People are the glue that binds everything together at Sunshine Holdings. They are also agents of change and growth, explains Michelle Senanayake, Group Head HR.
Sunshine Holdings has interests in healthcare, consumer goods and agribusiness. Its healthcare business comprises long-term partnerships with top international and local principals providing comprehensive solutions for pharmaceuticals, medical devices, pharmaceutical manufacturing, healthcare retail, and delivery and distribution. Its consumer goods segment includes a confectionery business and the largest branded tea company in the country for serving international and local markets. The agribusiness segment represents Watawala Plantations and Watawala Dairy.
During the year to end March 2021, one of the challenging years for the economy in recent memory, group revenue grew 16.6% from a year earlier, with consumer goods and healthcare driving this growth. Its success derives from a growth strategy of investing in people and technology to empower employees and create delightful consumer experiences.
Like, for instance, a Sunshine Holdings subsidiary Healthguard, the first branded pharmaceutical retail chain in the country, revolutionising consumer experiences in healthcare and wellness with digital technology at the height of the pandemic.
In this interview, Michelle Senanayake explains why people matter, why it matters to Sunshine Holdings to pursue a holistic approach to employee wellbeing, and what the group is doing to improve inclusion and diversity to empower women.
Covid has had a profound impact on how people live and work. Many businesses are finding that employee experiences matter more than ever before. In that context, what is your approach to motivating, building confidence and encouraging the female workforce at Sunshine Holdings?
The group practices equality of opportunity for all employees irrespective of ethnic origin, religion, political opinion, gender, marital status, or physical disability. In that sense, Sunshine Holdings has always been gender-neutral, or gender blind as it were, and caring for our people and guiding them through uncertain times were things that we were always striving to do. However, the pandemic brought unprecedented challenges and a degree of uncertainty that made it difficult to anticipate what the immediate future would bring.
This environment of uncertainty prompted us to look at the whole 360-degree perspective of how we can do things for all our people, from getting them to work in a safe environment to engaging and motivating them and improving their wellbeing while a crisis was unfolding around us.
Sunshine Holdings is predominantly in essential services – healthcare, consumer goods and agribusiness – so we had to reassure our staff and encourage them to work despite the lockdowns and travel restrictions and ensure their health and safety. Everywhere, women suffered the most because of the pandemic, especially in the retail sector of the economy, with many of them losing their jobs, suffering hefty income losses or finding it harder to balance the needs of their families and work commitments. Cognizant of the new challenges confronting women, we redoubled our holistic approach to improving their wellbeing and creating better opportunities for them.
You are adopting a holistic approach that focuses on a person’s welfare as a whole. Why is this important to Sunshine Holdings?
We are passionate about taking the holistic approach because Sunshine Holdings is all about people. If we want our products to delight consumers and give them unique experiences, we have to create engaging experiences for the people behind those products because that is something they want to have, and we would also want them to have too!
Our people strategy is all about Bringing Good Things to Life, which is our purpose as a business. When you talk about a pandemic and healthcare, that meant we had to rise to the challenge, motivate and transform our people and let them know that we are with them every step of the way.
Can you give us examples of how you are improving employee experiences and wellbeing at Sunshine Holdings? How have those initiatives impacted the performance of the company?
Our holistic approach focuses on providing job security, financial security, physical and mental health support, protection and work-life balance to all our employees.
Such an approach requires having to bring several elements together. One crucial element centres around good communication, inspiring people by reinforcing the idea that they are doing something for our communities and that there is a higher purpose in why we are doing our work.
For example, for our healthcare business, that purpose would be to make our country healthy, help it get out of this pandemic and manage the contagion better.
Another element involves building the foundations for continuous learning and growth, and having done that proved to be a great enabler post-pandemic. For instance, when the lockdowns and travel restrictions changed the way we worked, it meant providing our people with the resources to be productive while working from home and upskilling and reskilling people to rise to the occasion to meet the rapidly evolving demands of our work.
On the engagement side, to keep our young workforce motivated, we started health-related programmes like weight-watching, where they had to eat right, and post pictures of what they were eating and how they were losing weight or monitoring their weight. That is just one example of how our promise of Bringing Good Things to Life begins with our employees.
We have also created opportunities for our people to make a difference in society. For instance, our ESG arm, the Sunshine Foundation, is committed to irradicating diabetes by creating awareness and conducting educational programmes to foster lifestyle changes in collaboration with Healthy Life Clinic through ‘Suwa Diviya’, a passion project for everyone at Sunshine Holdings.
Can you tell us how Sunshine Holdings has increased employment and leadership opportunities for women?
Historically, female participation in the healthcare and agribusiness sectors that we are involved in has been low, especially at senior levels, and progress has been slow. We looked hard at changing that at Sunshine Holdings by understanding what needs to change to create an environment that would attract women to consider a career in these sectors. We have made significant progress, and today women occupy leadership and senior management positions in our ventures.
Women occupy several leadership positions across the group, and that has enriched Sunshine because they bring a unique point of view to the table that we immensely value.
We are on the cusp of rolling out a comprehensive package for women across the group that would level the playing field and unlock equal, equitable and better opportunities for all our women. It entails having the structures and processes that cater to their unique life situations and needs and bring out the best in them.
We recently adopted a zero-tolerance approach to gender-based violence and sexual harassment. We updated reporting mechanisms to protect the identity of complainants and adopt a victim-centred approach in applying remediation under our HR policies and national regulations. The complaints channel is open to all staff, including outsourced and contracted staff.
Our people strategy is all about bringing good things to life, which is our purpose as a business
Can you share a few examples of how women are making a difference in your organisation, giving leadership, driving change and shining as role models for other women?
Our people are the embodiment of our values. In the hard couple of years we’ve had for the entire economy because of the pandemic, the continuous investment that Sunshine makes in its people yielded results that exceeded our expectations.
I believe all our people are inspirational role models, and their commitment and dedication to go above and beyond during the pandemic are shining examples of their drive and passion. Women, in particular, have been exceptional considering how intensely Covid-19 impacted their homes and their work lives.
We have many women in key positions across the group who are role models. They handle some of our biggest brands, and our healthcare brands are all headed by women country managers. But we are inspired by all our women. From the lady who makes the tea to the brand manager handling our top brands and my HR team motivating and nurturing our people: they are all role models. There is something we can take from each of their lives. For example, the lady who makes tea, her main objective in life is to educate her daughter, and she has worked so hard to make that happen, and that’s wonderful and inspires us all.