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Godrej Consumer ProductsFrom building leaders, spotting talent at campuses, flexible work options and encouraging more women to join the workforce, Godrej Consumer Products builds an environment that nurtures talent at every stage.Taking pride in offering an outstanding workplace, Rahul Gama, head - Human Resources, Godrej Consumer Products, says “One of the principal areas of focus has been attracting, retaining and developing women talent, so that we have a robust pipeline of potential leadership for the next three to five years. While 53 per cent of our team members globally are women, we still have a lot of work to do on this front in India.”Diversity & Inclusion programmeThere are resource groups for working women (Godrej alliance for women) and parents (Godrej alliance for parents) with cross-company leadership networks.Both these networks are supported with periodic trainings, external speakers and workshops to address the particular issues that each group may encounter.The company conducts workshops and trainings on professional development. “As we put this programme in place, we are also starting to create goals for ourselves in terms of female representation in our workforce and at different managerial levels. We are confident that in a few years, we are going to see a different profile of Godrejites. For example, as part of our employee referral policy,Godrejites can claim 1.5 times the regular referral amount if they refer a woman,” points out Rahul Gama.Maternity policyThe company’s maternity policy offers full pay for six months. We are endeavouring to create an open and inclusive environment for our women talent, who return to work post an extended break.Flexi work and part time work options are also available to help make this balance along with other facilities at our offices. A robust talent management process to groom high potential women talent.100 Leaders ProgrammeElaborating on theis unique program, Gama, “As our business grew in size and reach, a key challenge we faced was to build and strengthen a robust talent pipeline to serve our global needs. We recognised that it was equally important to identify and nurture top talent across all levels in Argentina and Africa as in India. We also needed one framework to evaluate our tram members and have visibility to track careers and progress of our talent pool to drive leadership development globally.”This program will ensure build leadership & functional capabilities and and develop a pool of engaged leaders with global skills and mindsets.Over a period of time, this will fuel the company’s succession management programme in line with our ambitious growth plans. It has identified over 100 members with the potential to lead various functions of the organisation.Godrej LOUDGodrej LOUD (Live Out Ur Dream) is a new approach to spotting and attracting talent at business school campuses in India.“In 2012, we decided to put a different spin on recruitment for 2 reasons – first, because we found that these competitions had become a staple, with little to differentiate them and they focused on second year students, while our hiring practice had moved towards converting summer interns into full time hires. We needed to reach out to students prior to even recruitment for summer internships,” explains Rahul Gama.Godrej LOUD encouraged first year students to come forward and live out their unfulfilled personal dreams. The company believes such people will bring the same enthusiasm and drive to the workplace and make for more rounded team members.Sponsorship and mentoring, Pre Placement Summer Offer, a new concept on campus – a chance to sign on for Gurukul, a whole 2 months before recruitment season on campus has also started.“We made every step of LOUD as innovative and distinctly Godrej as we could – the launch, application process, social media. LOUD has been a runaway success on campuses. This year, we are visiting 12 top B-schools across the country. We have been receiving a lot of great applications and our proposition is stronger than ever.Given its high connect, we also hosted LOUD for Godrej employees across our India and international businesses and got a wonderful response,” adds Rahul Gama.Godrej Fellows ProgrammeIt is a unique programme that aims to create future Godrej leaders. Each year, the programme brings together a group of 12 exceptional young Godrejites under the age of 35, from across companies and functions, who have unconventional ideas to change Godrej.One of the primary objectives of this one-year programme is to teach and mentor young leaders about how change happens within large corporations, and to empower them to effectively create and manage this change themselves.

It's a really good practice for being in management (some might argue middle management - whatever, I don't see that as an insult - *someone* has to be a middle manager).Let me first say that I was a clan leader on a MUD for many years when I was younger, from about when I was 15-19 solidly, then sporadically* from about 20-23. The game was text-based (which is where I learned how to read quickly, but well, and also type insanely fast, a skill which I still retain). Each clan had up to 50 characters in it (I'd say people, but sometimes people had their 'alts' - alternate characters - in there also). There was a clan leader and then a co-leader.I was an avid gamer - in fact, I'd say I was addicted to the gaming and the outlet it gave me as a very introverted young girl who attended an all-female high school - and I took the game and clan stuff very seriously.As a leader, at first, it was just about popularity and the thrill of being a leader. This was something I had *never* experienced in any other aspect of my life before. In my "real" life at school and on the USS swim team I was on, I was pretty much a nonentity - average in every way. I was smart, but not the top of the class. I was incredibly nerdy looking, but not hideous (yes, I had glasses, braces, and a very unfortunate bob with straight across heavy bangs, but I didn't have skin problems below that, and due to being a swimmer, I had a very lean frame). I was an okay swimmer, but I'd never be one of the top competitors, though I wasn't also at the bottom either. Solid B-times with a scattered A here or there. I wasn't the type to attract any notice from the opposite sex, though I was interested and had several year-long crushes on guys that hardly realized I was a real person (if my life was a movie at that point, I was an extra). It wasn't a bad existence, by far, but it also wasn't really amazing either.Anyway, my point is, even before becoming a clan leader, the game was important to me as an arena that I explored facets of my personality that I'd never dared to display before - flirtation, a fairly sharp wit, being a leader socially, etc. I'll also be frank, I wanted to be important and powerful, and, (remember, I was a fifteen year old girl when I first became a clan leader) I really wanted the title 'Princess' before my character name (the clan system ranked clan leaders as Prince/Princess - coleaders also - and then went down Duke/Duchess, Marquis, etc).At first, the heady joy of being a leader was just pure fun. I logged in and felt important right away. I enjoyed the attention both from my clanmates and the other leaders/players in the game. I loved the little perks that came with it (being able to set clan titles for my members, seeing my name as leader when you displayed the clan roster, etc).And it was a lot like being a manager. In the beginning, as a raw, inexperienced manager, I put too much value on being liked and popular and avoided making decisions that might make me unpopular with my clan or with other clans in the game - things like deciding on alliances that would benefit us but might not be our favorites, or removing members who weren't contributing and were really a drain on the clan resources and morale, etc. I enrolled (hired) members that weren't bringing anything to the clan as a whole - just people I liked personally, but maybe wouldn't take the game seriously (hiring unqualified friends), or the alternate characters of people I liked (the equivalent of hiring someone who doesn't take the job seriously).As I learned, I gained skills like ownership of mistakes - when one of my clan members violated an alliance by pking or stealing kills etc from an allied clan member or group, I learned not to cast off blame, but take ownership and apologize for the clan as a whole, promise appropriate performance management (probation periods, or even removal from the clan for really serious offenses), and follow-through and follow-up on these things. When the clan had successes, I learned not to take the credit for them personally, regardless of how large a role I may have played into them, and learned to really celebrate the successes of individuals or groups (teams) within our organization.I learned how to really own morale, and how necessary it was to lead with passion and enthusiasm that was genuine and frank. I learned how to create motivational contests that would not only add a level of enthusiasm and excitement, but also drive healthy competition and build skills to use for success.I learned how to create systems to distribute loot (in the form of treasures, gold, equipment) fairly using point systems and sometimes even random lottery. I learned about the importance of talent management, as tempers fray and drama "flounces" occur regularly in online gaming, so having a backup bench of leaders within the clan helped offset the impact of these when a coleader suddenly decided to "retire" (disappear from the game, whether permanently or just to make a point) or turncoat and leave to start their own clan or join a rival clan.I learned how to tailor my interactions with each player to keep him/her motivated and engaged with our clan by observing and talking, making sure that I figured out what their buy-in and motivation was and using that to both get what I wanted (clan loyalty, performance, etc) and give them what it was they were looking for (rank within the clan, equipment, etc).I learned about the importance of networking between leaders as I played the "political" game within the game of alliances and kill-on-sight relationships. I learned how to leverage alliances to help fill empty positions within our clan in a friendly manner (talent exchange between departments or stores within one big company or even between brands), and I also learned how to woo away potential leaders or important contributing members from other clans (the MUD form of cold calling and recruiting from rival companies!).I learned about how quickly you can ruin things, too, by making poor decisions or pandering too much to this person or that clan. I learned about building trust within an organization, and how quickly that trust can be destroyed in relation to how long it took to build. I also learned the follies of in-clan dating as I dealt with the drama between two clan members who dated then broke up and both wanted to stay, but refused to if the other one was allowed to remain, etc. I learned about having to decide which to keep, and which to let go. I also learned personally about the backlash that can occur when a leader becomes romantically involved with a clan member (the good news is that although it wreaked some havoc within guild and I learned about rumors of favoritism, etc, even if none was present!, it wasn't without worth, since that clannie is now my husband and the father of my children!).In short, being the leader of an online gaming clan is a lot like being a manager in a company you really enjoy in a field you really wanted to be in. Lots of fun, sometimes stressful, and pretty good practice for life.In fact, I would attribute much of my success becoming a manager with Starbucks initially to my experiences in game. I learned many leadership lessons there and gained confidence in myself and had successes and failures to draw on further.Pretty cool. =)*Sporadically because after I was 18, I also became an in-game developer (called gods), in charge of editing (remember this was a text-based game!), writing (zones were literally paragraphs of description for each room, and each zone had a story!), new player liaison and advocate (not only did I interact directly with new players, welcoming and assisting them, but I also trained the "mortals" (non gods) who were called avatars - the front line assistance to new players), clan management (I became the clan and real estate goddess, in charge of the creation and management of all the clans within the game), and later, an editor for objects too (which involved going into the machine and actually doing a little bit of light code editing, etc).

By 2024, I think most major countries are going to have felt the effects of their own nationalistic forces, and the policies of globalism will be widely discredited.Voters are becoming aware of the enormous costs of shipping jobs overseas nd allowing technology and intellectual property to be stolen.Besides it is very likely that the era of cheaper labor overseas being a major cost-cutting effect is coming to an end. Three dimensional printers can cut the costs of manufacturing items even below the costs of the cheapest laborers. At that point the major factors in a product’s cost would be energy, transportation and materials.The U.S., due to our energy independence, would have an advantage in energy costs. We also have an abundance of natural resources to supply the materials used. And our own market is one of the largest on earth, so transportation would be minimal.Other countries will rethink their own manufacturing in the same way, and will be renegotiating alliances to take advantage of their own national strengths.One inescapable conclusion from this is that what emerges as one of the most valuable attributes a nation can possess is a highly creative workforce that initiates new ideas, and can bring them to successful fruition.For it to take full advantage of this kind of talent, the country needs to be highly capitalistic so that gifted entrepreneurs are rewarded. The banking and investment systems need to be flexible and able to fund starting companies and help them develop their potential. And the colleges and universities need to be capable of turning out engineers, software developers, as well as managers, accountants, and marketers.Above all, a society that is willing to work hard and that has a strong appetite for new products, and new approaches is fundamental.