Never a boring day at Titan

Coffee-break conversations can be rather random. Our group went into discussing lifestyle products and brands. One of my colleagues initiated an informal survey of sorts to quantify the group’s brand preference. Titan watches, Titan-Eye glasses, Tanishq bangles, Taneira sarees… wow! Among the five of us, each one possessed at least one product if not more from the Titan brand.

We wanted to take a sneak peek into the HR function of this TITANic brand and explore what drives the Company to keep on expanding their products and stay one step ahead in the changing market.

By the people, of the people and for the people! Yes, that remains the motto of Titan. While HR stays two steps ahead at Titan by getting its people excited about the future, the future itself is created by its employees themselves through brainstorming.

“This is just the curtain raiser, there are many other programmes conducted to develop the culture of the company and keep it alive”

HRKatha spoke to Rajnarayan, CHRO, Titan and asked him what creates the pulse for employee engagement in the Company, which is the leader in the business of accesorising the pulse-point on the wrists of the population.

“Unconditional positive regard for people”

The above statement echoes the HR’s core value and gives a backbone to its initiatives. It embraces and takes the responsibility of shaping up a large head-count in the brand-run business as well as the franchise. The workforce consists of varied employees— industrial workers, B2B, B2C and designers.

While the Company follows a fairly structured organisational framework, leveraging competencies, it nurtures downward leadership and focusses on creating a leadership bank with its leadership development framework.

“It is critical for us to understand what we want Titan leaders of the future to be like. We spoke to a wide range of people — past and present employees, consumers, stakeholders— and concluded that there are eleven competencies which the Titan leaders should hold,” says Rajnarayan.

As a follow-up to the above, the Four-Tier Leadership Programme was spearheaded, which addresses top management, senior leaders, emerging leaders and young leaders, respectively. Three hundred people were nominated to undergo a comprehensive development programme, conducted on the job, within labs and classrooms as part of this programme. They were made to do cross-functional and cross-company projects to name a few.

Technology is leveraged efficiently in the areas of communication, collaboration and development. A lot of repetitive and mundane work is now done by machines.

Kudos: Managers use this technologically-driven reward and recognition programme, to recognise, reward and record the good work done by employees.

T- Factor Programme: This initiative coincided with the thirtieth year of the Company. At the zonal and national levels, a competition was organised to promote the talent employees had outside of work.

“It was launched as an internal talent hunt, but we reached across not just to our talent base but also franchises, vendor employees and their families. We ran it in 22 locations leading to the zonal and national finals. More than a 1000 people participated enthusiastically, competing in individual and group events. How many companies do that?” says an elated Rajnarayan.

What fun for the employees and their families! Events like these contribute towards creating brand loyalties for employees and rejuvenating them with renewed energy and excitement. Just imagine how proud an employee at the base line would feel when he gets awarded for his talent by the top management at a gala event!

Never a dull moment for employees at Titan, because there is so much happening that marking days in the calendar becomes a challenge. For the sport stars, there is the Titan Premium League to look forward to, at the regional and national levels.

“Under the Titan Innovation Engine, there are contests conducted for cognitive problem solving, which we call Unlike Awards. These are on-the-job challenges faced by different stake holders in the business. The highest impact solution is selected by a jury.” shares Rajnarayan

These initiatives help people to think out of box and give them a chance to be a part of a different business process. They help in the overall progress of the organisation.

“This is just the curtain raiser, there are many other programmes conducted to develop the culture of the company and keep it alive,” says Rajnarayan.