DR. REDDY’S LABORATORIES LTD
Company Overview
Established in 1984, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories (NYSE: RDY) is an emerging global pharmaceutical company. Dr. Reddy’s is headquartered in Hyderabad, India and is India’s second-largest pharmaceutical company. It produces and sells Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API), Finished Dosages and Biologics. It manufactures ulcer medicines, antibiotics, pain relievers, antidepressants and cardiovascular drugs. The company carries out research and development (R&D) in diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and inflammation and bacterial infections.
HR Overview
The HR strategy of Dr Reddy’s is well structured. The HR wants to act as a business partner. It has interventions designed around various HR processes. However, the organization wants to increase the level of awareness, involvement and motivation levels of the employees in order to increase their level of commitment and ownership thereby building a superior workforce. The company has interventions in the area of Staffing, Compensation, Competency Analysis, Workforce Planning, and Work Environment. However, following as emerged as the problems:
- Training and Development
- Performance Management (Non Transparent Feedback System)
- Employees feel there is lack of recognition
Concerns about Performance Management (Feedback not satisfactory)
- Promotion policies should be made clear, transparent and fair. There are teams where all members work equally hard but since only limited can be get EC grade (the highest grade), some deserving employees do not get them. However, in a team if all are not hard working, someone will be given EC and SC (second best grade). This de-motivates the hard working employees of other teams.
- Only after the HR floats a mail announcing the onsetof the process, many laid back employees start working. They do so that they do not land up getting a C grade. The grading scale is no longer treated as 5 point scale but more of a 3 point scale
- The PERFECT form (form used for self appraisal) is not read. Therefore, people fill it without interest to get over with it. Nothing constructive (developmental) comes out of it. Even if they express their concerns in the form, no one addresses them. This was expressed by.
- At times employees are shifted three months before they are graded. The supervisors assessing them for only three months do not realise their potential. Whenever employees are graded, feedback about their performance should come from all the supervisors they have worked with during the entire year.
- The criteria of what should a person do to bag an EC, SC, C, LC or PC grade should be made very clear. The grades largely effect employees and their next years performance and therefore should not be treated as a random exercise by the supervisors and the organisation.
- Career path (graph) for an employee is not laid down. If such a thing exists no one will compare or compete with the others but with compete with oneself to become better.
- On the day of grading, the employees at both FTO and IPDO are informed about their drawbacks and given a low grade. This information should be made available to the employee long before the process of grading takes place so that they can work towards overcoming their negatives. After slogging for the entire year, they are met with criticism on the last day which isnt fair.
Concerns in the area of Lack of Motivation (Rewards and Recognition)
- Employees feel there is lack of Recognition. They are not adequately rewarded for their hard work. The only way the organization recognizes them is by means of increments and promotions.
- Employers do not understand that intrinsic means of recognition is many times more powerful than extrinsic means of recognition. Many supervisors think that low compensation packages are responsible for attrition. They do not understand the power of intrinsic motivation and therefore don’t practice it.
Concerns in the area of Training
- Lot of expensive machines have been installed since 6-8 months. No training for those instruments has been given. There is need for training the employees to handle them so that they are not dependent on others. New joiners will also be benefitted.
- At present employees are not aware of the different business units of Dr Reddy’s
- Old and new employees find that external trainings are next to nil. They feel people should attend international symposiums and use the knowledge in labs.
- Many assignments related to software’s are outsourced. This can be reduced if there are trainings related to software. The organisation can collaborate with Government organisations such as IISC, Bangalore or IICT, Hyderabad or Jadavpur University, Kolkata, etc for training its employees.
- International training programs for higher level employees/ outbound learning should be organised.
- Some of the fresher’s make a lot of mistakes both. However, Correcting these mistakes take a longer time. If such manipulations go undetected, there will be major problem during audit. The reason behind such callousness could is because employees are paid less as per supervisors. Therefore, the sense of commitment towards the organisation does not exist. The careless behaviour exhibited can also be attributed to short and random training that are given before putting a person on the job.
- Some employees feel that there is more emphasis on soft skill training and viable vision training rather than technical training which will come in handy for people while at work.
- Reinventing the wheel (unnecessary duplication of work) happens a lot. Earlier training forums were conducted for technical problem solving. For example, for R&D, leaders used to head these forums and provide instant solutions or suggestions. Questions related to technical problems could be asked. Such forums should be reinitiated to minimise repetitious problem solving.
- AR&D department has Fraternity meets every alternate Thursday which is not well communicated to all. Many employees are without Lotus Notes. They are dependent on the GLs or others for information. The following should be made available to everyone.
- Topics of discussion
- Date and Time
- HODs should circulate information regarding training sessions to all and not just the team leads. At present the information regarding training sessions is only passed on to HODs and team leads. Anyone who wants to attend the training session should be allowed to express their interest.
- Employees should have the opportunity to nominate themselves for important training sessions. Many do not even know that they can nominate themselves by using the portal.
- At present, the L+1 decide and send the employees for training. People think that there is a lot of bias involved. The HR should intervene.
- People unanimously voiced that they cannot attend training programmes due to time crunch. The training programs should be made mandatory so that the supervisors release subordinates on time.
- Employees want of improve their communication skills. This was expressed by supervisors as well as subordinates.
- At present fresher’s/ new joiners are asked to read several (100) SOPs within 20 days or at times 5 days. Then they have to learn by way of observation on the job. The process of training should be made systematic and rigorous.
- Personalized form of recognition, wherein the recipient can take the card home and show his family members the card or keep it in front of him in the office and derive motivation to work hard.
- Publicly praise the recipient by putting up a copy of the spot light card on the notice board.
- Rate of increase in involvement level
- Number of volunteers for work processes
- Increase in effective work hours
- Have a career path dialogue with the employees while conducting the performance appraisal dialogue. People like to know that they have room for career movement.
- Provide the opportunity for career and personal growth through training and education, challenging assignments and more.
- Encourage role reversal: have employees temporarily work in different positions in order to develop a better appreciation of their occupational strengths and weakness. Further, cross functional training should be encouraged so that the employee is exposed to various facets of the company.
- Help organize a career success team�: These are small groups of employees from the same or different departments who meet periodically to network and support one another in achieving their goals.
- Team members can be selected as Subject Matter Experts (SME). This will be a matter of privilege as well as allow the employee to hone his skills.
- Timeliness of career discussions,
- Amount of training identified in development plans,
- Number of career development plans documented,
- Number of career planning sessions conducted, and
- Rate of providing career development training.
- Thinks outside existing boundaries and identifies new ways of working
- Conceives, plans and introduces new initiatives and process improvements
- Demonstrates urgency of action in uncertain and ambiguous situations
- Effectively articulates & influences stakeholders towards change
- Takes initiatives to augment self skills by keeping abreast with emerging trends and best practices
- Actively seeks feedback and promotes a culture of giving and receiving feedback
- Understands one’s development needs and develops a culture of learning across the organization
- Constantly seizes opportunities to improve self and team productivity
- Effectively identifies sources of influence in order to minimize obstacles and accomplish business objectives
- Inspires, collaborates and builds consensus to improve effectiveness in a matrix environment
- Establishes, maintains and leverages a broad network of contacts and relationships to create future opportunities
- Actively seeks information of strategic importance to gain competitive advantage
- Questions existing paradigms
- Promotes out-of-the-box thinking and fosters a climate where new ideas are valued
- Thinks creatively and leverages shared resources to create business impact
- Recognizes opportunities and takes intelligent risks
- Number of core competencies identified
- Extent that core competencies are used in workforce activities
- Amount of time spent in tailoring workforce activities to the organization’s core competencies,
- Number of people involved in tailoring workforce activities to the organization’s core competencies
- Staff ratings of the effectiveness of competency-based workforce practices;
- Increased level of knowledge and skills resulting from competency based recruiting, selection, and performance management practices;
- increased level of motivation and retention resulting from competency-based career planning, compensation, and reward practices
- The office notice board, regular emails, a dedicated portal can be used to spread information about training programs to be imparted to the employees.
- A register must be placed in every lab or work area so that employees can write down what training they require. This register should be checked once in two weeks by the Leadership Academy and internal and external training programs can be scheduled according the needs of the employees. If there are training programs that the employees require, a mail to them and their L+1 should be sent so that right training can be given to the right people. This will also ensure that bias in sending subordinates by the supervisors no longer exists.
- Percentage of training provided in relation to working hours
- Rate of training against stated training needs
- Timeliness of training
- Cost of training in relation to total HR cost
- Retention of trained skills
- Application of learned skills or behaviors in job performance
- Frequency of development discussions
- Number and type of development opportunities arranged
- Organization Profile, Available from: http://www.drreddys.com/sustainability/organization_profile.html
- Code of Business Conduct and Ethics Ombudsman Procedure, Available from: http://www.ifc.org/ifcext/corporategovernance.nsf/AttachmentsByTitle/Dr_Reddy_Code_Business_Conduct_Principals/$FILE/Dr.+Reddy’s+Code+of+Business+Conduct+and+Ethics.pdf
- DNA of Sustainability, Available from: http://www.drreddys.com/sustainability/DNA_sustainability.html
- Employee Recognition, Available from: http://www.drreddys.com/careers/working_recognition.html
Increase in Intra-Team and Inter-team interactions will reduce reinventing the wheel as was expressed in different department.
Recommendations
Rewards and Recognition
The different ways of motivating employees are given below.
A. Thank You Smiley’s
There is something special about getting a thank you card. When you put your picture in a card with a heartfelt message of appreciation, you can feel sure that your message is going to have more durability than when you just express your feelings through speech alone. Every time one sends a thank you card, the recipient calls up in turn to say thank you. This opens up another opportunity to express feelings. The thank you smiley’s exercise is all about “spreading an attitude of gratitude” by exchanging a few simple kind words that can have a great impact on someone’s life.
The thank you smiley’s exercise is also to ensure that people express thanks across work levels thereby dissolving hierarchies.
B. Spot light cards
These cards are meant for spot recognition of a performer. An individual, for example if a group leader finds a team member demonstrating a trait worthy of praise, such as going out of his own way to accomplish a task or volunteering help to others, the group leader writes down in the spot light card his “observation” and the reason of issuing the card. The group leader then signs the card by two other leaders, example 2 group leaders (GL) or 1 group leader and 1 Project Manager (PM) or 2 PMs and hands the card to the team member. The person issuing such a card also posts a copy of the card with the appreciation on the notice board for everyone to have a look at it.
This kind of a spot recognition serves 2 purposes which are:
Measures
Performance Appraisal
A. Career development paths
As seen through the HR assessment, employees would like their career paths charted out. Accordingly the steps that can be taken to enable this are as follows:
Measures
C. Competency based profiles
Profiles need to be competency based. Further, along with technical KRA’s, a list of competencies need to be identified at each level. Employees will be assessed on both the technical skills as well as competencies. This will lead to a fairer appraisal as well as will aid in recruitment for new positions, succession planning etc. An example of the competencies that can be assessed is as follows:
Change Management – Continuous change and adaptability are critical in the current context and in achieving our vision
Energizes and adapts oneself and others towards, better ways of operating and generating growth by using multiple approaches to leading change.
Learning Orientation – A core element of our values; it goes hand in hand with change management;
Willingly & actively participates in one’s own life-long development by exhibiting continuous passion to learn, unlearn and re-learn
Networking and Influencing – Building relationships and creating networks internal & external; customer focus; helping the organization becomes ` a preferred partner’
Establishes rapport, develops and nurtures relationships and delights stakeholders internally and externally to achieve business goals
Innovative Thinking – Introduce creative ideas, identifies breakthrough concepts and successfully implements the same.
Measures
Training & Development
Make resources to support training and development activities available
Assignments for all
The supervisors should make it a point to send employees to special seminars, workshops or meetings that cover topics that they are interested in. However, apart from all this there will be cross functional assignments and different assignments even in the same department made available to the employees. Whenever an employee finds time, they will contact the concerned person and get assignment for the area they are interested to learn. After working on them, they may discuss with the others in that area and validate their learning. This way the need of those who have the urge of learning can be satisfied. This is a self directed process wherein only those interested to learn take the assignments from the respective departments themselves. This way of facilitating learning will not be made mandatory by the organization.
Measures
Reference Page
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