Buy one and get another free

TEAM BUILDING: Henkel employer branding meets consumer connect.

For companies to observe founder's day or an annual day is commonplace. But Henkel India Limited (HIL), a Chennai-based FMCG company, celebrated its annual Market Day on Tuesday (as it has done every year on May 8 for the past three years), in an initiative that coupled employer branding activity with consumer connect to enhance the internal team building process.

Every Henkel employee all over India (except for the security guards) went out to the marketplace and met retailers, distributors, wholesalers and consumers to sell their products directly. It was an employer branding initiative that does not distinguish between hierarchy and department.

Says R R Samuel Chandar, the company's vice-president-HR and commercial: "We believe that each employee has a stake in what happens in the marketplace and in the company's success. It's not just the sales and marketing people who have a stake. Moreover, it facilitates better communication between people in the company; it's a team-building exercise."

The occasion provides an opportunity for employees up and down the hierarchy to form teams and achieve the one common objective of the day"" sell as many products as possible.

He adds that the idea is to reiterate that every employee is close to the consumer, aware of the products he's working for and tries to live the company's vision and values. And this applies to all employees, from the managing director down to mid-level managers and the most junior executive in the company, across all verticals. "No other company in the world does this on such a scale," says Chandar.

He argues that with changing consumer mindsets coupled with competition and saturated markets, it has become critical for every organisation to have the pulse of the customer's wants and needs. The changed scenario requires new strategies, apart from creativity and insight, according to Chandar.

Market Day may be a single day affair, but the company also has an employer branding initiative with a number of B-schools, which goes on round the year. HIL provides students of these institutes 'learning support' that take the form of knowledge transfers in the areas of nanotechnology, environment, and innovation, and live case studies in supply chain and human resource management.

The B-schools covered by Henkel's employer branding initiative include Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad; the Madras School of Economics; IIM, Ahmedabad; Institute of Financial and Management Research, Chennai; the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai; and Xavier Institute of Management Education, Bangalore.