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Mitigating layoff risks and optimizing workforce

BIG INTERVIEWHeather Wang, GE

SPECIAL STORYCo-creating Success

NEWS FEATuRELinkedIn + Microsoft: What it means to HR!

tailoring the right

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the value of partnershIps

Co-CreatIng suCCess

The first of a two-part series, this special will present case studies that outline critical enablers and inhibitors to a

successful partnership I By J Jerry Moses

Synergy is collaborated effort for a common motive. When businesses collaborate to address a challenge, it is this synergy that fosters solutions. However, not all part-

nerships manage to do that. It needs more than just participation to form successful partnerships and drive business results – synergy is required at all levels - macro and micro.

In this special we look at the HR trans-formation agenda at the Piramal Group. This in-depth case study outlines chal-lenges and opportunities that shaped the company’s partnership with Willis Towers Watson in building the roadmap for its HR strategy & transformation. It details the key work streams and interventions that the company took on to build a one-Pira-mal culture; to hire and retain high caliber talent and create a strong leadership pipe-line. The HR transformation agenda in the company was also the foundation upon

which the company’s aggressive business goals were built.

The success factors that were identified in the partnership were open communica-tion and trust. As with any relationship, driving business results requires partners to be honest and reliable. Another key point that was put forth was the need for ‘co-creating’ to solve business problems – while the service provider brings in the required subject matter expertise, it is the client that shapes the intervention accor-ding to the cultural context within their own organization. The case study also projects the imperative of the buy-in and active participation of the senior leaders-hip and management, which is crucial to ensuring that interventions are not perce-ived as just another ‘HR’ initiative but one that drives the necessary business results. In the second part of this series, we will look at how HSBC and YSC came together to build their women leadership bench.

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BuIldIng a people-CentrIC organIzatIonThe case study reflects Piramal group’s journey of transforming the HR function and formulating a HR roadmap in partnership with Willis Towers Watson

For Piramal, it has been a journey from a manufacturing focused business to a very knowledge intensive set of businesses. In 2010, Piramal Healthcare Ltd.’s

domestic formulation business, generic-medicine unit in India was sold to Abbott Laboratories for Rs. 20,000 crores, making it one of the biggest deals in the Indian pharmaceutical industry and one of the biggest cash outs in India’s corporate history.

While continuing to stay in the healt-hcare business, the decision to invest in two new businesses was made to bring in growth for the future along with other businesses under its fold – from critical care, glass manufacturing, consumer products (like Lacto Calamine, Jungle Magic, and iPill) to consulting and analy-

tics services for pharmaceutical compa-nies. Piramal’s two new ventures were Piramal Fund Management business – an integrated debt and equity platform for real estate and infrastructure projects; and Piramal Realty, a real estate development company, that currently holds 8 projects under development in the Mumbai metro-politan area.

For Piramal, a conglomerate of busi-nesses, the challenges were associated with the lack of consistency in terms of people practices and systems, and for building a cohesive culture & mindset, unique Piramal culture and a talent pipeline. The group’s ‘Vision 2020’ articulated the goal for the company – to become 5 times bigger. It meant moving from a market capitali-zation of $4.5 billion to $20 billion, which demanded streamlining of people practices

and systems across the group’s varied busi-ness lines. “There were many things that we wanted to do,” said Nandini Piramal, Executive Member on the board of the Piramal Group, “and it included creating better people systems, infusing a ‘one-Piramal’ mindset, and attract and retain high-quality talent” she added. While the driving vision and a change in the business mix pushed the need for a cohesive HR strategy, the company’s wake-up call came when an assessment of its high potential talent pipeline revealed that they were not at the level required by the business. This spurred a strong business case and created the buy-in required from business for the HR transformation journey – transforming HR structure and efficiency.

Getting the basics rightIn the first phase, the HR imperative was to create credible systems and processes within the function. Based on employee feedback, there were two focus areas which were identified: performance management and L&D. According to a survey, employees felt that there was a need for greater clarity when it came to performance management. And so the company began sharing infor-mation about the compensation structure and variable pay with its employees – including details about performance levels, bonus payout and the clauses involved in it. This step not only enabled awareness, it created transparency.

Performance management systems were also enhanced to drive business results which in turn necessitated the active participation of the group’s busi-ness leaders. “Different businesses have different metrics that are important, for example, in a pharmaceutical business, the economic value added (EVA) and returns on capital (ROC) are important. For a consumer products business, EVA is important and for financial services, other than ROC, the quality of the asset is impor-tant” stated Srinivas Chunduru, Chief Human Resource Officer, Piramal Group. “We got together with business leaders

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JUst haviNg a ProCess is Not eNoUgh, YoU have to make sUre that there is a robUst framework to make the ProCess work weLL

JUly 2016 | 75

and ensured that each of the performance management systems actually drove the necessary behavior to drive these results” he said. So it was not just about creating transparency, it was also about creating shareholder value.

For enhancing learning and develop-ment, the company instituted a university program, which was the equivalent of a learning calendar in other organizations. “We started with six programs and 900 odd people, and now we would have 45+ programs which are unique to businesses and we will touch at least 10,000 individu-als,” Srinivas said. Since the group had varied business lines, the emphasis was on customization. For example, a manufa-cturing unit would focus on productivity with six sigma standards and for the financial services, it would be customer centricity. The HR department also took on the challenge of planning their people management programs a year in advance. And when the deadlines were adhered to, it led to increased credibility of the function in the system. “By then, we had been in the transformation journey for about two and a half years. Since the basics were in place, we felt a need to align our HR strategy” Srinivas said.

Transformation agendaPiramal group’s partnership with Willis Towers Watson (WTW) began in 2013 with an employee engagement survey that

covered 6,000 employees. This periodic listening exercise surveyed the different HR programs and assessed how satisfied employees are across employee type, job level, location etc.,

“What we heard from employees is that they wanted to know how HR can partner with them,” Srinivas said. Another key finding was to do with consistency. Since the company had a presence in multiple geographies, the processes and employee experience needed to be made consistent. The company also examined key data points from their previous employee engagement surveys and collected, for over two years, information about employee interests and the direction of individual businesses.

The primary data and secondary data bolstered the agenda to create a strong HR process across the business. And in the face of a dynamic marketplace and on-going business model change, there was a need to re-look at the infrastructure around which HR operated and the basic building blocks upon which HR processes were built. The company reached out to WTW to help them do this. In December 2014, the company in partnership with WTW began engaging with various stake-holders. They conducted detailed intervi-ews with top management and set up focus group discussions with employees. The emphasis in these conversations was to cull out what the business required from

HR, in order for it to become a true busi-ness partner. This exercise was followed by workshops which included both, HR and business leaders. These workshops were used as a sounding board to say ‘what is important and what can be achieved in the next two years’.

At the end of the 3 to 4-month long process, four strategic work streams were identified that formed the HR roadmap. The work streams were: HR Structure and Governance, Efficient HR, Employer of Choice and Talent Development. The work

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What was strongly displayed in the project was that there was co-creation almost on a day-to-day basis

SHATRuNJAY KRISHNADirector, Willis Towers Watson

HR IMPERATIVESBUSINESS IMPERATIVES

MAPPInG BUSInESS GOALS TO HR IMPERATIVESHere’s a snapshot of some of the key imperatives that formed the HR roadmap

Strategic partner

HR to be Piramal’s brand

ambassador

Competitive HR practices

Values cascade

Change agent

Responsive and

trustworthy

Process driven

Retention of key talent

Enhance Piramal EVP

Technology driven

Informed decision making

Build future ready talent

Make Piramal ‘Employer of Choice’

Fair and consistent

Integrate organization

culture

Strengthenorganization leadership

sustained growth

higher Customer orientation

New businesses/ New Products

Upgradation of technology and efficiency

growth through acquisition

geographic expansions

global business orientation

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streams served as a framework to the many interventions that were to be undertaken. Describing the need for a framework, Shatrunjay Krishna, Director at Willis Towers Watson said “you don’t just have a process; you make sure the process works well because you have the right framework. And so within each work stream, there is a lot going on."

1) HR Structure and Governance: At the structure level, the group was a matrix organization with operations across geog-raphies and centers of excellence, it was important that the business interacted in a regular and dynamic manner. The focus on streamlining routine work led to moving a few routine processes out of the HR func-tion, with a dedicated team within shared services. A total of 14 HR processes were moved to the global shared services team.

The company also created a central sourcing team. While previously, recru-itment happened at multiple levels, it was not the best in terms of the process. Members of this team had previously worked with executive search firms and specialized in sourcing.

Another aspect within this work stream was to do with ‘HR for HR’, in other words, the development of HR. To reflect on the opportunities, an HR meet called ‘Neeve’ was organized. So far, there have been five meets in four years, wherein a specific theme was identified and a workgroup was formed. One of the things that the organi-zation focused on was ‘how to have conver-sations with the business in a language that is understood by them?’ As part of the development exercise, an external partner was then identified to deliver training. And

the trained participants were attached to projects that further distilled functional and behavioral competencies.

The governance piece had to be placed for streamlining HR processes. As the company was getting ‘bigger, better and stronger’, it was important to bring about the right standards around governance frameworks so that the service experience was consistent, whether an employee was in India, US or the UK. “It was also impor-tant to find the balance so that HR was not overly interfering,” Vivek Nath, Managing Director, Willis Towers Watson said.

The focus for the inter-ventions in this work stream centered on service delivery – which involved asking questions such as ‘how many people does an HR person serve? What is the turna-round time? What is the quality of hire? And what is the performance rating of people hired last year?’ While these are some of the parameters, the company is yet to institutionalize an automatic trac-king process.

The organization also instituted a ‘Service Efficiency Team (SET)’, which is the equivalent of six sigma standards that are used at a manufacturing plant. The objective of the SET was to take a problem, create sub-processes and create a tracking mechanism. The group has 13 SET teams in HR, out of which six of them have reac-hed level one, out of a possible four levels.

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“It could take about four to five years to reach the top most level” Srinivas said.

The organization has so far identified a partner for its HRMS implementation in a six-month long process that included a detailed review of a number of systems that also involved business leaders.

The goal of this work stream was to attract and retain high-quality talent. “While we had employees who were old-timers, we also needed more young and energetic people,” Nandini said.

In partnership with WTW, a competitive talent and rewards strategy was formu-lated. The first step towards accomplis-hing this was by creating a job-leveling framework which involved identifying unique roles, identifying the business unit size, complexity, and geographical breath; grading senior and middle management roles and mapping roles to existing band structure. The exercise helped bring:

1) Internal equity – across levels/grades throughout the businesses.

2) External equity – facilitating links to external market surveys

3) Enabling career movement across the business units and

4) Enable easier integration and appropri-ation of roles during M&As

There was a need to understand the perception of the company in the marketp-

It was not difficult to do the design, as with any transfor-mation journey, the change management implementation was the most important part

VIVEK NATHManaging Director, Willis Towers Watson

it is imPortaNt to briNg aboUt the right staNdards aroUNd goverNaNCe frameworks so that the serviCe exPerieNCe is CoNsisteNt

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lace. And so the company needed to stan-dardize its marketing and communication and work on culture sensitization so that candidates had a consistent experience of the company.

The vision was to create a strong talent manage-ment program which would encompass a competency framework, standardized and scalable job family architecture and career architecture, so employees can progress across levels and businesses. WTW partne-red with Piramal group to code success-ful patterns of behaviors by creating and rolling out a group wide behavioral competency framework. WTW is currently working with the group to deploy their scientific job leveling methodology (Global Grading System – GGS) across business units. Work is also underway towards defining a group wide career management strategy supported by tools and resour-ces that include career paths, movement criteria, accelerators, success stories and employee guidebooks.

A graduation-like HiPo program for senior and middle management was created about a year ago called the “Ascendance” program. It included 15 percent of the high performers, who were shortlisted at the middle management level. After reviewing their performance and taking into account the preferences, whether it is general management or specialization, they go through a year long program, sponsored by senior

management. It includes a six-day program with Harvard Management Mentor, an individual development plan and a cross business project that is closely reviewed by senior leaders.

Another similar program called “Summit” is focused on the leadership team (vice presidents and above). It includes a six-day classroom learning session, one business impact project and access to a development council that includes four business CEOs, who review the progress of the participants.

Managing the transformationThe implementation of an HR transformation at this scale needed detailed review and follow-up. “For a firm like ours (WTW), it was not difficult to do the design, because we embark on journeys like this a lot. Like with any transformation journey, the change management implementation was the most important part,” said Vivek, “I think other companies spend a lot of time on the design, but Piramal Group was very aware of the need to focus on implementation and worked closely with us” he added. Management and review of the transformation exercise were done on multiple levels:

A PMO was constituted which was led by a WTW consultant for the first six months, it was then transitioned to the Piramal team. The PMO consisted of one consultant from

different businesses have different metrics that are important… we ensured that each of performance mana-gement systems drove the necessary behavior to drive these results

SRINIVAS CHuNDuRuChro, Piramal group

Project Leadership/

SteeringCommittee

Business and HR leadershipWillis Towers Watson MD

Senior stakeholders toreview project outcomes

WTW Consultant as PMO Lead 1(for six months)1 HR professional (transitioned to PMO lead in six months)Operational excellence member 11 Senior line manager

Project Management Office

Project Management(Office (PMO

Project Management(Office (PMOHR HeadSenior Leadership

Working Committee(First-level Project deliverable

review)

PMO and Work-streamInteractions

Overall Project

Management

Subject Matter

Expertise

Issue Resolution

Sounding Board

Provide Business Priorities

Vendor Selection

Implementation Support

Success Measurement

Stakeholder Management

Contingency Planning

Change Management

Quality Assurance

HR Structure & Governance

Employer of Choice

2 to 3 HR representatives2 to 3 business representatives Efficient HR

Talent DevelopmentProject Work-streams

List of key stakeholders overseeing the transformation exercise

HR TRANSfOR-MATION MANAGEMENT AND ExECuTION

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WTW (for six months), one dedicated HR professional (who transitioned to PMO lead after six months), one operational excellence member and one senior line manager. The team was responsible for working with project representatives of the different work streams to 1) Finalize project plan and project charter 2) Provide project review and update guidelines (including creating templates, conducting reviews, presenting updates) 3) Review solution design and quality and 4) Review service providers selection and evaluations.

2) Project work-streams: Each of the project work streams were made up of 50 percent HR (2-3 representatives) and 50 percent business representatives. And their interactions with the PMO spanned a number of issues: overall management, subject matter expertise, stakeholder management, contingency planning, change management, quality assurance and so on.

3) Working Committee: A working committee was formed to review the first-level of project deliverables. This committee constituted of the PMO, the head of HR and senior leaders from the business.

4) Project Steering Committee: Every quarter, there was a review of the project outcomes by the senior leadership team. This team consisted of the Managing Dire-ctor of WTW, Chairman of the Piramal Group, and CEOs from the business and the HR leadership.

While HR transformation agenda is still ongoing, from a project perspective, it is expected to take two-three years to be completed. But parts of the program will continue to go on for the next five to six years, and a few processes would be imple-mented every year, and there will be a need to continually make adjustments. There-fore, consistently tracking the project is critical to the success of the project.

Challenges and success factorsFor a transformation of this scale, the key challenges were centered on communi-cation and getting relevant stakeholders on board. Both WTW and Piramal group worked towards mapping stakeholders involved and understood the concerns of the stakeholders. Some key questions that they asked were ‘how will the stakeholder look at this project? What is the benefit that they are likely to have? What are some concerns that they will raise?’ This exercise enabled them to take a pro-active approach to driving change. “What was strongly displayed in the project was that there was co-creation almost on a day-to-day basis. In fact, the HR blueprint came about not only because of working together with HR on a day-to-day basis but also working with the business on a day-

a ‘Job arChiteCtUre’ framework shoULd heLP UNderstaNd how Jobs are orgaNiZed aCross skiLLs aNd kNowLedge, so that emPLoYees CaN Progress aCross LeveLs aNd bUsiNesses

Values are deeply personal. We take decisions based on our values. Since we have different kinds of businesses at different levels of matu-rity, values are what bind us together

NANDINI PIRAMALExecutive Director, Piramal Group

to-day basis” Shatrunjay said. In every discussion, inputs from the business leaders were taken. It was ensured that every work stream was owned equally by business and HR. The active involvement of the company’s senior management team including the Chairman and CEOs of the diverse business lines immensely contributed to the smooth execution.

The company’s long-standing emphasis on values – knowledge, action, and care was also instrumental in driving the change agenda. “Values are deeply personal and so we talk about values and live them. We take decisions based on our values,” Nandini said “Since we have different kinds of businesses at different levels of maturity, values are what bind us together” she adds. In the course of the transformation, the company embarked on a journey of re-articulating the values of the company through workshops and storytelling campaigns. This created the excitement within the company and ensured a two-way engagement. As the results of the HR transformation exercise are already beginning to be felt, it is being aligned to the company’s aggressive goals, and the group has set itself in a strong place to weather any possible storm.

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