People come first at TCL

Year of people | Fun@work | Oorja | Fun days | Mood monitors | Clubs

People come first at Tata Chemicals. In the recent past, the company has grown from strength to strength, and across geographies and cultures. TCL is now also present in the US, UK and Africa. New businesses have been developed both in India and overseas. None of this would have been possible without the team effort put in by our people.

Year of people is programme started in 2008 as a means of building people interactions and fostering a conducive work environment. With the intent of connecting people, TCL introduced a series of initiatives to keep people informed about what is happening in the company, and to ensure that they feel a greater sense of involvement and bonding with the company.

Friday Talkies is an initiative that declares the first and fourth Fridays of the month as Home Station days. Unless a person is on an extended tour, travel on these days is to be avoided to ensure that employees can spend time with their families. Also, meetings, seminars or training programmes that involve outstation travel are not to be scheduled on these days.

These initiatives seek to ensure a harmonious work-life balance. TCL also encourages employees are to suggest more initiatives.

Fun@work
TCL takes the concept of fun at work quite seriously. The company provides a number of opportunities for employees and their families to enjoy themselves and show off their soft skills.

Oorja is an annual cultural festival aimed at enhancing learning and development, and cementing the culture of responsiveness and teamwork within the 3,500-strong family of TCL employees spread across India. Introduced in 2003, the project offers a platform for the company’s employees to display their talent while encouraging them to sharpen their competitive spirit and sense of achievement.

The festival is spread across the TCL facilities in Mumbai, Mithapur in Gujarat, Babrala in Uttar Pradesh, Haldia in West Bengal and all other satellite offices.

There are three mini Oorjas and one mega Oorja event every year. The mini Oorjas feature drawing and essay contests, debates, quiz competitions and other activities across the TCL locations. The mega Oorja has a theatre-based festival as its highlight, with a theme that is of importance to the entire organisation.

Employees enact thematic skits based on a given topic. These skits are presented at the regional events and at the national function. The theme for 2008 was ‘The human touch of chemistry’, an idea that TCL has taken to heart, and it was one of the most successful in the Oorja series. Innovation, globalisation, SHE (safety, health and environment), business excellence and biodiversity have been among the other subjects covered in this manner.

Oorja inculcates a shared sense of purpose among TCL employees. Theatre has become a means to move beyond regular channels of communication, such as the intranet and newsletters, and reach a diverse audience through a more interactive and animated medium of communication.

Cutting through organisational hierarchies, employees display their creative skills at the Oorja events, bringing alive the theme in focus and leaving a lasting impact on the audience. Every year approximately 7,000 people — employees and their families — get involved in Oorja initiatives. Oorja has helped TCL fashion an environment that stimulates fresh ideas and innovative thinking away from the routine of daily work, and energises the entire enterprise.

Going forward, TCL will be taking Oorja to its international family of Brunner Mond in the UK, Magadi in Kenya and General Chemicals in USA, aligning employee thoughts across geographies.

Fun Fridays and Mazeddar Mondays
In 2010, TCL added an interesting edge to the company's people initiatives by introducing Fun Fridays and Mazeddar Mondays at the TCL head office and regional offices. The idea was to drive away Monday morning blues and end the week on a fun and exciting note.

A series of activities ranging from Friday dressing, appreciation days, short movie screenings, contests, quizzes, online puzzles, interactive games and competitions are planned for every Friday and Monday. With more than 20 activities like the Ozone Day snakes and ladders game, Independence Day quiz, Kudogram day and Kryptic number quiz successfully executed and received enthusiastically by the employees, TCL has added a light, engaging twist to the regular work week.

Mood monitors — both physical and virtual — are another very successful and highly innovative initiative launched by TCL. The physical Mood monitor is a cute, bright yellow device that allows every employee to indicate his/her mood, by simply moving a hand. The idea is to enable employees to help lift the spirits of a sad or angry colleague and have them lend a helping hand when they see someone puzzled or restless.

Today, every employee at TCL who has a workstation assigned to him/her has a Mood monitor. This initiative has received a phenomenal response across TCL with not just employees, but also visitors to our offices who request Mood monitors to carry back home.

The online Mood monitor, or K-monitor (Knowledge monitor) as it is also known, is a programme that displays a new question on the computer screen as soon a user logs onto the network every morning. Topics range from issues of organisational significance, opinion polls on organisational initiatives and information on various aspects of the organisation, to questions on general awareness, news, current affairs, history and the environment.
Responses received from around 1,000 employees daily are then analysed, and an e-mail with the results of the Mood monitor along with the correct response and relevant informative feedback is sent to all employees.

Employees are also invited to contribute questions to the Mood monitor. Creating awareness about key themes like our CoC, SHE, VMV, community initiatives, products and services, the Tata group etc, this initiative will soon complete 100 questions since the time it was launched.

The CheerRing is a brass bell called that has been hung at TCL offices in Mumbai, Noida, Ahmedabad and Pune. Any employee wanting to announce any positive, good and happy news about a personal, team or company achievement, birthday and fun announcements etc, needs to ring the bell. As we at TCL like to put it, the bell chimes for good times! A direct outcome of this initiative is a surge in energy, excitement and positivity in the office.

TCL also celebrates Diwali, the New Year, birthdays celebrations with a palpable gusto, making the organisation a truly vibrant and exciting place to work in.

Clubs
TCL offices have several special interest clubs, wherein employees sharing common passions and interests, get together and take the lead in planning activities around their area of interest.

In keeping with the TCL credo of the ‘Human touch of chemistry’, the TCL HOPE (Harnessing Opportunities for People Empowerment) Volunteering club has been working successfully with NGOs in several cities. With around 50 members in Mumbai and Noida, the club works to spread awareness on themes like health, hygiene and the environment. Donation drives aptly titled 'TCL shares because TCL cares’ are conducted from time to time to generate support for various NGOs and causes.

XPLORERS, the TCL Mumbai adventure club, was started by a group of young, enthusiastic TCL employees with a passion for the outdoors and adventure.