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Biten Kathrani, Head of R&D APJ, Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore), on volunteering policies that complement the safe space and culture that encourage employees to do so.
Singapore serves as the regional center for Johnson & Johnson companies in the Asia-Pacific region with a diverse group of leaders and employees who come from various parts of the world.
The 11th edition of the HR Excellence Awards, Singapore (2023) saw Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore) winning the gold award for 'Excellence in Employee Volunteerism'.
On this milestone, HRO catches up with Biten Kathrani, Head of R&D APJ, Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore), on policies and initiatives around volunteering that complement the safe space and culture that encourage employees to do so.
Q Congratulations on your top performance at the HR Excellence Awards! How has your HR and people strategy contributed to your success this year?
At J&J, everything we do is grounded by the values and principles of 'Our Credo'. We believe good health is the foundation of vibrant lives, thriving communities, and forward progress.
Whilst the HR and people strategy play an integral part in building a culture of employee volunteerism, it is really our employees and our 'Singapore Community Impact' (SCI) team that bring it all to life.
I’d also like to acknowledge our partner NGOs that help us create volunteering opportunities for our employees to give back to the community and love 'Our Credo'. Our SCI programmes are focused on supporting local communities in ways that benefit them the most, for example in STEM education, health and mental wellness, and elderly care.
Q Looking back at your achievements, what aspect of your HR initiatives are you most proud of and why?
We are very proud of the emphasis that we put in our responsibility and the standards that we set with regards to our people and communities around us. We are also very fortunate to have the support from senior leaders within the organisation who walk the talk.
Policies and initiatives around volunteering would only be words on paper without the safe space and culture that encourage employees to do so. One of the examples is our 'Volunteering Leave' policy that allows each employee to take up to four days of volunteering leave every year.
Q During your HR journey, what were some significant obstacles you faced, and how did you overcome them to achieve excellence?
Specific to employee volunteerism, one of the hurdles we wanted to overcome was to get employees who had never volunteered before to start doing so.
Whilst we have a large population of employees that do volunteer and it’s always nice to see familiar faces, we wanted to generate more impact. As such, we organised a volunteer recruitment drive where we invited multiple partner NGOs that work in three impact areas that we focus on to showcase their volunteering opportunities with different commitment levels for different group sizes.
The Singapore Community Impact team and HR team collaborated to invite all our Singapore employees, across businesses and functions, to the event to understand the impact of volunteering, find a cause close to their heart, and take the first step in their own volunteering journey!
Q How does your organisation measure the success and impact of your HR initiatives?
There are several ways that we try to capture quantitative metrics around employee volunteerism. This can include (but are not limited to) number of events held, lives touched, employees participating/volunteering, hours spent on organising/hands-on service, as well as the accumulated volunteer hours. We are also able to track the usage of volunteer leave to see how often this benefit is being utilised.
However, from surveying, we learned that many employee volunteers do not always formally take volunteer leave because the J&J work flexibility/culture allows them to weave in shorter volunteer engagements without impacting the quality of their work.
On this front, I would call out that the flexible work culture we have at J&J goes a long way in enabling the level of impact we generate in the community.
Q In what direction do you see the HR/people function evolving in the future, considering the emerging trends?
One of the key trends that we have seen recently is the remote/hybrid nature of work. As the world/society becomes more connected and technology-enabled, I see the HR function needing to evolve and pre-empt how our people want to remain engaged.
Striking the fine balance between culture and remote work is already a key topic that I have seen senior leaders across multiple organisations talk about.
Another (slightly more distant) idea is the recent popularity of AI – the ability for HR to predict and match employees to suitable volunteer opportunities could be quite an exciting idea that doesn’t seem too far away either.
Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets' section!
Lead image / Provided by Johnson & Johnson International (Singapore)
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