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Talent for us is not confined to upper class people. We see amazing talent coming from rural India (View Comments)
Yasmin Taj
Posted On Wednesday, December 23, 2009 at 12:15:27 PM
Manatosh Bandyopadhyay, Executive Director (Group HR), Mawana Sugars Limited gives an overview of the sugar industry
1) Please give us an overview of the industry and how it is doing presently.
India has been known as the original home of sugar and sugarcane. Indian mythology supports the above fact as it contains legends showing the origin of sugarcane. India is the second largest producer of sugarcane next to Brazil. Presently, about 4 million hectares of land is under sugarcane with an average yield of 70 tonnes per hectare. There are around 45 millions of sugar cane growers in India and a larger portion of rural labourers in the country largely rely upon this industry.
The sugar industry in India is highly political. The government allots us areas to buy cane. At present, since the prices have gone up, even farmers are asking for more money. Hence, the situation is a little volatile. But work is still going on in all our plants.
2) Please give us a brief overview of your company.
Mawana Sugars Limited (formerly known as Siel Limited) emerged as an independent entity in 1989 out of the restructuring of the erstwhile DCM Group. Mawana Sugars has been engaged in the business of manufacture and selling of chemicals, sugar and edible oils.
3) Can you describe the current employment trends in your industry?
At present, not much hiring is taking place in this industry. More of replacements are happening. Also, indirect employment is happening at certain good levels.
4) What kinds of career opportunities are available in this industry?
In our industry, we typically look for two types of professionals. The first category consists of commercial group of people like people in the legal, IT, HR and marketing fields where we pick up quality people from good institutes. But retention is a big issue in this category. The second category consists of people like sugar technologists, chemists, quality analysts, hygienists, engineers and other workers in the plants. We have a lot of opportunities to people on the bottom of the pyramid.
5) What is the career growth in this industry?
People in this industry have very good growth opportunities. People can rise to a managerial level very easily. We are also creating a good leadership pipeline and giving them that extra edge. We trust our employees. Whenever we make more profits, we share it with them. We are always on the right side of the law.
6) What are some of the traits and qualifications you look for in the people you hire?
Team player is the top most criteria for us. We work in loose structures. We give high priority to value system, have good reference checks, and check the candidate’s integrity. We also see communication abilities and the ability to empathise. People who can give multiple ideas are what we want. We look for people who have one-step-down ability along with one-step-up potential. Talent for us is not confined to upper class people. We see amazing talent coming from rural India.
7) Please tell us about the special HR practices which your organisation has adopted in order to motivate your employees and retain them.
The whole HR philosophy in Mawana Sugars comes from the owners themselves who give immense importance to social and cultural life of their people. We give good benefits to our employees which include medical benefits and wage agreements. We keep periodical large scale interactive gatherings where everyone sits and discusses issues and other relevant things. In these gatherings, food is served to juniors by seniors including chairman and directors. We also take workers to study missions and trainings. We also provide health centres and counselling to them. Other than these, we also do a lot of social work. We have setup schools in our townships. We also do a lot of work for women empowerment.
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