INNOVATION SPECIAL..Godrej Gives Push to Innovative Streak

Godrej Gives Push to Innovative Streak

Vandana Scolt (28) is a manager at consumer goods major Godrej. Her regular job role entails corporate HR functions. However, these days, Scolt devotes some part of her daily work schedule to exploring the innovator in her.
Like Scolt, Vaibhav Ram, a 30-year-old deputy general manager at GCPL, is busy ideating on proposals ranging from waste water management to the global careers programme.
Scolt and Ram are two of the 12 employees identified by the consumer goods major for its Godrej Fellows Programme, which aims to generate new ideas, promote leadership development, create change agents within the organisation, while at the same time enabling the selected employees to explore their innovation and entrepreneurial acumen.
The 12 fellows, from executive level to middle management and who are all less than 30 years of age, will get mentoring support from the top global management team of Godrej to develop their ideas (ranging from energy conservation to creating global careers) and work together to convert them into viable business projects. At the end of the year, the fellows will get an opportunity to showcase their ideas and then work on execution of the projects. “We’re looking at how you expose young bright minds to business issues and push them to different levels of thinking, and how you groom them as leaders of tomorrow by giving them exposure, inputs and a little more handholding,” says Sumit Mitra, executive vice president (corporate HR), Godrej Industries.
The programme will run for 12 months, and the company plans to continue after the first batch. The fellows meet two or three times a month and are put through structured learning in areas where they need more inputs.
The group will undergo several programmes during the year such as leading business, conducted by a Harvard Business School professor that would give them insights on organisations value proposition and creating a competitive advantage.
The initiative will give the fellows access to world class learning resources, and a platform to execute their ideas and hone their leadership skills.
“It will help address some of the gaps in leadership,“ says Mitra. He adds that the programme will prepare them to take over larger roles and have a much broader perspective and visibility that will give them faster career growth.

RICA BHATTACHARYYA ET121211