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It is crucial to provide employees with sufficient opportunities for development and create an overall culture of growth within the company, shares Farzana Hairudin, APAC Talent Acquisition & Talent Development Director, Procter & Gamble.
People-centricity is the bedrock of business success. Some of the oldest organisations in the world have thrived even in evolving business landscapes and industry transformations by prioritising their most valuable asset: their people.
The way to create a superior workforce is by cultivating an environment that is focused on holistically attracting, developing, and retaining talent – a superior experience for employees translates to superior value for the company. At P&G, our ‘Build from within’ philosophy guides us to nurture our people and create a legacy of lifelong employees who grow in their career journeys with us for decades.
Organisations must dedicate time, effort, and resources to cater to individual career development, helping employees plan highly personalised career paths. It is crucial to provide employees with sufficient opportunities for development and internal mobility and create an overall culture of growth within their companies.
Empowering talent from day one
Empowering your people from the very first day can significantly impact their individual careers. Within my first year at P&G, I was given the opportunity to lead the end-to-end creation and implementation of an important regional project. When new hires are entrusted with impactful and enriching work assignments, they gain hands-on experience that accelerates their professional growth.
We believe that our people must be empowered to dive head-first into challenges and opportunities alike. We’ve seen that such exposure early on allows them to be strong leaders in the future, and we believe in developing C-suite potential from the start. Around the world, our new hires are set on a path for exceptional success right from the beginning.
We empower our talent with a strong career network and support system from day one. Manager-led mentoring sessions are mandatory, apart from a host of other amazing learning & development programmes. We also make deliberate efforts to band employees from different business units or departments to work together on projects, participate in events and celebrations, thus enhancing learning and camaraderie alike.
Diverse & global exposure
Providing employees with opportunities for cross-team and overseas mobility, and exposure to global and multi-cultural environments, helps shape them into well-rounded professionals as they gain diverse international experience.
Such opportunities for global exposure are also fundamental in equipping employees with global perspectives, cross-cultural immersion, and insights on overseas consumer markets, overall enhancing their professional growth. This is especially essential for employees who work in multinational corporations. At P&G, our people are offered internal rotation and overseas assignments – even when they are in junior managerial roles. Since joining P&G eight years ago, I have had the opportunity to take on stints in markets like Europe and Japan. Each overseas assignment has provided me with a unique business context, allowing me to hone different skills and contribute to diverse work environments.
Holistic and specialised development programmes
A great way for organisations to upskill their existing employees is by offering them holistic development programmes and tools to catered to the diverse learning needs at different career stages. These can be in the form of one-on-one mentoring sessions, networking programmes, skills-based trainings, and self-learning modules.
Organisations can invest in expert- or instructor-led development programs for new hires, newly promoted managers, even the senior leadership – one such example at P&G is the Leadership Academy (PGLA) which offers a suite of best-in-class learning opportunities designed to build skills and enhance leadership capabilities. When I first took on people manager responsibilities, PGLA trainings for new managers helped me immensely with understanding my day-to-day responsibilities. These sessions also continue to evolve in their curriculum to keep up with the times – in fact, I just signed up for a course on AI!
Furthermore, for well-rounded people development, masterclasses or programmes focused on mental wellness, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence are integral.
Creating a culture of continuous learning fosters innovation. Employees who are encouraged to expand their horizons are more likely to develop new ideas and solutions that drive the company forward. By investing in training programmes and providing diverse experiences, organisations can equip their workforce with the tools they need to think outside the box and lead industry advancements, thus remaining relevant and competitive to deliver superior offerings to their consumers.
As the great Richard Deupree (President, P&G, 1930-1947) once said, "If you leave us our money, our buildings, and our brands, but take away our people, the company will fail. But if you take away our money, our buildings, and our brands, but leave us all our people, we can rebuild the whole thing in a decade."
Lead image / Provided
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