COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—Specialty tire manufacturer Global Rubber Industries (Pvt.) Ltd. is crediting "HR agility"—a human resource philosophy that the company implemented in January— with helping it to drive success during the global pandemic.
According to GRI, HR agility has helped GRI not only adapt to different markets and various customer expectations, but also to dealing with diverse customers.
HR director Paduma Subasinghe said GRI is a "shared service organization. The customer is always our nucleus. But it is also important to remember that our customer and employee experience is interrelated. When you have strong and highly engaged employees, you can drive customer value across a global sales organization.
"Everything must be in sync. And this daily agility has long been a strength, especially in a crisis such as the global pandemic witnessed this year."
GRI said it has implemented the philosophy through its Objectives and Key Results process, which has helped the tire maker maintain "a sharper focus, track progress, align departments, increase transparency, improve engagement and work towards measurable goals," according to GRI CEO Mahesha Ranasoma.
"A cross-functional emphasis on all processes ensure ownership and accountability among all employees and an ability to adapt swiftly," Ranasoma said. "It has helped GRI greatly in this time of volatility and uncertainty."
GRI reports it has daily morning senior level meets that offer "cross-functional windows" into daily operations in order that senior managers can make decisions and support each other, thus committing to an "agile and resilient business, leading by example."
Teams also have "weekly sprint" meetings and "collective intelligence" meetings to track progress of key objectives.
"Connecting people emotionally to the organization is critical." Subasinghe said. "We always try to reinvent our employees' experience to drive agility and get them excited about the purpose of our organization. Businesses need to work in a way that aligns both employee purpose and organizational purpose."
GRI said the system allows staffers to contribute to the work process, giving veteran staffers a chance to share knowledge gained through experience to others.
"Everything is driven on value and is interlinked," Subasinghe said. "Our HR strategy is always aligned to our business strategy and agility is a constant, everyday process."