Hindustan Unilever

Introduction

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest Fast-Moving Consumer Goods company with a
heritage of over 80 years in India. On any given day, nine out of ten Indian households use HUL
products

The Company has about 18,000 employees and has a sales of INR 34619 crores (financial year 2017-
18). HUL is a subsidiary of Unilever, one of the world’s leading FMCG supplier

Philosophy of Human Resource Management

“Leaders build Leaders”

Training and development

HUL is known as the ‘Leadership Factory’, that exports talent to Unilever and to India Inc., the
industry at large. The foundation of all HUL’s learning practices is based on a 70-20-10 approach to
learning. 70% of learning is done through on-the-job training, building business-linked capabilities to
achieve ambitious business targets. 20% of learning is coaching and 10% of learning is through
formal development. HUL’s learning curriculum is designed to support the entire life cycle of an
employee’s career.

Driven by the ‘Leaders build Leaders’ philosophy, HUL’s flagship management trainee programme,
the Unilever Future Leaders Programme (UFLP) has been the training ground for many inspiring
leaders, which provides extensive cross functional experience through live projects and assignments

Diversity

HUL has placed significant importance in making its workplace diverse with special attention given to
gender diversity. Since 2009, HUL has been committed to building a gender-balanced organisation
and have a clear ambition to have 50% women in management positions by 2020. HUL have come a
long way and have improved the gender balance from 19% in 2010 to 36% in 2017.

This has been made achievable through a holistic approach

1. Leadership commitment – Clear gender diversity targets are set across functions and leaders
are held accountable for delivery of the same. Regular diversity dialogues are held with
leaders to create buy in and demystify any myths and biases related to gender balance.
2. Enabling infrastructure and policies – HUL policies are gender neutral and hence have
created a larger impact on all employees across the organization.

a. HUL has a state-of-the-art day care and best in class maternity, paternity and
adoption leave policy (in place since 2006, before the Maternity Benefit Amendment
Act came into being in 2017) to provide adequate support to new parents.

b. HUL also has an online portal for employees and their line managers to help smooth
transition during the crucial period of parenthood. 100% women proceeding on
maternity leave come back to resume their roles at HUL.
 c. Agile and flexible working policies, career break policy, career by choice program
which enables talent to deliver key business outcomes while working flexibly have
been the other key enablers for creating a more inclusive and conducive work
environment.

d. HUL has also introduced concierge services and elder care support for their
employees in an endeavour to help them take care of their families and maintain a
better work life balance.

3. Building an inclusive culture – The softer elements of culture and inclusion involve building
leadership capability on inclusion through training interventions, organisation wide
communication and leadership interaction. HUL also recognises inclusive mid senior line
leaders (male and female) who drive a simple, flexible and respectful ways of working in
their teams

HUL has achieved yet another significant milestone in its journey towards being a gender-balanced
organization, with its nail products manufacturing unit in Haridwar now becoming a 100% women-
employee factory.

This unit was established in April 2008 and is spread over 2 acres of land. The annual turnover of this
nail manufacturing factory is about Rs.70 crores and the team include 25 female shop floor
employees, and an executive. The operations include five packing lines with weekly production
capacity of 3.6 lakh units with facility for packing 250 shades.

Empowering women makes sense for HUL’s business because women’s inclusion in the economic
cycle has a magnifying impact on growth and the health and progress of their families and
communities. The discrimination encountered by women hinders economic growth and represents a
waste of talent and ability. HUL strives to create advancing opportunities for women in their
operations, provide up-skilling for women and expand opportunities in our retail operations.

Outcome

HUL has been recognised as one of the ‘Top 10 Best Companies for Women in India’ by The Best
Companies for Women in India (BCWI) Study 2016. This award is a recognition of HUL’s commitment
towards creating a diverse and inclusive work-culture.
 TATA MOTORS

Introduction

TATA Motors Limited, a subsidiary of TATA Group, is a leading Indian automotive manufacturing
company with a portfolio that includes a wide range of cars, utility vehicles, trucks buses and
defence vehicles.

Established in 1945, TATA Motors is a USD 45 Billion organization and employs 80,090 people
around the globe.

Leadership Development:

TATA has a dedicated leadership development program in its system which aims at grooming the
mangers of today into leaders. The leadership program, TAS (Tata Administrative Services) aims to
select and groom young managers by providing them opportunity for professional growth and
develop leadership qualities.

People Practices

TATA Motors believes that people are pivotal to all the initiatives that drive them to realise their
future vision. With a dedicated focus on cost efficiency, Tata Motors, is providing employees the
right opportunities to increase productivity, improve processes, develop future leaders and turn a
higher profit, while also driving an organisation-wide culture of innovation.

TML built capacities across management tiers through different modules as well as learning
academies that offer training programmes on knowledge and capability enhancement, management
development and fundamental skills development.

TML-JLR has focused on developing talent at multiple levels and also hires employees via innovative
recruitment techniques. TML conducts Talks and case competitions across premier institutions and
invites faculty for its research challenge. JLR also hires people through puzzles and code challenges in
order to hire passionate and driven individuals.

Diversity

TATA Motors views diversity as a source of strength and has embraced diversity and inclusion as a
strategy to move forward. TATA Group launched its Diversity and Inclusion Initiative, TATA Lead in
2014 with immediate focus on gender diversity. TATA motors aim to increase the female workforce
in its ranks to 25% in the coming 5 years which currently is just about 5%.

Steps taken to improve diversity:

1. Leadership Focus – TATA Motors formed a diversity council at the top management and
Unit levels with the focus to increase gender diversity in the organisation. Top
management follows up on results of these initiatives to measure progress and to take
corrective action.
2. Various Initiatives Taken:
e. TATA SCIP (Second Career. Inspiring Possibilities.)
 A programme for experienced women who have taken career break to help them
transition back to work on their terms. It provides them a plethora of career options
to choose from and also provides flexibility in terms of work schedules, roles and
location.

f. GEAR UP
A development programme for women mid managers, which focuses on providing
management development inputs and mentoring support in their journey as a
professional.

g. REACH OUT
Aims to provide a development platform for Senior Women Leaders. By connecting
with leaders and peers across a group of likeminded organizations they can network
and learn to enable greater career success.

h. TATA Motors has increased the number of females recruited over the past few
years. From 13% in 2016 it has gone up to 25% in 2018.

3. The company identifies the need to change the perception and mindset of people,
especially in manufacturing units to build an inclusive culture which is important for
increasing gender diversity. Workshops are conducted for CXOs and middle
management to sensitise them about the importance of inclusion and diversity and to
create a more inclusive culture. These workshops focus on building and understanding
the business case for diversity & inclusion and understanding the unconscious biases
against women.

Starting with 5 women workers TATA Motors employed about 1500 women on the shop floor
without any drop-in productivity. This move saw huge resistance from other employees at the start
but intense communication by HR and senior leaders along with infrastructural support and
motivation from women leaders made this possible. Also, TATA has a 100% women driven assembly
line at Pune and JSR. This was not an easy task due to the stereotype and misconception about
heavy lifting required for these jobs. TATA motors had difficulty finding female workers from ITI
institutes and so they hired 10th and 12th pass students and trained them for the job.

TATA has shown that there are equal opportunities for women even at shop floor which is
dominated by the perception that it’s not a place for women to work at.

Outcome

It is too early to look for any outcomes of this diversity drive at TATA motors but what TATA motors
has done is that they have set an example to shed the stereotypes against women. With assembly
lines and shop floors becoming more and more automated TATA has carved out an opportunity for
women employment.