In Conversation With Dr Andleeb Jain, Group President - Human Capital, Corporate Communication & CSR, JK Cement
Andleeb, congratulations to your organisation for winning the Excellence in HR Strategy at the BW People HR Excellence Awards 2023. In your view, what is unique about the HR strategy and how does it align with the organisational vision at JK Cement?
There is something very unique about our HR strategy, it not only creates value for all our stakeholders but also it is agile enough to cater to business needs. Our strategy is continuously evolving from the inputs we receive through our temperature check mechanism inside the organisation panning across the complete lifecycle of an employee. We measure this at 5-6 stages of an employee within and outside the company.
Every time it evolves in line with the intent to partner with the business. The legacy of the organisation and its selective strength areas are always the guiding principle for our strategy.
Another unique thing about our strategy is that it very well balances the people and business part of the story. The Heart, Head and Hand of the organisation go in tandem and are uniquely intertwined. Passion, Consistence, Scalability, Resilience and Agility are some factors which run across the complete strategic fabric for the organisation.
How do you ensure that the HR strategy supports and enhances the company's culture?
As we continue to identify and nurture our core strength areas, we very swiftly mingle it with the culture of the organisation and our strategy that accentuates our organisation culture. We have discovered our Employee Value Proposition (EVP) through extensive Survey and One on one interviews with people having spent different tenures in the organisation, cutting across levels and functions. “Zazbaat se Banaa Junoon se Judaa” is what we captured it from our employees. This captures Emotional Connect, Passion, Belongingness etc as the key pillars of our culture. People are an integral part of our strategy and hence all strategic intents and directions clearly positively impact the culture of the organisation.
How do you approach talent acquisition and retention in your HR strategy?
From a talent acquisition perspective, we are focussing on strengthening our talent influx quality. We do have right filters like age, gender, Qualification, diversity of exposure etc available to ensure that the talent pool is improving day by day and the average age of organisation is coming down to make it more vibrant and agile. Also, having diversity of industry and gender is also something we have strategized. Generational diversity of course comes along the way and helps for sure.
From a retention perspective, we have a multipronged approach. Our approach ranges from structured job rotations, career development & progression, employee engagements, early warning systems, working on causes and not on symptoms for employee life cycle events and consistently improving them. Employee experience and value propositions at its peak is what defines our retention strategy
What initiatives or programs are in place to foster employee engagement and satisfaction?
From an employee engagement and satisfaction perspective, we have the following things in place :
Actually, the list can go on and on…..
How do you measure the effectiveness of your HR strategy and its impact on the organization?
From a measurement and impact perspective, we are a Great Place to Work certified organisation now the fourth time in a row and the BW People award third time in a row is the very testament of things that are going right for us.
Various surveys across the organisation at different life cycle points of the employee also give us pointers on our effectiveness.
Also, from an impact perspective, HR has earned a seat on the decision asking table and our journey continues.
How do you handle succession planning and leadership development as part of the HR strategy?
Succession planning and grooming inhouse talent for leadership positions is engrained in our DNA and over last couple of years we have strengthened it further.
Right from our Young Leaders Programme (UDAY), where we identify and catch young talent to groom them, to our executive coaching programmes for Identified leaders, we have come a long way in grooming internal talent. We send our identified talents to the Best B-Schools across the Globe for grooming.
As a strategy, all our leadership positions are being fed from our internal talent pool. We have created a very unique response to the leadership development and succession planning process. We diligently throughout the year, keep working on identifying , assessing and developing our internal talent for our key roles. As and when the opportunity arises we ensure that we have somebody to take it up. Yes there are roles against which we may not have available talent, for all such roles we are clear that we hire from outside.
What role does technology play in your HR strategy, and how do you leverage it for efficiency and effectiveness?
Technology and digital, play a pivotal role in our HR strategy. A couple of years back we decided to go paperless and One of the benefits we derived during Covid times was to leverage technology and bring home the point of working Paperless. Since then we have introduced various tools and platforms to make our working and processes efficient and transparent though the use of technology.
Our entire lifecycle runs seamlessly on Success factors, and all our expense and travel management runs through CONCUR. We were recently awarded as the most efficient SAP CONCUR organisation in APAC by SAP.
Being a geographically widespread employee base organisation, we get a good output by mapping our various processes digitally. Seamless employee experience and service is something that comes in through easy with technology.
How do you collaborate with other departments or stakeholders to ensure the alignment of HR strategy with overall organizational goals?
Collaboration with business is at the core of our HR Strategy and we get a lot of inputs from business as they have a lot of market insight being in the field day in and day out.
Market in and not product out is our approach while evolving and implementing HR processes and systems. We generally understand the need of our business stakeholders and suitably cater to them through our strategy. Constant communication, suitable alignment and continuous improvement are what helps us fully align the HR strategy with the organisation's goals and key stakeholders.
