Godrej Industries Ltd. (Chemicals SBU) is a member of the 113-year old Godrej Group, whose products touch the lives of millions of Indians everyday. The organization has continuously strengthened its reputation of being an ethically strong firm and providing reliable goods to the consumers. The company ranks #44 in the Great Place to Work® Institute’s Study.
Considering the geographic spread of the business, it is a challenging task to create a team spirit and ensure everyone feels engaged. Elaborates Nadir Godrej, Managing Director, Godrej Industries Ltd, “Team work starts with establishing a clear vision. Having a clear sense of purpose or identity is paramount. This cannot be just some cliché statements on a poster. The team members need to be actively involved in shaping and agreeing on common objectives to shape a shared purpose or commitment.”
A new initiative to reward employees is Brighter Bank. This newly introduced concept is conducted on Godrejite, the online employee portal. Here, employees are allotted bank accounts with currency in the form of icons representing the Brighter Godrej Values – Expression, Progression, Empathy and Experience – and encouraged to use this as a rewarding system whenever they find someone excelling. The person who accumulates the highest number of icons in this manner at the end of the quarter is eventually awarded a big prize in the form of an iPod, adventure trek or even tickets to a holiday. The Brighter Bank is a wonderful interactive platform, which draws people together across the Group companies and encourages them to take time off to say thank you. Says Praful Bhat, Executive Vice-President (Human Resources), “Empowerment is the key to success at Godrej. Through the Brighter Bank, each employee is encouraged to imbibe and appreciate the core values of Progression, Empathy, Experience and Expression.”
People Matters brings you excerpts of the interview with Nadir Godrej and Praful Bhat:

What are the key ingredients that make you a great workplace?
Nadir Godrej: Great workplaces are built on several factors namely integrity and trust among employees, empowered, energized, engaged and motivated employees, transparency and open communication, a ‘Work Hard, Play Hard’ mindset, great development and growth opportunities for employees, a meritocratic and high performance culture, focus on value creation and compelling rewards, commensurate with performance. Unless we can work with all of our team members to foster a great workplace, we will not be able to achieve our vision and our future growth aspirations.
Praful Bhat: According to me, the five things that make our organization a great workplace are empowerment at all levels, close contact with employees, making work place a fun place, being fair in reward and recognition, and care and commitment to employee development.