Brandix Group wins Gold at National HRM Awards 2012

Commitment to excellence i n Human Re s o u r c e Management has won the Brandix Group a Gold award at the 2012 HRM Awards presented by the Association of Human Resource Professionals in partnership with Aon Hewitt, the largest human resource consulting group in the world.

The annual HRM Awards recognise the passion and commitment of organisations whose innovative thinking and strategies have broken new ground in human resource management.

Ishan Dantanarayana, Chief People Officer of the Brandix Group who accepted the award disclosed that this was the first occasion that the Group had competed for an award at this prestigious event.

“We were especially delighted to win Gold as a Group because Brandix comprises of a large number of companies and a team of over 42,000 associates in 38 factory operations in three countries,” he said. “In such a scenario, demonstrating to the judges and audit teams that our exemplary employee practices are adopted across all these entities throughout the Group was a challenging task.”

He said the people- related areas assessed for the award encompass all aspects of HR across the entire employee life cycle. “Therefore, winning Gold as one Group makes our HR team very proud of this achievement and this was only possible due to the vast support and collaboration we received from the CEOs and Leaders in our operations across the Group,” Mr. Dantanarayana said.

The criteria for selecting winners included HR and business engagement, HR interaction with the leadership and across, manpower planning, hiring, employee relations, performance and talent man- agement, career and leadership development, training and capability enhancement, access to resources, compensation, rewards & recognition, people administration, communication, working environment, health and wellbeing, retention practices, exit management and employer branding.

This was the second accolade won by Brandix in July 2012 for HR practices. The first was the award for ‘Best Talent Management Practices in Asia’ at the 2012 CMO Asia Awards for Excellence in Branding and Marketing in Singapore.

Our employee value proposition has always been the culture, exposure and career opportunities we provide to our employees. With the vast training and development budgets available, we provide business and individual focused training and development opportunities both locally and overseas. We engage with the world’s best Training and Consulting Organizations. Leaders are encouraged to share their knowledge and experience with the employees across the Group. Vacancies at Brandix are internally advertised which enable rotations across the Group. The goals setting and the performance management system which engage the CEOs and all the line leaders are robust. Working with global clients, our employees are exposed to global best practices. The healthy working environment promotes transparency and engagement in addition to empowerment. The Group CEO and the leadership are also available for anyone to consult since we promote a non- hierarchical culture. Through all our employee related activities, which include internal, external and extra- curricular events, we promote employee engagement and delight. With the focus of being a preferred employer, we gather employee feedback primarily leveraging on the Great Place to Work (GPTW) and dip stick surveys. The HR Client Delight Index (CDI) is a tool we use to derive the service delivery of HR.

Our leaders and HR have also contributed to the development of the next generation of talent which has driven us to sign MOUs and closely work with all the prominent universities and professional institutions in the country. Additionally, we work with several schools and social organizations across Sri Lanka, in community development.

We also have our own Brandix College of Clothing Technology ( BCCT) which strengthens our capacity to develop our people by way of training and sponsoring degrees. These are granted in a f f i l i ation with Royal Melbourne Institute of Te c h n o l o g y (RMIT), Australia.

Sri Lanka’s single largest apparel exporter, the Brandix Group is credited with being the pioneer of the concept of ‘total solutions’ in Sri Lanka’s apparel sector and as a global leader in eco- friendly manu- facturing operations. The Group’s 38 manufacturing operations are located in Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh. Its foray into India in the form of Brandix India Apparel City - a 1,000 acre self- sufficient industrial p a rk at Vishakhapatnam - is based on the ‘ Fibre to Store’ concept and uses the advantages of scale and strong business fundamentals to leverage global expertise to offer ‘ total solutions’ within the site. Brandix also operates strategically located offices across the globe. Further our businesses extend to plastics, IT and BPO operations.

Brandix was ranked among the Top 5 Employer Brands in Sri Lanka in a recent national survey covering top companies in the country.