In March 2020, our Indian business, Ashirvad, became the first Aliaxis company to gain certification as a Great Place to Work (GPTW). The certification recognises workplaces that have a high-trust, high-performance work culture with good people practices in place to reinforce our commitment to becoming the best place to work.

Ashirvad has develop several initiatives to strengthen its HR processes and people practices since joining Aliaxis in 2018. The primary objective is to build an energised, empowered and engaged workforce to fuel the company’s growth aspirations of building “Plus One Ashirvad” – which aims to double turnover by 2022.

This goal, together with Ashirvad’s ambition of becoming the best place to work, inspired the company’s management team to reach out to the GPTW Institute (India) – which issues what is considered the ‘Gold Standard’ across industries – to assess the work culture at Ashirvad.Ashirvad submitted its application to the GPTW Institute in 2019 alongside an application for recognition as one of the “Top 100 Places to Work” in the manufacturing industry in India. The certification process is divided into two parts: a trust assessment performed through an employee survey and a culture assessment focused on people practices.

The business developed a strategic communications campaign as a launch pad for its GPTW certification process, including the recruitment of employee brand ambassadors. It proposed a climate of “Hum Ashirvadi” based on employee advocacy, company love, unity and belonging. This was designed to amplify trust, pride and camaraderie in the workplace – the three key sentiments measured by the GPTW survey.

The campaign encouraged employees to be self-led culture change agents developing a positive and supportive business environment worth celebrating. Plus, a quick-build SharePoint community site was created to measure employee engagement with real-time analytics of the 4,000-strong Ashirvad family. “The company is very proud to be the first in the Aliaxis Group to achieve this certification in its first attempt, which very few organisations are able to accomplish,” says Deepak Mehrotra, Managing Director, Ashirvad. “In the process of applying for the award, we made great strides in building employee morale and camaraderie among our diverse workforce. Being Hum Ashirvadi to our India division means living our company values, demonstrating our pride of ownership culture and coming together to make a great workplace that can drive our +1 growth journey.”