Engage Everyday Program Wins the Global Award

The Global HR Conference in Amsterdam held from 24-27 September 2007, the Engage Everyday program got showcased as a global best practice. The HR team from FritoLay then went on to win the Global Award for Talent Sustainability. I don't know what it feels like to win the Oscar, but this felt just as special to me.

It was a grand event held at the famous Amstel Intercontinental Hotel - the pride of Amsterdam. Since its opening in 1867, the Hotel has played host to several celebs and world leaders. Located on the Amstel River, this gorgeous Hotel hosted the crew and cast of the film Oceans Twelve.

The Engage Everyday program has been impacting lives of employees and communities around our factories. The program is driven by employees of the families where they work to impact lives in the communities around our workplace. More about the program in a separate post.

No Need for Speed

If you are the kind of person who lives in a city and then complains about the fast pace of life of the Metros thenvisit our plant in Channo. That has the kind of lifestyle that we city dwellers get to experience only when we go on vacation. We go to these places, unwind and then come back to regale our colleagues about the lifestyle of the smaller towns.

There is time to stop at the dhaba and grab a humongous glass of lassi on your way to work. In the evening our colleagues have a ritual of stopping by for a relaxed chat with friends over some piping hot jalebis.

Vipin Dhariwal our correspondent sent us these pictures. The event in question was the slow cycling race.While the aspirants to the prize were many, there was only one winner.

Happy Birthday to this Blog

The first birthday is special.
Like the first drops of rain on earth.

The first job. The first salary.
The first time you got the promotion letter!
They are all heady moments.

The first blog of FritoLay... all this started exactly a year ago.

I Am One Year Old on 18 September 2007

On 18th Sep 2007, this blog turns one year old. Maybe one year young. It was started on a lark. One fine day, I started this blog because creating a blog is easy. If going to the moon was easy, I would give that a shot as well. This blog was meant to give you an idea of the culture of this organization and share with you some pictures of the people here.

When your friends come home, you talk about work, moan about life and crib about lack of time. Then you pull out your album and show them photos of friends and people at work. Based on that chat and the pix, your friends have a glimpse of what your company is all about. This blog was meant to be the same.

During the year gone by, we have had more people joining up to blog for us. We have had people sending us messages to say they want to work for us, they have given their feedback on our flavours and products. The blog has been featured and written about in the media and by other bloggers. Thanks for noticing us everyone. This is a time for us to stand up and take a bow. We appreciate your point of view. And yes, we are learning from all what you tell us. So thanks again.

We will have a party on 18th Sep. Let me know what would be an innovative way to celebrate the birthday of a blog. Have you heard of an innovative way to celebrate a blog - not blogger's birthday?

How To Name It

I came upon the blog of Apu - whose blog it is on all matters corporate who lists all blogs run by Corporates. Her blog is called Cubically Challenged which I thought is a cool title for a blog that describes the view from one. She is not sure if our blog can be put under the "corporate blogging" banner because it does not adhere to the strict guidelines of one. We are like this only, Apu. Reminds me of the musical masterpiece composed by Ilaiyaraaja which is simply titled "How to Name It".

Apu has rightly suggested that we pull up our sleeves and blog more often. The rap on the knuckles is richly deserved. We promise to make amends. I hope you will come back to track us.

There are some really happening blogs listed here. Check them out guys. And now it is over to Apu.

"I was interested in seeing whether companies in India have begun to use blogs as a means of communication with different audiences, and I did some digging around to see who is doing what. Surprise, surprise! I just can’t find too many corporate blogs in the first place. (Or my googling skills are poor!).

The usual culprits, which have been much talked about before, came to light again. First, the Infosys Blog, Think Flat. Now they have put together a star blogger team, with senior members from communication, marketing, sourcing, consulting etc besides Nandan Nilekani himself. But one odd thing about the blog is, that perhaps because of a number of contributers adding pieces whenever their schedule permits, the blog is very erratically updated. Sometimes articles follow each other after a day, and sometimes there are no posts for a week or ten days. I think regular updation is critical for a serious blog. Another surprising thing is that at the end of a page, there is no link pointing to ‘older posts’. One has to trudge through the archives. Perhaps they need someone who understands blogging and can help this senior team out by coordinating posts and having a more user friendly design. However, the content on the blog is quite good - while it touches briefly on Infy’s expertise, it doesn’t hardsell in any way, and in most cases, is quite interesting to read, though not phenomenally.

Then, there is Fritolay India’s blog, maintained by Madhu Rajesh and Abhijit Bhaduri from their HR function. This is really more of a fun, informal blog, and as such, the regular aims of ‘corporate blogging’ may not apply. However, I think they do a good job of presenting Fritolay as a young, vibrant place to work in. Definitely, if prospective employees came upon the blog, they would find it interesting and appealing. Again, the frequency of blogging is not consistent. I am not sure if they are thinking of this also as a means to keep current employees updated or whether they have a separate intranet/blog for that. But if they do want to keep current employees involved as well, then it may be a good idea to update more often.

I also came upon Tata Interactive’s blog, which is a mix of general interest article as well as those focused upon design and technology related issues. This one seems to be updated quite often, and also has a mix of regular writers plus guest writers. I suppose this helps them keep things in control, since the core blogging team must be monitoring content, ensuring updation and a good mix of subjects. Another notable thing about this blog is that many of the posts have atleast a few comments on them, something absent from the other two.

In the case of the Infosys blog especially, I got the feeling that they were operating in isolation. There was little dialogue with other technology blogs, few links to other bloggers - the posts aren’t really very different from what a website or maybe online journal might have. They don’t seem to be really blogging in that sense, since one of the most powerful things about blogging is the conversations and relationships it can build. So does it really help to maintain a blog if you can’t be active in the related blogging community?

Some of the lesser known ones - Giftex - a company that I’ve never heard about, but has a blog with quite good content on its area of operation, gifting. Score India, a sports development/promotion company that has a corporate blog that sort of goes all over the place and stopped running after October 2006. I am not sure what book launches are doing in there, except for the one on the Commonwealth games. And the formatting is terrible. Tekriti Software’s blog too has not been updated after November 2006, though the content was good, while it lasted!

Does your company have a blog? Let me know if you’ve come across any others that I may have missed out."

September 7th, 2007

What's The Program - A Funky new Lays Website

Like all brand managers will tell you, the consumers are watching far less TV than before. The need is therefore to engage different sections through different media. Keeping this in mind, Lays has developed the funky website http://www.whatstheprogram.com/ to reach the young and the restless.



Our own young and restless Krishna Kumar says that becoming a member in Whatstheprogram.com the Lays website was fun because it connects people to cool stuff around Music, Sports, Entertainment, College etc. He used it to find the latest movies playing at theaters in his neighborhood. His office PC now displays a Wallpaper from College section of the site “Different Programs = Different Downloads”. One can not only create customized wall papers featuring self and Saif but also can win a chance to feature in Lays commercial. Is'nt that cool? Just log in and enter a new world of excitement.