Politicians aren’t honoured by invitations to cut ribbons and light lamps for luck at ceremonial openings of Hirdaramani factories and offices. Instead, it is always a group employee who is recognised with the honour. At its most recent factory opening in Pudukudirippu, the venture’s first hire laid the foundation stone. Recognising employees at key thresholds is symptomatic of the giant apparel maker’s ethos of promoting as much talent from within the organization.
Tony Nadaraja recently retired as the Chief Executive of Hirdaramani’s Woven Cluster, ending a 37-year career at the firm which he joined in 1978 straight out of school at a daily Rs10 wage. He isn’t the only senior executive to have been promoted all the way to a corner office either. Tony says many managers at Hirdaramani plants in Sri Lanka and overseas started careers as sewing machine operators and rose to positions of responsibility. Tony credits this to the Hirdaramani culture of growing talent from the factory floor upwards.
Often chief executives emerge from among the existing talent at most firms. That makes sense. Someone who has worked in the firm will understand how to get things done faster. A firm, which has focused on succession, will have qualified internal candidates. Promoting existing talent is also cheaper and often creates more benefits to the company.
Few firms have a pervasive talent development capable of imparting a corner office worthy skill set to its blue-collar workforce. Managers also tend to judge internal candidates far more harshly than they do outsiders. Tony’s rise at Hirdaramani was gradual, though a stroke of luck pushed him into early prominence.
When he joined in the seventies, Sri Lanka had just opened the economy to market forces and was seeing high growth. Hirdaramani had run garment factories since the nineteen fifties, manufacturing for the local market, which had given it a head start to export markets when the economy opened for mass production.
Around the time Tony joined, the company formed a joint venture with a Dutch firm. A Dutch production manager arrived here to oversee the JV agreement. As one of a handful who could communicate in English and Sinhala, Tony was able to work closely with the Dutch manager, translating. The manager trained Tony in work-study, and soon he became a work-study officer. When the Dutch production manager completed his stint and left, the local production manager he trained also left the company and Tony filled the void. Within one year of starting at Hirdaramani, he became the production manager and supervisor of the plant. When several of the group’s factories were set alight by arsonists during the 1983 riot, it consolidated two plants and appointed Tony as the site’s production manager.
Chamindra Dassanayake, Group Head of Human Resources, attributes Hirdaramani’s high number of employees who have risen from non-executive jobs to management, not to a restrictive policy of internal promotion but to a simple recognition of talent, a culture set by the firm’s founder, compounded at the early stages by its position as a pioneer in the sector. Since Hirdaramani ventured into mass garment production long before others, it had to train its workforce as managers. However, as other companies entered the industry in the eighties, Hirdaramani was able to start filling its management openings externally too. But it has striven to always strike a balance between promoting internally and externally.
“It’s something the directors believe in and now the chief executives trust it because it impacts the business positively,” Chamindra says. “We focus on hiring the best person for the job, whether it is externally or internally, every candidate is carefully vetted with no prejudice. But the sense of loyalty that is prevalent throughout Hirdaramani, the pride and passion that people bring to their job, is created in part by the fact that our employees know they have the opportunity to grow within the company and will always be judged fairly on their work and capabilities. We try to strike a balance. We want to continue to do that, partly because it’s necessary in the industry and partly because it’s something we believe in. If we had gone just one way or another, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”
While Hirdaramani is clear about not providing preferential treatment when filling vacancies, it does have a policy that gives the first opportunity for any opening to someone applying internally, Chamindra says. If it can’t find any suitable internal applicants for the role, then it looks outside.
Hirdaramani’s recovery following the 1983 riots showcases how it treats its employees and the loyalty this builds in the workforce. At the time, the Group had three factories in Maharagama and one in Katunayake. Two of the Maharagama units were completely destroyed in an arson attack, while the third was gutted. A few days later, Janak Hirdaramani, who headed the Group at the time, sent for Tony, asked about his safety and needs, and offered him a position at the Hirdaramani factory that was about to start operations in Bangladesh. When Tony asked Hirdaramani what he planned to do, he replied, “This is home. I’m going to stay and build.”
Tony replied, “Then we will build together.”
The Group didn’t let the riots leave its employees out in the cold. As that July’s pay day approached, it made a radio announcement for all employees to come to the Chatham Street head office to pick up their paychecks. Company records had been destroyed in the riots, but it asked each employee his or her salary from the previous month and paid out the equivalents.
Tony points out that this salary payment even in troubled times is part of the group’s dedication to looking after its employees. He recalls a time in the 1970’s when there were eight trade unions active in the Group. Strikes were frequent, and Bhagwandas Hirdaramani would visit the factory kitchen and tell the staff to send food for the people striking outside. “We used to give all three meals free,” says Tony. He adds that this culture of caring made him feel like part of the Group’s system from the very start. “This is why in hard times, the employees always stood by Hirdaramani. I stayed with them my whole career because I believed in the company and its ethics and philosophy”.
In the months following the 1983 riots, the Group leased capacity from other plants to carry on with its work, with many people working night shifts. Some Maharagama factory employees worked the second shift in the Katunayake factory. Before the end of the year, the company had rebuilt its destroyed factories and by 1984 they were fully functioning. “When we had the separate units, they were very competitive with each other,” says Tony. “But in this difficult time, people shed their differences and came together. There was huge growth because of tremendous will and commitment to build back and become bigger and better.”
Since retiring, Tony consults for Hirdaramani. Working with him are four merchandisers who’re all children of people who joined the firm as sewing machine operators decades ago. “They’re sharp, brilliant people doing great jobs,” he says. “And that’s been Hirdaramani’s strength and something we always work for –creating opportunity for our people. The company has always believed that our employees’ lives should improve and their children should do better than their parents. It’s our duty to train them and ensure that. Many people grew through Hirdaramani.”
[pullquote]Few firms have a pervasive talent development capable of imparting a corner office worthy skill set to its blue-collar workforce[/pullquote]
Today the Group is focusing on establishing factories in the north and east. “Over the years we have invested in different areas throughout the country. This is where we are needed today,” says Tony. After the war’s end, the group felt that creating jobs in the formerly war-torn areas was its responsibility. It established a factory in Vavuniya a few years ago. Seeing greater need further north, it recently built a factory in Pudukudirippu – an area that was the no fire zone during the last stages of the war.
This started with Hirdaramani setting up a training facility in the area with 600 people showing up on the first day, highlighting the level of enthusiasm by the people in the community to make use of every opportunity to develop. The factory which opened in March currently employs 200 Sewing Machine Operators (SMOs). The Group is projecting a capacity of over 500 machines, 600 SMOs and a total cadre of over 850 employees by the end of 2015, delivering a monthly capacity of over 40,000 garments.
As part of the company’s employee-centric culture, it grants significant autonomy and freedom to managers. The company is headed by a senior board and an operational team. “When I was Chief Executive, I could do what I wanted,” Tony says. “We were given a lot of freedom. Of course, you need to keep them informed, but as long as you were convinced of what you were doing, they backed you. If something went wrong, we begged forgiveness. It is a very trusting environment.”
Chamindra says more are recruited for senior roles from outside now, as Hirdaramani’s number of factories and staff has grown. However the familial culture remains. “Our employees still have long service records because it’s a closely-knit environment,” she says. “Some of our best performing factories are all run by general managers who rose up the ranks.”