Building diversity in the workplace through an inclusive culture that thrives on equitable treatment has become a tenet for all business leaders. This focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has directly translated into improved business performance for organizations across different industries. It not only enables a working environment that is free from biases but also a place where every employee looks forward to coming to work and giving their best shot!
At Sun, we deeply believe in the strength of people. We acknowledge that valuing diversity, fostering systemic equity, and nurturing the culture of inclusion is a competitive differentiator that helps us grow and reach people globally with valued medicines. Our focus on building a diverse organization has helped us bring a diverse set of ideas and solutions to the table which are directly impacting our business decisions. Though we started on this journey couple of years back, it is not a ‘nice-to-have’ program for us, but we want it to become a way of life for everyone who works with Sun. For us, it is about leveraging the power of our people who represent 50+ nationalities.
Any transformation has a pace, the path we have walked so far and ahead of us has its own story of evolution. Our constant focus on attracting diverse talent for core business roles, investment of time and energy to understand and mitigate unconscious bias and building inclusive culture along with retention of talent especially at remote sites and sales zones have given us early wins, and we intend to continue our progress on these well-built foundational practices.
Attracting Diverse Talent
While gender diversity is an agenda for the entire organization, we are especially focusing on diversity hiring in salesforce & manufacturing locations. It involves focused talent sourcing from local colleges, having all women walk-ins, attracting talent who is on career breaks, and filling our entry-level positions with female talent. To start with, we have identified specific roles in sales and manufacturing for diversity hiring e.g., focused hiring for sales roles in metros and similarly quality and operations roles in manufacturing. As a next step in this journey, we will be identifying employee champions who will be driving hiring in their own regions and also enabling connections between successful women employees at SUN with the student’s fraternity.
Inclusive Workplace
Gender & inclusive intelligence for leaders and mitigating unconscious bias are two programs which we are focusing upon to enable understanding of the cultural nuances and consciously build inclusivity. All our people managers are being coached on how to lead and manage a diverse team. They are also encouraged to share real life inclusivity challenges in a safe space where they learn from each other’s lived experiences. The second focused intervention for us is mitigating unconscious bias wherein people managers undergo a workshop on addressing these biases and stereotypes. Managers are made aware of unconscious biases and are equipped with tools to mitigate them from conversations and decisions. This has also helped them conduct bias-free interviews to ensure hiring decisions are solely based on merit, learn how to support their team considering they may have different needs, use inclusive language, work on inclusive team norms, etc. What makes this intervention stand apart is all these sessions are facilitated by our internal middle-level leaders from not only HR but also from business. These sessions have helped our people managers understand how diverse experiences shape our social identity and why diversity is critical for business success.
Retention of talent
While this has helped us in improving our gender diversity in these areas, the focus has also been on retaining talent and improving gender diversity in leadership roles. Through focused interventions on the development of talent available in mid-level positions, the focus has been on improving diversity in leadership roles.
We acknowledge the industry wide challenges of a leaky women talent pipeline, through our attention to frequent analysis of pay, engagement levels, focused development interventions, enabling policies & addressing specific needs which are not being taken care of through policies that have been able to make meaningful changes in organization.
In short, we are driving DEI using two strategic levers – bridging the talent gap and ensuring an inclusive culture.
I believe the role of business leaders in the DEI journey is extremely critical. We have systematically planned leadership engagement in all DEI interventions. Leadership connect sessions are held to drive the importance of DEI in today’s context. Leaders are expected to champion this change and focus on building diverse business units within SUN. We are aware that this cultural change can only happen through constant support and ownership of senior leadership at Sun Pharma.
Lastly, according to me, the industry as a whole needs to enable this journey by undertaking some of the following interventions in close collaboration with each other. It is not only about building an eco-system within the organization but also one which encompasses industry and society at large.
• Building awareness of opportunities in pharma organizations, especially for sales and manufacturing roles
• Skill development for critical roles wherein there is a shortage of talent
• Women Support Network, which can primarily act as a platform for collaboration
• Sharing of internal and external best practices for improving diversity and inclusion
• Recognising talent in the pharmaceutical industries through institutionalising awards
(This article is authored by Sapna Purohit , Head Of Human Resources ,SUN PHARMA)
