What helped me to keep going....

I have always been proud to be a part of the Nestle organization. Many people are surprised when they hear that I retired from Nestle after working for 35 long years. There are many such people like me in Nestle India and in other countries who joined Nestle at the beginning of their careers and retired from there. I often come across this question why do people tend to work for longer times in Nestle compared to other companies? Today’s generation can’t digest this fact easily.

Reflecting on my journey of 35 years with Nestle, I can say that this is what people refer to as CULTURE. I must say that there is a strong culture blended with human values in the Nestle organization. I am so proud to have had the opportunity to be part of it.

People spend hours discussing the Culture of an organization. In my understanding, CULTURE can’t be understood by discussing or debating. The culture of an organization can only be understood by participating, practicing, and experiencing. When I joined Nestle many years back, I had no idea about corporate culture. Many friends and well-wishers mentioned a few things, all of which pointed towards the 5-star culture - the evening parties, get-togethers, meetings, conferences, etc. I didn’t understand much with my humble middle-class background. I was a bit nervous as I was not sure whether I would be able to adapt to the ‘culture’ as mentioned. But much later I realized that the culture mentioned to me by my friends was not the real ‘CULTURE of the organization. Organizational culture was something different.

There is something in Nestle. As mentioned earlier I spent my entire professional life of 35 years in this organization. The first part of my career was in my home country India and in the second part I was on expatriation to Nestle companies in other countries and regions. Everywhere I met colleagues who had long or even longer innings in Nestle. It is indeed very common. Why does it happen? What is it that people get attracted to? Is it the salary and perks? Nestle offers decent packages but so do many other companies also. In many cases, offerings from other companies are more attractive, but people continue with Nestle's job. Are they less ambitious or risk-averse? The answer is no. After many years of working experience at Nestle, I can answer that question.

It is not only people like me who joined Nestle at the beginning of their career who tend to spend longer time in Nestle, there are examples of people who joined Nestle after doing job hopping in a few organizations, they also tend to spend longer than average time in Nestle compared to other organizations.

It all boils down to the much-discussed subject called ‘CULTURE’. It is not something that can be understood or experienced in a day. One must be there to experience it. Let me try to explain this.

Nestle has clearly defined what it takes to be a great organization. It is nicely documented. But most importantly, it is not so much about the document, it is about the application of the values defined in these documents in day-to-day practice. The organization ensures that each employee understands these values well by participating in regular training sessions. To ensure that these values are practiced in day-to-day business, these values are made part of the annual performance evaluation system. Each employee gets an opportunity to talk to his/her line manager about how these values were practiced by the employee for business growth.

One such Nestle value is ‘Respect’. This I experienced throughout my journey of 35 years. I will remain grateful to Nestle for teaching me the value of 'RESPECT', not only in business but also in social life. No matter what we do, we will only be remembered by others if we remain humble and show respect – respect for individuals, respect for time, respect for ethics, respect for merits, success, brilliance, and above all respect for the organization, family, and our society.

In general people in Nestle practice this core value of life. Does it mean that there are no exceptions? Does it mean that no one misbehaves in Nestle with junior employees or colleagues? Like any other organization it is there but those are exceptions. Let us keep exceptions aside for now. Post retirement my heart is still filled with the beautiful memories of practicing mutual respect in business. I have lots of memories of that. It is so strong that I can easily ignore those small moments of disrespect and dishonesty I observed during my journey with Nestle. I will end this point by saying that I respect everyone, and my gesture is reciprocated most of the time. That’s the power of values in life.

Another powerful value of life is ETHICS which is highly encouraged and practiced in Nestle. We hear so many stories of deviation from defined norms to achieve short-term results in business. None of my bosses ever asked me to deviate from the defined norms and guidelines even during very difficult times. I value that. I respect that. Have I been lucky? Maybe. But in general, I have seen Nestle Leaders being ethical. Line managers are fair to people to the best of their abilities and understanding. Transparency is encouraged.

I have been highly impressed with these values since the early days of my professional life. It continued to impress me till the last day. I will always have these framed in my mind. I think this is one of the reasons why people feel comfortable working at Nestle. I am not saying that CULTURE is the only reason for long service in Nestle, but surely it is one of the influencing factors.

Let me talk about the other pillars of Nestle culture that I experienced. If we forget salary and perks for the time being, people change companies to build their careers. They want new opportunities and new experiences for learning. Nestle offers that opportunity. In my 35 years with Nestle, I worked in 12 different roles by either going vertically up or getting a horizontal shift to a completely different role. This is unique to Nestle. It is like working for different companies under a huge umbrella called Nestle. With changes in my function, role, and location every less than three years I never had monotony in my life, always on the move. Let me be honest here. Thrice during my early years at Nestle I was almost on the verge of jumping ship, but then some positive changes happened, and I decided not to change. Talent management and career planning is a very serious activity in Nestle and I can only vouch for that with my personal experience. Later when I assumed the senior leadership position at Nestle, I also used to pay a lot of attention to this. There are examples of many talents going out of Nestle for not getting the right opportunity. That can’t be stopped completely, but there is a genuine culture of giving opportunities to deserving employees to build careers inside Nestle. Many Nestle CEOs worked for many years at Nestle. This is a testimony to the great Nestle CULTURE that I am talking about.

This takes me to the third pillar of Nestle CULTURE i.e. Continuous learning opportunity. There is a great opportunity for every Nestle employee to learn throughout their career in Nestle. This is not only on-the-job learning or in-house training sessions, but also many opportunities are there to learn from experts, leaders, and business schools. Today even the deserving shop floor employees, administrative and accounts staff, and junior sales and marketing staff are sent to business schools for learning. A lot of investments are made to enhance the soft skills of the company employees. I got huge opportunities to learn continuously throughout my journey. As mentioned earlier, I had a very humble background before I joined Nestle. I was doing my post-graduation in Physics when I joined, but I could not sit for the final semester exam as I had to join Nestle just before the final exam. I also never went to any business school for my management studies. But I was happy that with this humble background, I could still have a decent enjoyable journey with continuous learning opportunities. I also got the opportunity to attend many training programs at Nestle. Getting the opportunity to attend the Leadership development programs of London Business School was truly a blessing for me. I am talking about myself just as an example. There are many others like me in Nestle. Many went further up both in careers and the learning journey. But what it is important to note is that there are many opportunities and surely it is one of the reasons why people work for Nestle longer.

There is a fourth factor that I feel keeps people engaged in Nestle. This is my personal feeling. The rewards and recognition culture of the organization. An effective and honest rewards and recognition process can help employees with a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. At times recognition becomes the strongest motivating factor to perform better. Many years back when I joined the organization there was a simple process of communicating with the management. There was something called a folio book where employees used to write whatever they saw in the marketplace or something they felt needed management’s attention. Every time an employee wrote something useful for business, management used to write an acknowledgment letter. Please remember that this was much before the email age. I remember that during my initial days, I got several such acknowledgment letters from the management, and it helped me to remain curious and alert in the market to find new issues that will help businesses. I mentioned this just to explain how important that recognition program was for a new employee like me. Over the years the rewards and recognition programs have evolved, but I still remember those simple acknowledgment letters that inspired me to go for more. I believe that even this is true for today. The rewards and recognition program of Nestle keeps you glued to the system. Employees get a feeling of satisfaction.

I conclude this article by saying that I have huge respect for the Nestle organization. I have tried to give my perspective here. Views are personal. But if it helps even a single young professional to understand what will help him to travel the journey, I shall be happy. Look for opportunities to learn, respect people, and grab opportunities that come your way. Success will come.