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Rina Faqih, Director of HRGA, Great Giant Foods, on how the organisation fosters a positive and high-performing environment to drive performance-oriented career progression.
Amidst an ever-changing business environment, Great Giant Foods has focused on fostering open and transparent communication with internal stakeholders when designing its HR initiatives to secure buy-in and engagement. As such, it has made significant strides in creating a culture of continuous learning to create future leaders from within, through several of its programmes.
As a whole, all of its HR initiatives in GGF are formed to create a high-performing work culture, which in turn will impact greater productivity and ultimately, business impact. This way, it accelerates the career paths of future leaders and drives a performance-based culture.
Achieving an employee engagement score of 91% and a talent retention rate of 95%, Great Giant Foods has managed to win several awards at the Human Resources Excellence Awards 2023 Indonesia:
- Gold in HR Leader of the Year
- Gold in Excellence in Learning and Development
- Silver in Excellence in Employee Engagement
Rina Faqih, Director of HRGA, Great Giant Foods, shares more on how the organisation fosters a positive and high-performing work environment to drive pure performance-oriented career progression.
Q How has your HR and people strategy contributed to your success this year?
As Group HR Director in Great Giant Foods (GGF), I believe our success this year can be largely attributed to the seamless alignment of HR strategy and initiatives with the company’s business objectives. Our HR team has played a pivotal role in ensuring that GGF people are not only skilled and engaged but also strategically equipped to drive the company’s growth. By closely collaborating with our leadership, we've been able to successfully implement HR initiatives focusing on four strategic pillars: organisation, people, culture, and system. In essence, our HR strategy has played a pivotal role in what GGF has achieved this year, serving as a powerful enabler of the company’s overall business strategy and growth.
Q Looking back at your achievements, what aspect of your HR initiatives are you most proud of and why?
When reflecting on our achievements, one aspect of GGF HR initiatives that fills us with pride is our unwavering commitment to build a sustainable talent pipeline by developing leadership & technical capabilities. We've made significant strides in creating a culture of continuous learning to create future leaders from within, through several programmes:
- Establishment of Plantation Academy. This academy represents a milestone in the field, GGF offers the most advanced and comprehensive plantation learning programme in Indonesia, particularly focused on fruit commodities. It encompasses a wide array of critical plantation activities. This holistic approach fulfils sustainability requirements, equips our workforce with essential skills, and ensures long-term operation success.
- Our commitment to strengthening leadership pipeline & bench strength involves identifying high-potential employees, providing them with opportunities for growth and development, and grooming them for key leadership positions in the future. Our new graduate development programme - LEAP (Leadership Acceleration Programme) is designed to nurture and develop future operational and strategic leaders within our organisation.
Q During your HR journey, what were some significant obstacles you faced, and how did you overcome them to achieve excellence?
Throughout my HR journey, we faced significant challenges, with the ever-changing business environment standing out as a prominent obstacle. In a rapidly changing industry, flexibility was required to ensure that our HR strategies continued to be effective and in sync with our GGF business objectives and dynamics.
To overcome this, we emphasised the importance of fostering open and transparent communication with internal stakeholders when designing our HR initiatives to secure buy-in and engagement. This ensured everyone understood the rationale behind our HR initiatives, linking them to broader business objectives, and securing commitment.
Aside from that, continuous HR capability enhancement was pivotal to the GGF HR team. This kept our team updated with industry trends and sharpened our problem-solving and decision-making abilities, enabling us to partner with business leaders in any situation.
Q How does your organisation measure the success and impact of your HR initiatives?
All of our HR initiatives in GGF are formed to create a high performing work culture, which in turn will impact greater productivity and ultimately, business impact. GGF achieved an impressive increase in Employee Engagement score of 91%, reflecting a notable increase of from the previous year. Our talent retention rate is also at a strong 98%, demonstrating GGF's ability to retain top-performing talent by fostering a positive and high-performing work environment.
We have also accelerated the career paths of future leaders and to drive a performance-based culture through meritocracy.
This resulted in pure performance-oriented career progression, where in 2023, 54% of promotions were from the younger generation while 46% were promoted from the senior generation.
Q In what direction do you see the HR/people function evolving in the future, considering the emerging trends?
I foresee a strategic evolution within GGF’s HR and people function, harmonising seamlessly with our ambitious growth targets over the next five years. Our forthcoming HR strategy is designed to adapt to dynamic trends and the evolving landscape in business, economics, and technology. In the future, we plan to adopt the Holacracy model for more agile organisations, as well as embrace GIG Employment for enhanced flexibility of workforce dynamic.
To drive a performance-based culture, we plan to implement a Ratingless Performance Management approach to encourage meaningful dialogues between employees and superiors.
Through the strategic execution of these initiatives, I am confident in our capacity to elevate HR's contribution to Great Giant Foods' enduring success, ensuring our HR and people function evolves harmoniously with emerging trends and the evolving business landscape.
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets' section!
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