Pouring in Excellence: HCCB is Great Place to Work certified yet again; also accredited for Inclusive Practices

A key imperative to our vision as India’s leading beverage manufacturer is to create a workplace that addresses unconscious bias, promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion, and encourages policies that support work-life balance and career development for all employees – right from factory floors to the markets. 

We are proud to share that our efforts have been certified a Great Place to Work for 3rd year in a row, and also accredited for Inclusive Practices by the Workplace Inclusion Index, a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiative by Great Place to Work® Institute India.

What does a GPTW certification mean?

The Great Place to Work® certification is the most definitive recognition companies around the world aim to achieve as an ‘Employer of Choice’.

With a legacy spanning over three decades, the GPTW certification given by the GPTW Institute is considered a gold standard for identifying not just good, but great workplace cultures. The certification is valued by employees and employers alike and is an affirmation of the company’s commitment to creating a healthy, happy, and productive workplace culture. 

To create and sustain such a culture, the GPTW institute employs a survey instrument to gather crucial employee insights. The insights are analysed through two separate lenses and measure organisation performance with regard to employee experience, employee engagement, and workplace culture. 

So, how did HCCB distinguish itself and perform amongst its peers? 

Excelling in the Trust Index© and Culture Audit© 

The Great Place to Work® certification evaluates companies based on two key parameters: the Trust Index© and the Culture Audit© which hold 75% and 25% of the weight, respectively. 

As part of their criteria, the Trust Index© measures the quality of the overall employee experience through anonymous feedback. The feedback received seeks to assess the level of credibility, respect, fairness (trust), and sense of pride that employees feel towards the workplace and its leadership. 

On the other hand, the Culture Audit© is a proprietary tool that evaluates the practices, programs, and policies and how they contribute to creating a positive and inclusive work environment. HCCB excelled in both parameters and stood out amongst its peers by demonstrating excellence in the survey criteria.

Accreditation for Inclusive Practices 

This Inclusive Practices assessment seeks to understand if organisations have internal and external practices to promote equal and equitable participation of historically excluded communities (women, other gender identities, LGBTIQA+ community, persons with disabilities, veterans, individuals returning from a career break, and other under-represented minorities in the country) in the workplace. 

Inclusive Practices are evaluated based on existence, structure, and the impact it has had on creating an inclusive ecosystem in the organisation and is designed keeping in mind principles of conducting business responsibly. 

To get the Accreditation, we were required to meet the below criteria: 

• At least 10% representation of historically excluded communities in the workplace.
• Meet at least 50% of the criteria laid down by the Workplace Inclusion Index on Inclusive Practices.

In India, the Institute partners with more than 1100 organisations annually, across over 22 industries, to help them build High-Trust, High-Performance Cultures designed to deliver sustained business results. 

A workplace for everyone!

A diverse group of colleagues, a dynamic work environment, and long-term growth are what we offer at HCCB. This also enables us to become a strong exporter of talent within the larger Coca-Cola ecosystem and offer global careers to our talent pool.

If one considers the vast expanse of our footprint in India, our culture includes an intersection of culture, religion, race, sexual preferences, age cohorts, and so on. Our employees do not need to change or adapt themselves to fit into HCCB. The culture is such that it lets everyone be who they are and remain true to themselves. The capacity to absorb diversity in thought, action, religion, gender, and leanings is immense

We foster a culture where every employee is responsible and accountable for actively creating a culture in which we live our principles. We are especially focused on strengthening diversity, equity, and inclusion and how it impacts our experiences at work

For example, our entire office space at the Bangalore HQ has been designed in a manner that is friendly for the differently abled. The floor is even for someone using a wheelchair. The switches and emergency alarms are at the right height for differently abled people to use them. We have gender-neutral washrooms with braille signs mounted on them. We place emphasis on the LGBTQIA+ community through sessions aimed at driving awareness around the terminologies, the importance of pronouns, and building allies

The Women Inspired Network (WIN) at HCCB aims to build a diverse and inclusive growth culture for women to interact, seek advice, and grow professionally. Our Maternity Program is aimed at providing all necessary support including medical advice and counselling to both men and women employees. The program provides for planned interventions by experts, managing pre- and post-delivery changes and back-to-work preparation allowing them to seamlessly join the work back

We also empower our employees to drive meaningful change in society – For e.g., "Let's Learn Together" (#LLT), a unique volunteer teaching initiative involves associates from the 2 HCCB factories in the Bidadi Industrial Area, Karnataka to take up the responsibility of teaching students in the government high primary schools various topics prescribed in their syllabus. We aim to contribute around 300 teaching hours across 32 government higher primary schools in the area

HCCB is a proud supporter of the military community and diversity and inclusion. To deliver meaningful change to our customers, communities, and our country, we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Army Welfare Placement Organization (AWPO) recently. The MoU was signed to launch the Military Veterans Employment Programme. This will enable employment opportunities for diverse talents from the Indian Defence Forces

In 2018, HCCB built its first fully digital factory that would employ 40% women on the shop floor - A first for any beverage company in India. 4 years after Sanand, HCCB commissioned its first vertical beverage-making factory and is the only one to employ more than 66% women in 2022 – another engineering marvel. Encouraged by the outcomes, we are now on our way to building a factory in Telangana at Bandathimmpur, which will employ at least 50% women. This factory will be ready by December 2023

We remain steadfast in our approach toward making our employees feel seen, valued, and respected and creating a positive and supportive workplace environment. 

The recognitions reinforce our commitment to creating a credible and fair workplace in line with our cultural values of hiring, inspiring, speaking, listening, appreciating, developing, caring, celebrating, and sharing.