The quality of well-being that employees of a specific company enjoy is a reliable measure of the health of that company as a whole. It becomes all the more important for organizations catering to a market that is highly regulated like that of mutual funds. Each employee is a treasure to the Asset management firm, given that the employee’s commitment and dedication to serve each touch point of business and guide them in the right direction, is key to success.
ICICI Prudential has been an epitome of an ideal employer with a fast growing popularity amongst aspiring job seekers, typically due to its numerous initiatives towards employee well-being. ICICI Prudential Asset Management Company Limited is a leading AMC in India, focused on bridging the gap between savings and investments and creating long term wealth for investors via myriad of simple and relevant investment solutions.
The AMC is a joint venture between ICICI Bank and Prudential Plc, one of UK’s largest players in the financial services sectors. Over the years as the joint venture, the company has established a reputation of preeminence in the Indian Mutual Fund Industry. Being such a central player in the industry, ICICI Prudential AMC has strived to keep its employees highly engaged with focus on their overall growth. “We are in the business of trust. At every touch-point, our interaction with stakeholders decides how much trust we are able to build with the customers. Therefore, it is critical for us to know how each employee is able to engage with the customer and portray the brand accurately.
This adds to the overall customer experience, and thus, investing in our employees becomes paramount to us”, says Nikhil Bhende, Head HR. Essentially, it needs mentioning, that ICICI Prudential AMC has followed an employee lifecycle philosophy of hiring young talent, grooming them over period of time, and placing them in different leadership roles. The firm hires management post graduates and professionally qualified CAs/CS/CFAs and other professionally qualified post graduates in various functions, grooms them over a period, and eventually nurturing and developing them to take higher responsibilities within the organization. Employees are encouraged to be fungible and flexible while adapting to growth opportunities.
A Comprehensive Development Trajectory
The learning and development structure is built keeping the roles in mind across various departments. Right from the day an employee sets foot in the organization they go through pre-defined learning interventions. The learning interventions have been designed, identified and
assigned keeping in mind the role the employee will perform and enabling them to be productive and confident in their roles. Learning opportunities are extended across formal & informal, online and classroom as well as on-the-job learning interventions to prepare the employee for even bigger roles in the organization, thereby opening wide windows of opportunities. ICICI Prudential AMC believes in building internal talent by providing functional and leadership development opportunities to high performing employees. A robust talent identification process is put in place to identify and groom internal talent for taking on critical roles within the organization.
This also helps employees to grow in their careers and leverage their potential to the fullest. It enables in creating an engaged and passionate workforce. Personalized IDPs (Individual Development Plans) are discussed with the employees taking their career aspiration as well as role requirement into consideration while designing their career paths in the organization. Nurturing and developing talent is one of the key priorities of top management at ICICI Prudential AMC and hence the organization invests a lot of time and effort to groom its next leaders. “Our focus in the past few years, has largely been to create exceptional employee experience”, affirms Nikhil.
Seamless Learning Experience
ICICI Prudential AMC has leveraged technology to ensure that Learning never stops, and that the employees can access Learning on the go. The organization has adapted to the digital learning ways that align well with the millennial generation. Introducing blended learning, ICICI Prudential AMC, as an organization, maintains a balance of push &pull learning interventions. This allows the employee not only to take charge of his/her learning but also the organization to create opportunities for its employees to grow and seamlessly transition into their roles. The digital learning platforms with credible content, based on adult learning methodologies, provide a plethora of alternatives for the curious minds at ICICI Prudential AMC.
Not Breaking the Momentum in Difficult Times
Though the pandemic made a brutal impact on the country’s businesses and economy at large, it has taught them the most important lesson to improvise and keep moving. While organizations hustled to keep the business running via remote work opportunities, ICICI Prudential AMC had a bigger challenge given the nature of work that required some of the employees belonging to certain functions to be present physically. Nevertheless, the firm improvised and made the transition to adapting to remote operations smoothly. Reason being, the intent to offer flexibility to employees was already there in ICICI Prudential AMC’s philosophy, which got accelerated in the given circumstances. Essentially, with the remote work culture, everything changed for good, right from Learning, to Communication, to Reward & Recognition.
ICICI Prudential AMC believes in building internal talent by providing functional & leadership development opportunities to high performing employees
Building a Conducive Environment ICICI Prudential AMC is a growing organization and intends to hire diverse talent across various functions and locations, pan India. The culture of the organization is continuously evolving and systems and processes are put in place to constantly provide aconducive environment to accommodate tenured and new employees. The organization believes that employees are its assets and investing in their growth and development by providing them environment to excel in their roles will take the organization to next level of growth. “Cultural integration, will be the key focus for us in the coming years”, concludes Nikhil.
Nikhil Bhende Head HR
An experienced HR professional, associated with the firm since 14 years and possesses two decades of over all work experience in the HR domain, helps putting talent, culture and retention at the top of the agenda for one of the fastest growing, premiere fund houses in the country.
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