-Dimensional Approach To Employee Wellbeing

Ahmedabad based Cadila Pharmaceuticals Ltd, is one of the largest privately-held pharmaceutical companies in India. Over the past seven decades, Cadila Pharmaceuticals has been engaged in the development and manufacturing of affordable medicines and in making them available for patients across the world. Its innovation-driven drug discovery processes ensure the health and well-being of people around the world. Cadila recognised the need to restructure the HR practices in the evolving scenario.

Leadership team at Cadila recognised that, if employee had higher wellbeing in year one, employees are motivated to perform better and also helps them to have work-life balance. Employee wellbeing is no longer an option but is becoming a priority for organisations, especially amid the ongoing talent crunch. Also with workplace 4.0, employee wellbeing should be the integral part of organisational values,

The four-dimensional employee wellness approach

The four-dimensional approach is essential for ensuring employee wellbeing which also helps in better mental health of the team.

Whole Person - consider employees from the “whole person” paradigm – that is every human being brings his/her whole self to work - heart, body, mind and spirit, and it is not just the hands and legs which make it crucial to develop a four-dimensional employee wellness approach.

Commitment - The commitment of the employees does lead to higher productivity, higher engagement, better delivery, and of course, better retention and motivation of the employees. Say the celebration of World Yoga Day on the 21st of June and regular yoga sessions helps in better transformation and fresh energy by individuals. Celebrating International friendship day at Workplace, Employees bond get stronger when they get their like-minded friends in the organisation.

Arranging Counselling sessions - For the mental wellbeing of the employees, counselling sessions on regular intervals to be arrange where people are freely able to talk on the other issues they are confronting internally. The counselling sessions can be psychiatrists or other subject matter experts to employees need to be encourage to attend the sessions which can be more productive for the organisation in the long run.

Intellectual development - Today the world is going towards expertise and it's not anywhere towards generalisation. It’s better for the organisation to take initiatives where people develop expertise, and then they can pitch to others. E.G when I teach others, two things happen – one, it is a natural form of recognition. If the organisation asked me to deliver a lecture on a particular subject to 20 of my colleagues, that itself is a form of recognition that stimulates learning. And when I teach a subject, I get to learn even more about it. So, that is another part, which is developing SMEs (subject matter experts).

Challenges in deploying these initiatives

To implement these initiatives the company has to face three main challenges,

Resistant and sceptical nature - Employees feel that this is just short term gimmick and then this will go away. Developing a trust that the organisation is really serious about the initiative is crucial and a challenging part. Also not all the employees would welcome the changes happening at one go. People need time and continuous engagement for confidence to build up.

Time management- Employees would say that I am already so busy and I don't have time to focus on wellness, whether it is mental or physical. HR leaders have to convince people that it is not an additional time that you need to find, but it is a part of your day job, it's a part of the day, it's not something that you have to do separately, and it's like sharpening the saw.

Business part. - The third aspect of the challenge comes from the managers of the employees that all this is fine, but how does it help the business’s core functions.

There is a need for communication of a different nature because we are doing this because the employees who are well, who are healthy in every sense, who are not stressed out or burnt out are going to be more committed and are going to be more productive.

The future of employee wellbeing

With mutating trends in the workplace, the space of employee wellbeing is also going to grow.

Encouraging people to pursue something which they believe or which they feel is really going to be a stress buster for them, something that they are really good at or something they would like to pursue – whether it is painting or music, or playing badminton, or anything for that matter. It is proven empirically that when people pursue some interest outside work in a very systematic and regular manner, it does reduce their mental stress and help them focus on work better. As a part of its overall wellbeing strategy, Cadila leadership team collaborates themselves with respective team for inter departments’ sports and cultural programme. Sportsmanship is a great motivator for employees bonding as well building mental and psychological fitness.