Winning Secrets: P&G Indonesia is building 'the best place to be' through D&I and women empowerment

This is an organisation where more than 50% of its managers are women, and nearly 40% of the technicians in the Jakarta Plant are women. Let's speak to Ilham Maulana, HR Director P&G Indonesia to find out more.

At HR Excellence Awards 2020, Indonesia, the team at P&G Indonesia took home two silver awards for Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion and Excellence in Women Empowerment Strategy. Ilham Maulana, HR Director P&G Indonesia shares on the efforts the team has taken during the difficult COVID period, and initiatives that contributed to their achievements in D&I and women empowerment.

Q How would you describe your overall HR strategy, and what are some key milestones you’ve accomplished thus far?

P&G’s vision from the HR point of view, is 'to build the best place to be', through four core pillars which are:

1. Best in talent,
2. Best in culture,
3. Best in engagement, and
4. Best in corporate citizenship.

Despite the trying times of the global crisis, we are proud to let you know that we have accomplished so many things.

For the Best in Talent pillar, we continue to build our talent pool by increasing our talent capability and skills through expatriate assignments. We have sent six employees from across functions abroad in the past six months. We also keep recruiting more people at P&G, amidst these uncertainties.

Since the start of 2020, we have recruited more than 50 employees working at different functions at P&G.

For the Best in Culture pillar, starting this new fiscal year of 20/21, we improved our company culture of INDONESIA HEBAT, where we appointed Culture Champions and instilled colloquial culture (in terms of language and definition of each culture traits). This is to ensure all employees feel closer to the culture and use the traits into their working delivery, daily.

For the Best in Engagement pillar, we have done several initiatives in keeping our employees safe and healthy during the WFH period. We promote mental wellbeing as our main priority and introduced several initiatives including half-day break without meeting, mental health webinar, and meditation class.

For the Best in Corporate Citizenship pillar, we have done tremendous 'Force for Good' initiatives for the community. Since the breakout of the crisis, we donated PPE kits, masks and products to the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Women and Child Empowerment, local governments and the community. P&G Indonesia has also conducted 1,000 volunteering hours to help teachers, parents and students affected from COVID-19.

Q What role has your leadership team played in supporting your HR priorities? How does your HR team collaborate closely with senior management to achieve business goals?

The HR team plays a critical role as process leaders on developing P&G Indonesia’s business vision, goals, and company’s action plan. And the leadership team is our main partner to enable organisation priorities and to get all the action plans implemented.

We have our regular connect with the country manager and the rest of the leadership team.

Most of our leadership team members are also the sponsors of the corporate programmes for community impact, environment sustainability, and the equality and inclusion corporate initiatives.

Q The pandemic has caused many business plans to be upended. What was the greatest challenge you faced and how did you pivot your HR model?

The past year has been challenging for almost all sectors and industries around the world. We have changed the way we operate, but we consistently deliver individual leadership, commitment, and agility to respond to these challenges.

P&G has implemented a proactive balanced approach since the beginning of the breakout, with three key priorities: 1) employees' health and wellbeing; 2) best-in-class service to our consumers and customers and 3) stepping up as 'Force for Good' to the community.

All steps we take must reach out to all the above priorities. P&G Indonesia's CMT (Crisis Management Team) monitors this issue daily to keep up to date. We hold virtual manager-level meetings every week, so that all employees are aware of the latest directions and developments in the situation

Q What was your game plan for measuring ROI in women empowerment strategies? What are some proud achievements you can share with us on this front?

P&G is proud to champion equality and inclusion among the industry, through diversified gender demographics. Women empowerment is one of the foundational strategies for us to grow and achieve our business goals.

Some proud achievements include:

• We have achieved equal gender representation in Indonesia. More than 50% of our managers are women, nearly 40% of our technicians in the Jakarta Plant are women, and we have constantly reduced women attrition on-site.
• We conduct a regular enrichment session with female leaders from the region, psychologists, and other experts to share their knowledge on how to thrive in their career and personal life.
• We continuously improve the need-based policy and support system to accommodate different life stage changes with best-in-class practices such as: extended paternity leave policies and on-site baby daycare to provide an easier arrangement for working parents.

Q Given just how quickly the external business environment is adapting, how do you ensure that your HR team keeps pace in diversity and inclusion and is constantly upskilled to manage newer HR scenarios?

In P&G, we ensure that everyone is valued, everyone is included, and everyone can perform at their best, without the barrier of gender bias and cultural constraints.

Intentional interventions are made in every aspect to ensure we can manage the needs for our female employees, especially with the different life stage changes they face along their career.

Based on this concept, P&G overcame the obstacles through intentional and deliberate engagement with the team throughout the organisation. We ensure to have regular connect with the team and make sure everyone is included and looked after by one another. In this difficult time, all we need is for each other to work together in achieving the same goals.

Photo caption / Hery Susanto, Senior General Manager, Community Development Center, Telkom Indonesia

Read more interviews on why organisations have won trophies for their HR practices - head over to our Winning Secrets' section!