We strongly believe that our People are our most valuable asset and it is our continuous endeavour to focus on the development of our internal talent pool and attract the best talent available by providing the right opportunities. Guided by our vision of being the most admired employer, we have strived to engage our employees and provide them with the right tools and resources to continually improve and upskill themselves to holistically develop as evolved professionals.
The same is also in line with our group ESG journey that stands on the three core pillars of Transforming the Workplace, Transforming Communities and Transforming the Planet. All our organisational policies and practices are aligned to deliver on these core values.
Transforming the Workplace is driven by the principles of promoting diversity, inclusion, and gender parity to unleash the organisation’s full potential.
Moreover, we have also adopted an integrated approach when it comes to Human Resources (HR) at Hindustan Zinc and these are closely interlinked with our Sustainability Goals 2025. To ensure the holistic development of our employees, we have developed a mutually inclusive relationship with them to ensure their progress, while effectively propelling our sustainability journey.
Hindustan Zinc has always been a frontrunner in promoting gender, geographical, cultural, and racial diversity. In this journey of promoting gender parity and developing an inclusive culture, we have set a target for ourselves to achieve and maintain 30% diversity among all Executive and Management Committees and ensure that equal opportunities are provided to all without any bias.
This gives us many reasons to celebrate our progress on our strategic priorities and targets.
At Hindustan Zinc, our organisational values are the guiding principles that provide a purpose and direction to each decision. Our values of Integrity, Respect, Entrepreneurship, Care, Innovation, Trust, and Excellence lie at the foundation of our sustainable business.
We actively foster a culture of mutual trust in interactions with our stakeholders and encourage an open dialogue which ensures mutual respect.
We embrace a conducive environment for encouraging innovation that leads to a zero harm environment and exemplifies optimal utilisation of natural resources, improved efficiencies and recoveries of by-products.
We place utmost importance in engaging ethically and transparently with all our stakeholders, taking accountability of our actions to maintain the highest standards of professionalism and complying with international policies and procedures.
We lay consistent emphasis on Human Rights, respect the principle of free, prior, informed consent, while our engagements with stakeholders give local communities the opportunity to voice their opinions and concerns.
As we continue to grow, we are committed to the triple bottom line of People, Planet and Prosperity to create a sustainable future in a zero harm environment for our communities.
Our people are our most important assets. We actively encourage their development and support them in pursuing their goals.
Our primary focus is to deliver value of the highest standard to our stakeholders. We are constantly motivated on improving our costs and production quality in each of our businesses through a culture of best practice benchmarking.
Our Group’s DNA, philosophy, and ways of working have been precipitated in the CEO Rulebook which provides the guiding light for how we work and deliver.
Our people philosophy revolves around the guidelines from the CEO Rulebook. Business units are directly accountable to lead workforce planning, hiring, retention and reward programmes. The HR team reviews the strategic workforce plan and is responsible for making corrections as necessary, to allow for any deviations.
Our Human Resource strategy over the years has evolved from fulfilling a support function to becoming a strategic partner in our business. This has catalysed a transformation in our HR strategy, which is now aligned with the organisational strategy.
These three pillars are interdependent, inextricably linked, and aligned with each other in our HR strategy.
Total headcount in
FY 2021-22
(2,487 Executives,
1,013 Non-Executives)
Attrition
(11.8% of total
headcount)
Developing our people and our partnerships build a future-ready organisation
PEOPLE PERFORMANCE PROCESSES
Organisation Design
Talent Management
Digitisation and Automation
Industrial Relations
Hindustan Zinc Vision: To be the largest Zinc and Lead producers globally
Vedanta Vision, Values and Pillars
Total Business Associates
Indigenous Employee Percentage
Differently Abled (on-roll Employees)
% of Women in the Executive Workforce
No. of Six Sigma Projects Initiated in FY 2021-22
(14,118 Man-days) Training Man-days
Average Training Man-days per Executive Employee
Age Diversity
Attrition Rate
Senior Management /
Board Diversity
Engineers
CA
MBA or equivalent
*% of the executive workforce as on March 31, 2022
In an eventful year that tested our perseverance, resilience, and strength, we, at Hindustan Zinc, successfully navigated the various challenges of the rapidly spreading Omicron variant supported by the sheer grit and determination of our people. Despite the numerous odds facing the organisation, our teams rose to the occasion to steer the organisation to the next level, enabling us to achieve the highest-ever milestones in various aspects.
Ensuring Right Management in Place
Optimising employee productivity, engagement and teamwork through digitisation and automation
Ensuring seamless operation through an integrated approach
Through focussed interventions in tandem with our HR strategy, we, at Hindustan Zinc:
With a focus on enhancing their learning and development, executives are enrolled through the HZL Work Integrated Learning Platform. Our initiatives during FY 2021-22 covered:
A glance at some of our training programmes and the number of employees who benefited:
As an integrated player with strong focus on holistic value delivery across our stakeholder fabric, we face many challenges with respect to stereotypes of gender, age, regional ethnicity, education etc. These challenges lead to low employee engagement, impacting manpower productivity, leading to lack of organic growth within the organisation, unconscious bias in managers, lower representation of women across levels particularly in leadership roles, and lack of basic facilities for women especially in mining operations.
Acknowledging the need for gender diversity, from the Board level to the mines, we decided to raise the diversity bar through a cohesive project. The project was initiated by creating our vision, strategy, roadmap and implementation plan through brainstorming and ideation with the leadership team. It was focussed on Diversity & Inclusion as a business imperative for the organisation, with the ownership starting from the leadership team and cascading down to the shopfloor.
The Inclusion Project
The Inclusion Project
The ESG journey at Hindustan Zinc signifies our commitment towards adopting best practices and policies for the greater good of the planet. As we embark on the next steps, ‘Transforming the Workplace’ is one of the key pillars of this framework, which focusses on promoting diversity and inclusion alongside integrity, respect, entrepreneurship, care, innovation, trust, and excellence.
We are cognisant of the importance of bonding with our people to progress on our collective journey to realise the organisation’s vision. Our employee engagement strategy is specifically designed to connect with our people by proactively reaching out to them and taking cognisance of their needs.
Holistic approach to engagement and quality of life
5 dimensions of Engagement/Work Culture – Credibility, Respect, Fairness, Care and Camaraderie, with platforms created to foster the same
8 dimensions of well – being – emotional, physical, occupational, social, spiritual, intellectual, environmental, financial
Recognising the value of a diverse workforce, we, at Hindustan Zinc, have committed ourselves to providing equal employment opportunities. We are focussed on creating an inclusive workplace and work culture, in which all employees are treated with respect, care, fairness, sensitivity, and dignity. We believe that workforce diversity is a business imperative and strive to ensure that our workforce represents all sections of society. This open mindset, we believe, will help us deliver better business results. We have hence committed ourselves to providing equal employment opportunities, without any discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
While it is our endeavour to be inclusive of the LGBTQ+ people, we feel it is essential that non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies in the workplace must additionally include gender-neutral language specifically in addressing sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.
Based on our employee engagement approach and methodology, we have launched various platforms and initiatives to stay connected with our people.
CEO Virtual Townhall (Reward & Recognition: HZL Star Award to the employees – 244, Operators from Business Partners – 99)
Caters to performance and developmental needs of our new joinees across 4 pillars [Leadership Shadowing, Anchorship for Development, Goal Setting & Performance Delivery, Dipstick Feedback & Action] – Coverage : 150 GETs, 36 MTs, 9 VLDPs & 12 OTs
Adopted by HZL HR, along with creation of workstream for each vertical, in a concerted drive towards Excellence in HR. We have 11 workstreams which are working with SMART KPIs and deployment of best-in class people practices
Launched to reboot the organisational structure and align it with our business strategy, enabling the organisation to unlock efficiency and accelerate growth. This critical project, driven by HR in tandem with business leadership, aims at design principles with ‘Right person in Right job’ concept
A COVID-19 mega vaccination campaign was initiated across locations for all on-roll employees, their families and business partners/contract workforce and their families, as part of our guiding principles of care and commitment to guarantee the health and holistic well-being of our people.
We extended help to local panchayats and local health administrations by disinfecting villages, spraying, and fumigating with sodium hypochlorite solution, in 149 villages, and providing medical gear like masks, sanitisers and personal protective equipment.
In the fight against COVID-19, we undertook the following measures:
We introduced an insurance policy for our contract workforce across our locations in Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, covering more than 25,800 contractual employees.
We have set up a state-of-the-art 100-bed field hospital in Dariba that includes 80 normal beds and 20 ICU beds, with 24x7 oxygen aid for COVID patients.
We launched a series of knowledge-sharing on a weekly basis on how to boost human immunity against COVID.
Through this, we share inspirational stories of our employees and Zinc Parivaar who have won the battle against COVID-19.
The progress on HR strategic priorities is on-track. The ESG projects taken up under the sustainability framework are as follows:
Gender Diversity
Diversity Beyond Gender
Women as percentage of Hires
High-Potential Women Ratio
Diversity Ratio in HZL ManCom
Diversity Ratio in HZL EXCO
Diversity ratio for executives and other employees (Female v/s Male)
Overall gender diversity among executives: ~16%
Dariba Smelter Complex initiated deployment of women in all the three shifts in laboratory and security functions
We have automated the procedure of capturing and redressal of grievances. An online query management system is used by employees for raising queries.
queries/grievances
raised
queries/grievances
resolved/closed
(During FY 2021-22)
We also capture employee feedback through various interventions including CEO Connect, CHRO Connect, CEO Townhall, LEARN with CEO, Rendezvous with CEO, and engagement with HZL ManCom. We also capture the feedback during exit interviews.
For business partners, grievances and its redressal are taken up on various platforms such as Grievance Redressal Committee, Canteen Committee, Joint Consultation Committee etc.
We have a single union concept since inception. The Company has one union, affiliated to INTUC, and recognised by the Management, across all locations. At the corporate level, there exists the Hindustan Zinc Workers’ Federation (HZWF), which was constituted on October 23, 1982, and subsequently recognised by Hindustan Zinc vide letter dated November 27, 1982. HZWF is the sole bargaining agent for workers at the apex level, a body which believes in the dictum that ‘If the company grows, our growth will be taken care of.’ It consists of core members from the recognised Union across locations.
All matters pertaining to service conditions, wages and benefits, strategic policies in respect of workmen are discussed across the table, at the unit level as well as the corporate level, with the Unions/ Federation. Discussions are driven by the philosophy - ‘to resolve our issues amongst ourselves in our own way jointly’.
All executive members of the federation are either employees or ex-employees of the Company, and represent the recognised unions in their respective units. They decide the strategy to deal with issues of their employees alongside the Management. There are multiple bipartite forums like Joint Consultation Committee, Welfare Committee, House Allotment Committee, Safety Committee, Canteen Committee & Transport Committee across locations, to deal with matters of workmen in all facets of life. These committees have equal representation of the Management and the Union.
The Economic Times (Category: Company with Great Managers)
(Category: Prize in Leadership in HR Excellence)
((Category: Leading practices in technology deployment in HR and Champions in Response to COVID-19)
(Category: Excellence in Diversity & Inclusion and Significant Contribution in Leveraging HR Technology)
(Category: Digital Dexterity)
(Category: Diversity & Inclusion)
Going forward, we shall look at navigating changing work trends triggered by the pandemic, to increase workforce resilience and effectiveness, while improving employee experience. We shall focus on building critical skills and competencies by creating a more dynamic approach towards sensing the skills required, especially for critical roles. Taking on greater responsibility for driving innovation and executing business transformations in a hybrid work model, we shall strive to support the development of such a model by using human-centric design to offer flexible experiences, enable intentional collaboration and drive empathy based management.
To foster long-term workforce resilience, we shall reassess the workforce support offerings to drive workforce health, not just performance. We aim to improve workforce health to drive organisational resilience and sustain performance without jeopardising the health and safety of the workforce. We shall work to accelerate progress on our Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI) goals by establishing consequential accountability – holding leaders accountable – instead of collective accountability, which does not produce real results on DEI outcomes.
To build a ‘fit-for-future’ organisation, we shall structure the HR function towards achieving agility, customer centricity and operational efficiency. We shall drive empowerment through a HR operating model that better adapts to changing employee expectations, greater use of technology, and increased cost pressures. It is our endeavour to move to a more dynamic operating model and upskill capabilities.
With the pandemic proving to be a watershed moment that triggered a permanent shift in attitudes and work norms, we are strategically focussed on ensuring workforce effectiveness, backed by dynamic management of employee skills. Our efforts, moving forward, will be more sharply centred on preparing the workforce to take greater accountability towards driving innovation and executing business transformations in a hybrid work model. We are committed to fostering long-term workforce resilience, while accelerating progress on our DEI goals. We have identified the creation of a ‘fit-for-future’ organisation, backed by functional effectiveness, as the overarching agenda of our future strategy.