Aarti Industries, a manufacturer of speciality chemicals — largely catering to the pharmaceutical sector — has progressed on its plans to build and acquire a talent pipeline. The Company has recently concluded the hiring of 260 students as part of its leadership-trainee programme for this year.
In conversation with HRKatha, Manoj Kumar Sharma, CHRO, Aarti Industries, shares that the special highlight of this initiative is that the Company has onboarded all 260 future leaders in a single event, which is rare, especially in the chemical- manufacturing sector in India.
“This is part of the Company’s efforts to build a talent and leadership pipeline,” says Sharma.
As per Sharma, it took Aarti Industries almost five months to complete the whole sourcing, talent acquisition and onboarding process. All the 260 people— quite a large number by chemical industry standards— have been onboarded in a single shot, through a combined three-day event at the Company.
A combined onboarding process was decided on to ensure that every newly-hired trainee is on the same page.
“We could have chosen to do the onboarding in a segregated manner. However, as a culture, we wanted to make all new recruits understand the ‘One voice, One Team Spirit’ philosophy, right from the very start,” eplains Sharma.
In the three-day onboarding process, all leaders — from the CEO, CFO, business- development leader, to the manufacturing leader and projects leader— will be conversing with the recruits and telling them about all the upcoming opportunities in the Company.
Furthermore, the new hires will get an idea of how they will be trained, coached and mentored in the next one and a half years of their career at Aarti.
“This way, when these new recruits reach the manufacturing sites or the corporate offices, they will already be well aware of how to approach things at work,” enunciates Sharma.
All the new recruits will go through a year’s training in different areas, including functional training, cross-functional training and live assignments. This phase is termed as ‘Aghaas’ at Aarti.
“We are one of the few companies in our sector that do not ask for any returns from the new recruits in terms of performance. They will just be focussed on training. Only after one and a half years will they be expected to deliver. Till then, they only need to hang on and learn at Aarti”
Manoj Kumar Sharma, CHRO, Aarti Industries
“The one-year training will strengthen their problem-solving skills, operational functionality and all the compliance and safety skills,” asserts Sharma.
After a year, these future leaders will be trained on real-time projects and real projects for a period of six months. Post this, they will be deployed in different areas or roles such as technology development, project controllers, shifting charging roles and R&D.
“We are one of the few companies in our sector that do not ask for any returns from the new recruits in terms of performance. They will just be focussed on training. Only after one and a half years will they be expected to deliver. Till then, they only need to hang on and learn at Aarti,” explains Sharma.
Of these 260 students, 85 per cent will go into technical roles based out of the manufacturing plants and the R&D centres. The remaining 15 per cent will go into business-enabling roles.
All these students are campus hires recruited from across the country, including Jammu & Kashmir, Meghalaya and Manipur. “It is very heartening to see people from the North-East, Jammu and other parts of the country,” admits Sharma.
Initially, about 300 candidates were shortlisted through the application process. Then, all of them went through the technical round, HR round, psychometric tests and finally, personal interviews.
As the Company is building a talent pipeline for future leaders, a psychometric test is done to check for leadership qualities.
“We check for leadership competencies such as team leadership, resilience, courage, strategic mindset and more,” reveals Sharma.
By the end of the hiring process, only 260 out of the 300 candidates could make the cut.
“We have hired people from all IITs, IIMs, TISS and other top technical and management institutes of the country,” shares Sharma.
Aarti Industries currently employs more than 7000 people in the company. In this future leadership lot, women will account for 15 per cent of the talent and most of them will go into technical roles.
“I am very happy to see more women going into technical roles and joining the manufacturing sector, which will further strengthen our diversity goal,” says Sharma proudly.
As per Sharma, even though chemical manufacturing is a niche sector in India, it will see much larger growth in the coming years.