With over 50,000 employees and operations across multiple countries, including India and Bangladesh, Brandix is leading a revolution in how HR functions, transforming it from a support department to a business partner that is capable of influencing outcomes. In a conversation with Echelon, Brandix’s Deputy General Manager – Counselling Nishadhi Cruez and Senior Manager – HR Vimali Silva explain how Sri Lanka’s largest apparel exporter is reshaping HR for the future, placing empathy, respect, and collaboration at the heart of its operations.
As global fashion brands face growing pressure to demonstrate real progress on diversity and equity, how is Brandix utilising the IDEA initiative to drive structural change beyond tokenism within its workforce?
Nishadhi: Brandix has incorporated Inclusivity, Diversity, and Equity (IDEA) to accelerate structural change. It’s not just a project, it’s a core strategic pillar for our Brandix strategy, which shapes our business, recruitment, retention, and talent growth. The initiative goes beyond surface-level representation, focusing on systemic change that applies to a large scale workforce across all of our locations. IDEA isn’t just part of HR or leadership. It involves everyone, so our operations, finance, and other departments equally contribute to the IDEA strategy.
Under IDEA, we’re focusing on three key pillars: Gender Equity, aiming for 27% of women in management and above leadership by 2027; an Inclusive Workplace, creating a safe, accepting, respectful environment for every employee; and Diversity, bringing different generations together to drive growth. Even as some global brands scale back their DE&I efforts, Brandix remains unwavering in its commitment.
What are the specific interventions under IDEA that are helping women at Brandix not just participate, but lead?
Nishadhi: Brandix has a strict no-discrimination policy, offering equal opportunities to everyone who joins the workforce. However, with the IDEA strategy in place, we’ve emphasised gender equity, aiming to empower women at various levels. Our approach includes leadership programmes for current leaders who are already sponsors of IDEA. We now bring in experts to share insights on gender equity, its business value, and how it drives success. Additionally, we run internal executive and management development programmes and capacity-building initiatives for machine operators to step into executive roles.
In our most recent executive development programme, we ensured 40% female representation, and in the management development programme, 34% female representation. Our programmes bring together women from different locations to network and discuss the practical challenges they face when aiming for leadership roles, allow senior experts to mentor women and help them advance into said roles, and help non-executive staff develop their interpersonal relationships, financial management, and overall personal development skills.
We’re also opening up female graduate trainee programmes, providing facilities like daycare and lactation rooms in our workspaces, and more to create a supportive environment that helps women retain these positions. Overall, we’re building pipelines and taking a systematic approach to ensure women can grow professionally at Brandix. Additionally, we have strong abuse and harassment policies. We introduced a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment in 2021, and it’s something we take very seriously. No one is exempt from account ability.
How is HR evolving from a traditional support function to a strategic business partner within your organisation?
Vimali: In today’s dynamic business environment, HR at Brandix has evolved beyond its traditional role of enforcing policies and managing transactions to become a strategic partner that co-creates business value. This shift is grounded in the belief that people’s strategies must not just support but actively drive business performance. We began by aligning HR strategy with business goals through collaborative sessions with leadership at the start of the FY.
Rather than presenting plans, we co-created them to ensure HR directly supports business needs. We’ve become strategic partners in areas like restructuring and succession by identifying critical “MOVES” (internal talent redeployment) and “BUY” (external hiring for skill gaps or future roles). Our focus lies in execution and impact, using Power BI for real-time, data-driven decisions on attrition, hiring, and mobility. This shift from intuition to evidence-based action has elevated HR from a process enabler to a strategic driver of organisational health, one of our greatest achievements.
What initiatives have you implemented to ensure employee engagement and development are tailored to actual business and team needs?
Vimali: At the core of our engagement and development strategy is one fundamental principle: listen first, then act. We’ve moved from standardised efforts to ongoing, personalised touch bases and focus groups across all levels, jointly led by HR and business leaders. These conversations provide deep, qualitative insights that guide meaningful actions. Engagement initiatives are now co-created with teams, resulting in higher participation and relevance.
Skip-level conversations with senior leaders foster open dialogue, trust, and visibility. To support succession and retention, we’ve introduced targeted mentoring for high-potential talent and are actively closing development gaps under our “BUILD” strategy, focusing on Behavioural growth, Upskilling, Individual development, Learning exposure, and Direction for future roles. By continuously listening, adapting, and co-owning solutions with employees and leaders, our engagement and development efforts have become both effective and scalable. Together, these initiatives reflect a Brandix HR philosophy that’s not only aligned with today’s business needs but one that is shaping the workforce of tomorrow.