Article: #15 Whirlpool: Pooling Culture Together

Employee Engagement

#15 Whirlpool: Pooling Culture Together

The company believes in a high performance culture revolving around the three stakeholders namely its employees, shareholders and customers
 

Whirlpool has managed to achieve record breaking sales, extensive expansion backed with rising employee satisfaction

 

The three prime ingredients that make Whirlpool a great workplace are Transparency, Trust and Teamwork

 

Whirlpool believes in its high performance culture revolving around three stakeholders namely its employees, its shareholders and its customers. It is an equal opportunity employer and believes in doing business with integrity and utmost honesty. As part of the Whirlpool culture, the company believes in providing employees with continuous learning programmes which develop them professionally as well as personally. They make their office an exciting place to be through the challenging work assignments and a host of fun activities. Whirlpool has managed to achieve record breaking sales, extensive expansion backed with rising employee satisfaction. Ask Arvind Uppal, Chairman & Managing Director India (President Asia excluding Greater China, Australia & New Zealand) what his success mantra is and he promptly replies, “Winning teams can make miracles happen, and when I say this I mean teams who deliver their best with passion, pride and honesty. With the support of these teams, anything is achievable.” Ranked #15 in the Great Place to Work® Institute’s Study, Whirlpool also ranks #3 in the Industry Category of the Manufacturing & Production sector besides being recognized as opne of the Best Companies for Leadership Development.

Leadership Development plays a very important role in the company’s profile. Mentions Uppal, “This is a global practice followed across Whirlpool. We have a twofold process to identify our leaders. Firstly, identifying the Top Talent, which are the employees who consistently deliver high performance and have the potential of moving two layers up; and then identifying the ‘Game Changers’ who perform with passion and zeal and deliver their best at all times. These two make up the crème de la crème of the organization. The entire leadership sits down and discusses the career path of these employees. The assessment is based on performance, potential and behaviour.”

As a manufacturing set up, the employee composition is very heterogeneous, making Whirpool a great workplace for every type of employee. Says Anil Garg, V.P. Asia, Whirlpool “We overcome this challenge by ensuring that all our initiatives and programmes are run uniformly on an all India basis. This helps in creating a spirit of togetherness and reiterates the fact that we are one large family.” We had the opportunity to ask Uppal and Garg a few questions.

Why is being recognised a great workplace important for Whirlpool from the business stand point?

Arvind Uppal: Our objective as an organization is to be an employer of choice. There is no better pay back in investment in any business than to produce productive assets. Personally titles do not make much of difference as to me, knowing that all employees from top till the grass root level of my company believe that we are a great workplace gives me the satisfaction. The three prime ingredients that make Whirlpool a great workplace are Transparency, Trust and Teamwork.

Anil Garg: The three key ingredients that work for us are: We offer our associates ‘freedom to choose’ which primarily means that our employees choose their own way of work as we do not believe in micro managing them. Secondly our organization provides opportunities to employees to take on high impact roles relatively early in their career, this gives them a chance to not only prove themselves but also encourages them to take risks and earn a rewarding experience. Spirit of Winning, we celebrate successes, small or big. While good performance is recognised and rewarded, there is also an expectation to raise the bar and keep up the spirit of winning, a challenge that our employees thrive on.

Which management style and philosophy do you believe in?
Arvind Uppal:
As I mentioned earlier, I firmly believe that ‘Winning teams can make miracles happen’!
 

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Topics: Employee Engagement, Culture, #BestPractices

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