Employee engagement may be simply understood as an employee’s emotional attachment to their job and organization. This can reflect on an employee’s involvement with, commitment to and satisfaction with work & work environment. Employee engagement thereby emerges as a key factor that can impact workplace productivity as well as employee retention.
At Dow India, we believe that an engaged workforce leads to higher productivity and higher discretionary efforts by employees. Our ever increasing focus on enabling higher levels of employee engagement is essential to our overall employee value proposition. Considering our focus on measurable(s) to track the impact of our practices and efforts – at Dow India we strive for top quartile engagement by driving stronger accountability for employee engagement at our leadership level.
Employee Development Program (EDP)
The Dow India (Employee Development Program) EDP is about Engage, Elucidate, Educate and Empower.
The EDP was conceptualized as an impactful intervention, to support our employee engagement, organizational alignment and culture building agenda. The intervention was designed with the following core objectives:
- Breaking of Silos
- Enable the teams live the One Dow Culture.
- Aligning the team towards – Delivery of Business Results.
The above objectives were also the key impact areas for the program considering the spread and diversity of the business operations of Dow India.
Program Design
The program comprised a well-integrated intervention consisting of a multitude of activities spread across three days. The implementation was championed by the respective corporate & the business unit teams for respective sites (locations/business units). These activities were spread through the program duration and ensured the participation of all business & functional teams, and an audience of all employees spread across the various sites.
The EDP comprised some of the following:
- Set up of Kiosks – representing each business & function.
- Hand Printing on Canvas
- Chat Shows, Talks & Panel Discussion
- Talent Show, Fun Activities
The program was launched with a strong buy-in and support from Dow India leadership team. In fact the chat shows, talks and panel discussions saw the members of the leadership team share their thoughts on career development, mentoring, self-development etc.
Getting the message across
The program was implemented in a phased manner across all the business locations – including the manufacturing units, the centers of excellence, the corporate office and the commercial offices.
Given the diverse nature of the businesses the program design provided for adequate scope for customization based on the site and employee needs. Depending on the prevalent culture and audience type at various sites – the program was tweaked to ensure better participation and reach. For example – A key theme that became a highlight at the manufacturing units was – corporate office culture versus plant culture.
At the end of the show – the implementation ensured that the One Dow Culture message was conveyed across locations and across employee groups.
The program design ensured that the activities were aligned to Dow Core Competencies. During the program the key competencies were depicted with activities like hand printing on canvas, where different colors were used to represent attributes - such as blue for courage, green for collaboration, innovation by red and generating value to our customers in orange. Chat shows, discussions by the leadership team conveyed the leadership’s teams perspectives on career development (For example: career growth trajectory – ladder vs lattice), importance of mentoring as we value personal mastery and providing a trusted counsel. Kiosks representing each business and function, desk activities revolving around our strategy and competency ensured that the teams were able to build a better understanding of their own functions, other functions as well as the business strategy, thus enabling higher level of alignment with the business.
The talent show and fun activities, at the culmination of the program allowed an opportunity for employees to interact, enjoy and appreciate their colleagues.
The Impact
The EDP seems to have touched the right chord with the employees, and was able to communicate the intended message – the One Dow Culture. The program allowed employees and teams to share their ideas, understand leadership’s perspective, better their understanding about the business and other teams, workgroups.
As an immediate impact we could see a positive change in employee’s perception about the organization. This change also translated into a noticeable upward swing in two key metrics, which re-enforced the positive impact from the intervention.
- Employees had started taking more interest in internal job opportunities. About 23 % of open jobs on internal job portal were getting closed by the movement of internal resources.
- Employees have increasingly been showing a higher inclination to refer their friends and network for internal jobs at Dow India. This reflected in the fact that 51 % of the open jobs were closed by employee referrals.
The ante on engagement and vibrancy in the office has upped considerably and employees do share the bonding that is on-going. They now feel a greater sense of belongingness and commitment to the organization.
This post is based on the insights shared by Kavery Thammappa, Sr. Manager, HR, Dow Chemical International Private Limited. Kavery, in her present role leads the India arm of Human Capital Management – TM at Dow India. She has been a part of the team responsible for conceptualizing and implementing the EDP initiative at Dow India.
Dow India is a part of The Dow Chemical Company, a global pioneer in the creation and development of innovative technologies and solutions for the chemical and specialty materials industry. With almost 1000 employees in locations spread across the country, Dow India has three established Centers of Excellence in the areas of Engineering (Chennai), Research & Development (Pune) and Transactional Services and Expertise (Mumbai), four manufacturing sites, customer application centers and a variety of commercial offices.
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