As Godrej Industries Limited and Associated Companies (GILAC), part of the Godrej conglomerate group plans to expand its wings globally, it plans to increase its headcount to over 18,000 employees by 2017 from about 15,000 currently, said Nisaba Godrej, a scion of the Godrej family and Executive Director, Godrej Consumer Products.

Nisaba said that group companies will expand at an estimated annual growth rate of 26% rate in the next three years through organic growth and acquisitions. Credited with bringing a performance oriented culture in the group, Nisaba said the group will be expanding into the domestic market by getting into premium categories across various new segments.

The companies which are part of GILAC consist of GCPL, GAVL, Properties, Chemical and GNB.

GILAC which currently has a presence in more than 80 countries will have 11,000 employees based out of overseas locations said, Sumit Mitra, Executive Vice-President, Human Resources, Godrej Industries.

Mitra, said that the GILAC, is looking at adding good graduates and engineers into their fold and expand its management trainee programme internationally.

While the company prefers to hire local talent in its companies overseas, it also offers the option to its existing employees to move across geographies and roles across the organisation. Also, from being one of the oldest domestic groups in India, the company, in order to be contemporary, has brought down the average age of its employee base to 36 now.

Nisaba who oversees the corporate strategy and human capital functions for the group said that the company has an overall training and development budget of around Rs 8 crore.

Asked about how they retain their best talent, Nisaba said “We are trying to build an internal pipeline of leadership by encouraging employees who are able to lead others and embrace change. When businesses are doing well and growing, we create more opportunities for employees. Also, while we are a family owned business group, we are professionally run and offer a good work culture. We also ensure that people are fairly paid for the value that they create.”

The company is focussing on improving its gender diversity ratio which stands at 38 per cent of its overall employees being women at GILAC. Nisaba said the company is planning to move into a disabled friendly, state of the art office space, Godrej One, located at the Mumbai suburb of Vikrholi by the end of the year.

Apart from Godrej Nature’s basket where there was a high attrition rate of over 40 per cent at store level due to the retail industry dynamics, in other group companies their attrition rate is steady at around 13 per cent, said Mitra.

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