Why Learning and Development Practices are so important in Multinational FMCG Originations in Sri Lanka?

Learning and Development (L&D) practices are clearly visible across the organization. And almost all of them are having separate division or sub unit with L&D experts. However, L&D is cross-functional process. Here it is discussed about importance of having proper L&D processes in organization.

1. Huge demand from employee end..

Now a days, from employees end there is huge vacuum for learning opportunities, especially young employees (millennials) believe that “Learning and Development” is so important for them. (gallup.com 2016) and from the organization perspective, we know hiring Is more expensive than employee retention. Hence to attract and retain employees, and to improve employee engagement L&D is a really helpful tool.

Good to read .. (use below links)

2016 Gallup report

Talent Management and Employer Branding

2. Cost benefits …

In Sri Lanka, FMCG business is highly competitive and managing profit margins is challenging. And most of them are following one or integrated versions of manufacturing systems to improve their overall productivity. Main objective is to increase the profit margins by minimizing wastes. Lean Manufacturing, TPM (Total Productive Maintenance), Toyota Production System (TPS), Six Sigma, Integrated Work Systems and 5/6S are common ones and every system generally focusses on eliminating “skill based losses” (different types of wastes originated from skill gap/s). The solution is L&D. Then it is clear, L&D practices give cost benefits to the organization.

Figure 01: 8 wastes in Lean Manufacturing (goleansixsigma.com 2019)

3. Legal compliances…

Not only that L&D practices link with legal compliances as well. To make aware on regulation changes or new regulations and to fulfil mandatory skill & qualification levels (licences & certifications), L&D is a vital process.

4. High customer satisfaction…

Employee skill and engagement are critical requirements in product and service quality.  L&D practices are involved with skills and knowledge improvement on quality management systems. And to fulfil mandatory skill & qualification levels (requirement of quality management systems or certifications), L&D is important for any organization. And evaluating the organization L&D practices is a main item in any quality system or a certification audit. (ISO 22000, BRC and SLS)

Talent Management and Employer Branding ..

Talent Management

Talent Management is a systematic process of Attracting, deploying and developing of valued individuals to the organization to fulfill the current or future critical roles.(CIPD 2015)

Attracting Talent to the organization

Other than fulfilling current roles, due to employees resigning (and retirement), attracting new talents to organization is mandatory requirement in modern FMCG industry in Sri Lanka, Mainly To fulfill new roles created within the organization due to,

‒         Business strategy changes

‒         Organization expansion requirements

‒         New regulatory requirements

‒         Technology changes

‒         Local or Global trends (Sustainability/ Climate change/ Non-communicable diseases ...etc.)

Good to read, …. (use below links)

Need To Attract Top Talent?

Deploying & Developing talents.

Deploying and developing talents within the organization links with few other HR practices in the organization. Mainly,

‒       

‒         Carrier Progression Programme

o   Promoting  

o   Top give different function exposure

‒         IDP – individual development planning

‒         Succession planning

‒         Performance Management

‒         Critical role vacancy fulfilling (temporary or permanently)

‒         Long-term and short-team project management (project teams)

‒         Organization restructuring programme

Usually talent deployment & development process is not solely handled by HR department, other relevant organization functions are also joint with them.

Advantages of having proper talent deployment and development  process ….

Talent deployment and development process enables the movement of talent around an organization and is an effective way for an organization to provide a range of valuable developmental experiences without losing its talent. (londonleadershipacademy.nhs.uk 2020)

‒         Better Levels of Customer Service

‒         Low risk of creating sudden vacancy in critical roles

‒         High performing teams leads to Increased productivity and efficiency

‒         High motivated and engaged employees (new tasks/roles, progressions, challenging job tasks)

‒         Future readiness to face organization expansions

‒         Low business continuity risks (due to sudden employee unavailability)

‒         High talent diversity will

‒         Reduce recruitment costs

(careermetis.com 2017)

Good to read… (use below links)

Why Talent Development is Important for Employers?

Deploying Talent

Employer Branding …

Employer brand is a term (Employer + Branding) referred to describe the organization (as an employer) reputation and popularity from a potential employer's perspective and describes the values the company gives to its employees. (talentlyft.com 2020)

In other way, it is talent management tool, most of FMCG organizations use to attract from outside talent pools and to retain great own talents.

“Employer Brand Name” is an total output of …..

‒         Salary of the employee paid by the employer.

‒         Employee benefits given by employer (medical facility, transport facility, food, education assistance and …etc.)

‒         Job security.

‒         Pleasant working atmosphere (link with organization values)

‒         Work place health and safety

‒         Work-life balance.

‒         Career progression opportunities.

Sri Lankan organizations use different strategies to communicate above status to their potential employees. The strongest way is to use their loyal employees as their brand ambassadors. However social media is the strongest tool.

Other than that, …

·       Carrier day programmes

·       Carrier programmes with local universities  

·       Participate in national or international level awards

‒         Great place to work

‒         National occupational safety and health awards

‒         HRM Awards

‒         IPM Awards

·       Certification programmes (ISO, SLSI and BRC)

·       Including to advertisements for job vacancy, products and services.  

Good to read …. (use below links)

What is Employer Brand?

Employer brand

Strategic Employee Resourcing in multinational FMCG organizations in Sri Lanka ….

In this section it is discussed about the recruitment process in modern multinational FMCG organizations in Sri Lanka….

In-house or 3^rd Party…..

 Sri Lankan multinational FMCG organizations, usually use three main strategies for recruitment process…

1. Developing and maintaining an inhouse recruitment function with recruitment managers and officers
2. Use 3^rd party recruitment agents to execute the process
3. Use both inhouse teams and 3^rd party agents

No. 3 (both inhouse & 3^rd party) strategy is the most common practice among multinational FMCG organizations in Sri Lanka. However, they apply this strategy either lonely or in a combined way and it depends on layer of the organization. in most of the cases to refill the top layers of the organization they use 100% inhouse recruitment teams and for lower layers both 3^rd Party agents and inhouse teams. And final decision is made by relevant functional managers. Sometimes it can be a combined decision form both HR and the relevant function.

Social Media as a supportive arm for recruitment process

Both 3^rd party and Inhouse recruitment teams use different social media networks as a supportive arm for their recruitment process. Publishing advertisements and initial screening process using candidates’ social media profiles are generalized now. Linkedin and Facebook are playing major roles in above context. Not only that, some organizations are using internet based own systems to facilitate the vacancy advertisements, Job applications, initial skill base screenings, to make a priority list for the interviews, E- aptitude tastes, culture fit test and... etc.

Good to read .... (use below link)
6 Best Recruiting Tools Of 2019

Is Culturally fit to the organization is so critical???

Most of the organization highly concern about culturally fit to the organization, as it is very important to maintain existing systems in the organization. Such as quality, safety, organizational values and employee engagement. Consequently, they use different strategies to find culturally fit candidates. Focus on same type organization employees, online cultural fit tests, promote internal candidates and special round of interviews are common methods for that.

Good to read ...(use below link)
Want To Hire Great Employees? Fix Your Broken Recruiting Process

HRM in FMCG Organizations in Sri Lanka … When we talk about the “Evolution of Human Resource Management (HRM)” usually we start from Taylor’s scientific management in early 19th century and end up with modern “Strategic Human Recourse Management”. However, if closely observe HRM systems in modern Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry in Sri Lanka, still we can find different characteristics of different management styles which were prominent during different eras of industrial revolution.

Existing people management systems 

I have closely observed few multinational food manufacturing organizations (names withheld) in Sri Lanka, and it’s very difficult to make a clear-cut separation and say this organization purely has this type of people management system. I would suggest that, they have people management systems equipped with mixed characteristics of different management styles in different eras. Standardization concepts form Taylorism, personnel management & HRM approaches and strategic human resource management approaches are diversely visible in this organizations.

Are Taylor’s scientific management concepts still applicable??

Now a days all most all multinational and some local FMCG organizations are running towards approaches of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and processes which include cyber-physical systems (CPS), the internet of things (IoT), industrial internet of things (IIOT), cloud computing, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence. We name this set-up as fourth industrial revolution, also referred as Industry 4.0. However still “Standardization” is the most prominent and the powerful word in the manufacturing environment. All most all problem-solving methods and tools, which are emerged form Lean manufacturing, Toyota Production System (TPS) Integrated Work Systems (IWS) in modern manufacturing environment, starts the problem-solving process by questioning about standards. “Do we have a standard for this?”. If it is not firstly recommended to fix the standard, (i.e. standard cleaning process, standard operating procedure (SOP), standard work group arrangement)

Elton Mayo’s “Human Relations Approach”

Features of Elton Mayo’s “Human Relations Approach” also can be identified in different people management practices in modern FMCG environment. To make their people (workers) happy, these organization have introduced different programmes and management practices such as transport facility, medical facility, flexible working hours, staff & family get-togethers and attractive family welfare packages. And direct towards creating more healthier and safer for their people. Now a days Health and Safety Managers, Employee Relations Managers (or HR business partners) and Reward Managers are playing major roles in FMCG organization’s human resource management function.

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs Vs FMCG Organization hierarchy

To improve FMCG organization performance, they are using different strategies to uplift employee motivation, as a major contributing factor. In 1943 Abraham Maslow has introduced hierarchy of needs with 5 levels. And current Rearward and Recognition (R&R) programmes and other employee benefits and services in current FMCG Organization environment are also showcased a correlation with this hierarchy of needs. Following Figure 01. will explain the linkage between hierarchy of need and organization hierarchy.

Figure 01. The linkage between hierarchy of need and organization hierarchy.

HRM Vs Cost reduction..

Current FMCG environment is highly competitive, and price of the product is very critical. Consequently, the only way to increase the profit margins is “cost reduction”. In this environment, organizational loss (waste) elimination process play a critical role. Employee skill gaps may involve with so many losses. Such as machine performance losses, product quality losses, material wastages etc.  Main intent of the Learning and organizational development function is to eliminate skill-based loss and build future readiness for the organizational growth.