Changing role of HR Manager by reviewing HR practices in Cipla.
Name: Sameer Anand Shinde

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Introduction

Cipla Ltd was founded by Khwaja Abdul Hamied as 'The Chemical, Industrial
& Pharmaceutical Laboratories' in 1935 in Mumbai. The name of the Company was changed
to 'Cipla Limited' in the year 1984. The company generally was family business in which it
was led by founder son Mr. Yusuf Hamied. The HR department in Cipla, originally called
Personnel department, and was generally involved in recruitment, wages and to help
management negotiate with labour.

The transformation was seen when the hiring of Mr. Subhanu Saxena, top executive from
Novartis and oxford university graduate. He had created six member management council to
simplify decision making and improve operational excellence. In the first time the HR person
has got berth in the management council. Mr. Prabir Jha was recruited as Global Chief People
officer and was placed in the management council. The role of a CHRO is now considered
most important in Cipla company.

Scope

Changing role of HR managers by reviewing HR practice of Cipla is referenced in this

Assignment, which has transformed Cipla HR practices traditional rigid system to new agile
system, as I have witnessed this change in Cipla, with particularly in personnel aspect (Training
and development; employee engagement; remuneration and incentives) of HRM. The
assignment also mentions about HR transformation in Cipla by introducing leadership
essentials framework which resulted into the Great Place to Work.

Study Details

The Cipla HR practices back on Year 2013 was merely focuses on personnel administration,
employee welfare and labour relation. The inclusion of CHRO position in management council
had made significant difference in the year 2014;

Expanding Role of CHRO in Cipla

CHRO in Cipla is responsible to provide their inputs on high level business guidance and
leadership on defining the very future of work. The scope of this role is not only expanding,
also assist businesses in paving the way for strategic growth across decisions relating to
recruitment, compensation, talent management, performance management, training, employee
experience and more. This transformation in Cipla was witnessed, to move from traditional,
rigid systems to new agile organizational structures. The concept of HR business partner
(HRBP) was introduced. HR transformation was helped to put culture and diversity at the
centre. HR team was a custodian of culture, lead through example and align culture with core
business goals. This was done by designing specific programs and strategies to ensure an
engaged workplace, happy employees, reward strategies that retain talent and ensuring there is
diversity and inclusion in every.
The New credo, leadership essentials framework and global job banding framework as part of
its continuing HR transformation was initiated. It was setting a tone for what Cipla values
should be, and to align them with mission and culture. The OneCipla Credo was introduced,
which is about being purpose inspired and was defines Cipla first principles, fundamental
essentials requirement to be the kind of company want to be. Refer picture below Cipla Credo.

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The first principles of Cipla provided testimony to the kind of Organisation we are, and we
desire to be. The first principles
- Reflect Cipla core beliefs
- Epitomise Cipla pride, passion and purpose
- Provide unanimity of purpose internally
- Offer distinctive competitive edge externally
The first principles encapsulate Cipla’s, OneCipla Credo, Winning aspiration, and the Cipla
Leadership Essentials.

OneCipla Credo

Cipla Credo is set of belief and principles that strongly influence the way employees live and
work.

Winning Aspiration

Is Cipla deceleration of the future Cipla want to achieve. Its is destination that guides Cipla
strategy and provide direction to actions.

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Leadership Essentials

It Outlines the critical success factors that make Cipla’s leaders distinctive and impactful. It
defines a common language and approach for building leaders within Cipla. Refer below
picture for more details;

Based the One credo principal downstream function also re-aligned to be inline with new credo,
the leadership essentials framework.
As a result, the recruitment framework, the performance management systems, the reward
mechanisms have changed accordingly and also, new leaning framework was introduced.

Performance management system transformation

The before inception of global HR practices, Cipla is to follow flat system of job banding and
employee designated as a Management staff. The performance and increments were based on
tender system (Employee is to quote amount required to be increase in confidential document
and Unit Head is to authorize). This system resulted into uneven salary structure of same band
employee. The change in this system was required and this shift is a massive transformation
for any organisation to undergo. The new HR practices was initiated, every employee was
assigned new job bands, the company has divided the entire population into three broad
categories and six bands from C to H. The entire workforce was classified into these six job
bands globally. The massive mapping exercise was initiated globally covering 27,000
employees.
In a new dimension HR has role out first ever performance management system in Cipla in the
Year 2014, by enabling a performance driven culture process named as DNA (Develop,
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Nurture and Achieve). The goals were defined in different section such as Organization Goal,
Business Goal, Departmental Goal, Team Goal and Individual Goal. This system was addresses
employees individual and organizational objectives to cultivate a high-performance
environment with required tools to excel. It was designed in a way to nurture individuals
capabilities, provide a framework to grow talent and harness it to drive business results.
Performance rating scale is shown below;

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Employee Engagement

As part of Employee Engagement CARE model was introduce, Celebrate, Applause,

Recognize, Energize. This engagement had reduced absenteeism and employee were able to
understand their jobs. Refer below table;

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New Learning framework

Based on Cipla first principles requirement, new learning framework was introduced. The
Cipla University (CU), which is consider has one of the strategic leaning vehicle that drives
capability building across the organization in a OneCipla manner. The Cipla University is
governed by well-defined guiding principles as defined in the picture below;

It focuses on building two distinct set of capabilities:

a. Functional and technical capabilities through its various functional academics.
b. Managerial and leadership capabilities through leadership academy.
Cipla University learning framework, 70:20:10 model was introduced. The model proposes the
following with respect to how we learn,
 70% from the job assignment and experience as well as personal learning beyond the
job.
 20% from development relationship like mentoring and coaching, also social learning
from peers and others in one’s network.
 10% structured training like classroom session, e-leaning etc.
Cipla University is One Cipla application that allows all Cipla external and internal
stakeholders to learn through best in class platform. Skillsoft, the technology company
specialises in corporate learning, has entered a strategic partnership with Cipla. This enabled
all employee, learning at the fingertips by ensuring learning anytime, opportunity to connect
with the leaders and peers through discussion forums and chance to compete and lead the
performance through one single application on their mobile devices.

Introduction of new digital integrated shared service model

In partnership with PeopleStrong team (External body), Cipla had introduce integrated HR
shared services model, to streamline HR policy across Cipla site globally following business
requirement was embedded in the digital HR service portal;
- Policy Management
- Query Management
- Change management
- Integrated Payroll technology and services
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 - Enabling auto-shift for daily attendance based on the punch in time
This HR process were highly appreciated by the employee with following value proposition;
- Adoption of Mobile app: Moving from manual to entire cloud based solutions filled lot
of excitement in the employees.
- Better flexibility options with anytime, anywhere access to employee’s information.
- Better employee experience as queries are resolved using email and app directly, better
policies like Birthday leave introduced.
- Better governance & compliance of policies

Impact of this transformation

- This culture changed has created a roadmap by aligning activities, initiatives and
systems to shape the positive culture among employees.
- HR Business partner managed to align managers and employees, fostering sense of
ownership for that culture and maintaining accountability. This was one of the key
factor noted by the survey carried out by external agency GPTW (Great Place to work)
certification.
- By use of right analytics, Cipla HR has shared immediate and long term gains and offer
strategic recommendations for the future by designing Cipla first principles (One Cipla
Credo).
- HR leaders were responsible for transforming words into action by implementing above
mentioned initiatives.

Conclusion

The Great Place to Work certification assessment was initiated in the year 2018, through its
comprehensive reports covering survey scores, benchmarking and in-depth evaluation of the
organisations people practices. The testimony of this culture changed in Cipla initiated by HR
from year 2014 till date, has been recognized by external agency GPTW by conducting Culture
audit.

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