#05: Sonali Roychowdhury, VP HR, Supply Chain & Labour Relations at P&G

Hello everybody. Welcome to the Leaders in Supply Chain Talent podcast. I'm your host, Shubh Pajdar, Head of Training and Development at Alcott Global. I'm very excited to have Sonali Roy Chaudhary as our guest today. Sonali is the Vice President, Human Resources for Asia Pacific, India, Middle east and Africa for Supply chain Labor Relations and Singapore headquarters at Procter and Gamble. She has holistic leadership experience of 23 years across PNG, leading multicultural organizations in country and regional HR leadership, handling mergers and acquisitions, business partnerships, change management, talent development, equality and inclusion. Shonali has lived and worked in India, Vietnam and Singapore building a legacy of talent internally as well as external community via mentoring. Arising out of her first hand experience as a female leader pursuing an international career, Shonali is committed to driving positive change and inclusion in the organization and the community at large. Shonali, thank you so much for joining us today. Delighted to have you here. Thank you so much, Shubh. I mean, that introduction, I think, you know, I feel quite embarrassed to hear that, but I appreciate having the chance to participate in this conversation. Well, you deserve every bit of it. So thank you very much for joining us. So Sonali, you mentioned in our chat earlier that PNG celebrates the person as a whole, which I loved by the way. And inclusion is a big theme that you personally are very passionate about driving. Can you share with us how you drive inclusion in the countries you're leading? Okay, sure. Well, you know, if you think back over the last year, all our lives have been upended to such an extent that our work is in our homes and our home is at work. And Frank, you know, you have no option but to find a way to navigate all of that. Right? And in many ways it has bought the concept of inclusion a lot more to the forefront than probably has been in the past. So when I think about inclusion, it's really two things that when you're in a workplace or an organization, do you feel a sense of belonging, you know, either to the values or the culture or the workplace, yet at the same time maintain your uniqueness. And oftentimes there's a bit of a tension between that uniqueness and belonging. To get true inclusion, the way we kind of think about in PNG is around four vectors. It's about how is inclusion for our people. It's our brands, our communities that we operate in and the partners that we have, suppliers, distributors, et cetera, that we work with. So inclusion kind of goes across all, just a few things that have worked for us. And because I come from. Currently, a role which looks after supply chain generally tends to be an area which is a bit on the periphery at times of a lot of these initiatives. So it's something I'm very kind of passionate and intentional about. I think the first is building awareness, right? And inclusion is not just about, you know, putting diversity numbers. They all have a place, but it's really about thinking all aspects of diversity, whether it is, you know, gender, you know, people with disabilities, LGBTQ style, and all sorts of other things that you make. So building that awareness broadly throughout the organization. Absolutely. From entry level all the way up to the leadership is the first thing that we've spent a lot of time on. The second is leadership accountability. And this is not just accountability intellectually, where everyone knows that diversity and inclusion is an important thing to do, but it's emotionally right. And I'll share a story, which in some ways was an aha for me as I worked with one of my business leaders. You know, I mean, we've been working on the inclusion journey for a while, and till one day he shared with me that when he was speaking to his daughter and they've lived across different parts of the world, though originally from Latin America, she came and asked him, so where do I belong? And he was a little shocked because he said, you know, we've done so much to preserve our home culture and our family even as we move. Why is that question coming from? But it kind of dawned on him that because she had moved around in so many different places, that concept of who you really are and being able to bring, you know, where you're from, as well as the learned experiences in the different countries had been a challenge. And that was the day the penny really dropped emotionally for him as to why inclusion that every day when you come into work. And I think the leadership accountability, when it's both intellectual and emotional, kind of goes faster. I think the other couple of things that have worked are just, you know, a lot of the workshops, trainings that we do, we do have metrics in place to make sure that and policies to support that, because it's important to have milestones which tell you whether you're going in the right direction or not. And last but not least, I would say storytelling, you know, narratives and bringing the right stories, especially when we talk now about the whole person and the various aspects of inclusion, we talk about well being. Are we creating a space within our organization, whether it's in our factories or in our corporate offices, where those narratives and stories of our real colleagues can come out. So these are kind of three or four areas that we touch upon on our inclusion journey. It's not HR driven. It's very much front and center by everyone who's kind of works in the organization and the leaders, which I think is an important part. And you raise a few very good points here, that it's not just a KPI where you put certain numbers on the seat or there's emotional accountability to it. And you know, so that you, when I was researching your profile, you know, finding out what to say about you, one of the things which came out is your interest in dabbling at stock market. And I do that too. And I feel we can totally have another session on, you know, how do you do that? But I'll share with you an example and a couple of things came out for me from there. I was signing up for a new brokerage platform sometime back and you know, they have their KYC where you have to declare your net worth, income etc and then other sources of income. They had your dividends, property and wife's income. There was no spousal income, there was no husband's income. And it was such a subtle message that most of the time husbands do the investing. So this platform is catered to them. But more than the platform, I think what stood out for me is I wouldn't have even noticed that if I was not a mother to a daughter. These things started becoming important to me after I had my daughter. So there are those subtle messages which the society has about discrimination and I'm sure gender is one, but there are so many other areas we talk about in terms of diversity. So when you said about the fact that awareness is the first step and then the emotional accountability, it really resonated with me. Now I'm going to keep with the inclusion theme right here. While we know inclusion is the right thing to do, and I think most of the people at least agree with it conceptually. Can you share with us how it makes business sense as well? Okay, let me start with a story, and this is actually a fairly recent one where maybe about a month ago with some of our supply chain leadership team, we were having a session where we invited a relatively young kind of trainee of ours who works in one of our big operational centers in Egypt and he's visually disabled. And actually the topic was a little bit about inclusion and he was coming and sharing his experiences. But in that discussion, one thing he said kind of made us all really step back. He said, you know what he said, you all are such A big company. I know about you and I love working here, but there are so many of your products that are not even accessible to me because I'm. Either because the advertising either doesn't speak to me or it's not designed for people who have a disability to be able to take that. So beyond anything, you're losing a consumer. Right. And that was just an example of, you know, inclusion beyond it is the right thing to do for business, for people. First of all, if you think about innovation, based on his example, when we went and did some research, we saw that actually in many of our categories, because of the labeling, the branding or how we kind of marketed, many people who could be potential consumers cannot have access to it. Right. Folks with different types of disability or different kind of ethnicities and backgrounds. Right. And the products are kind of intended to be for a certain ethnicity. So that really opens up a whole business opportunity. Second is the talent imperative. If you kind of think about very narrowly about what fits and who can do, you know, what kind of role, you really miss out on a whole pipeline of talent and skills, which to me is a business challenge. Right. That you're not being able to get the best people that you need on your business. And that has long term kind of financial and other repercussions. I think the third thing I will say is it's lack of inclusion gets in the way of agility. Again, very recently during the pandemic, you know, we have a lot of very skilled people in our supply chain side who work on many of our categories, from premium skincare to baby diapers, et cetera. And in one of the markets where some of these businesses were, they were having a real tough time with COVID And we quickly thought, okay, can we somehow set up some production to make masks, etc. Even though we didn't have the expertise in house, these group of people who had never really worked or produced masks before, but brought that technical knowledge, quickly learned the skills, kind of went across the barriers of category, etc, to set up, you know, mass production to keep our employees and the community and families safe in record time. That can only happen if everyone doesn't feel constrained by the role that they do or the skill that they bring, but really feel empowered that when there is an imperative for the business and how can I bring my skills to quickly move fast? So I think those three are very real impact on the top and bottom line of any company. Absolutely. And I think in the beginning you mentioned about, you know, how the sense of belonging is what inclusion is. It's not a metric. It's when your people feel they belong to the brand, to the products, to the community. That's when you've really hit the inclusion criteria. Also, Sonali, you mentioned earlier that celebrating the person as a whole involves taking care of the mental, mental well being and mental health of an employee. And mental health has been a huge issue that people are being more open to, especially with the pandemic and most recently with the public figures and youth icons speaking out about it from movie stars or sports celebrities. It has become a topic which can be discussed. We've had Naomi Osaka and then just this week, Simone Biles talk about it too. So it's definitely something which is coming out front. I feel more and more companies are also tuning into it. So it would be very interesting to find out how PNG is taking care of the mental health of the employees. Yeah, no, I think this is a topic whose time has well and truly come. And if you see the story, like you said of Naomi Osaka or Simone Biles and many others which are probably lesser known, I think a lot of these challenges have always been there, but we've probably never had the ecosystems to really bring them out to the forefront and then deal with it together. So within png, you know, we look at it overall well being in maybe three areas, right. And we call it vibrant living, which is kind of healthy body, happy minds and positive spirit. Right. Because all of those kind of come together in a way. Specifically on mental wellness, there are two areas that we focus on. The first is self help. Right? And self help means access to resources, education, training, reading tips, tricks, workshops, you know, anything from mindfulness to fitness to nutrition, all of that which kind of you can pick and choose on. The second one is expert help which is at the end of it, mental wellness. And all these are serious issues sometimes that, you know, need expert help, sometimes to work towards. So finding ways, whether it's counselors or employee assistance programs or digital and app based kind of support which is available, which provide safe spaces in a way that the person feels most comfortable to go and seek that expert help. Right. And with that we partner with some of the best kind of providers out there in the market to make sure that we are giving those avenues to our people. I think the third thing I will say is, and we are learning as much as anyone else is trying to push the boundaries in the culture where being vulnerable at the workplace, you know, sharing what's going on without it being seen as something that comes in the way of your effectiveness or how you're perceived and being able to be vulnerable. How do you create that culture? So working with people who manage others, working with our leaders to share more stories of vulnerability, to create spaces where people who feel they are comfortable can share experiences and stories. And the third one is really important, right? Because unless you are able to create an environment where people feel heard, they feel safe and they feel that they have the choice, you know, to be able to access these kind of mental well being support systems, then I think we can make progress. So we are on the journey and learning from many kind of expert partners and otherwise and in the community as to how we can become better at it. Jeera, how has the overall feedback been from your employees who've undergone this mental well being mental health? What are some of your findings and your learnings in this journey along the way? Yeah, I think, you know, in areas like this you typically go from an area of just people wanting to explore or even denial that is this needed, do I need it or not? To more about exploration and awareness and then actually adoption and then using it. So I think we've also gone on that journey. I think we've had a lot of people going out and using some of these tools and techniques that we are offering, trying out, making sure that they have access to it. I think feedback has ranged from oh, I didn't know this existed to wow, I didn't know this could be helpful to maybe interesting, but maybe I don't yet need it. So I think the whole gamut and I think that's okay because the role of an organization is to provide the space to provide access and the tools so that everyone can, you know, feels empowered to make the choice that works for them. I will say one thing, you know, again, because we are a company which is so dispersed in different countries and you know, we have factories and corporate offices. One of the things that kind of keeps me up awake is how do you offer the same sort of support and ecosystems across wherever you operate because many things are a little bit easier to do in a corporate environment versus others. So that's a journey that we are learning. Great. I just want to highlight that there have been a couple of comments about the great sharing, super useful sharing. So I guess people are getting value out of this as well. So thank you so much for doing that Sonali. And now I want to touch on to ask you some of your trade secrets because one key differentiator for P and G has always been that a big percentage of employees stay for a long Time and you know, it shows with the way you're talking about belonging, inclusion, mental health, et cetera. But I want to break it down and see why your teams doing different when it comes to talent, right? From the talent attraction and acquisition to development and management leading to such high retention. Well, you know, it's funny you say that because there are times when people ask me, wow, you've been in PNG 20 plus years, how come did you not get a job anywhere else? But, you know, so it's funny. But on a serious note, you know, this question, Shubh, reminds me of something that I heard very early in my career when I joined Proctor and it's one of our ex CEOs and a quote that he made said that take away my facilities, my brands, my money, but leave me behind all my people and I will build everything back in a decade. And that really stuck with me. And I think that goes to the core of what our philosophy is on growth and development. We very much live that belief day in, day out. Right. I mean, I personally joined as an intern and I've been here all these years, frankly, never thought it would be the case. A few things that we do focus on first is, is putting development of people at the core. So we are what we call philosophy of we really believe in developing people from within. You know, of course we have a lot of people we bring in at different levels, depending on the skills needed. But primarily we are built from within company. Right. So we hire people, we grow them, put them through different experiences very intentionally, whether it's in their home country or internationally, preparing them for bigger leadership roles. Okay. And that can be very powerful when you think about it, that here are the different ways that I could maybe get to a role or a leadership level of that I aspire to and the company will help me do that and show me a path towards it. So that's one, I think the second is putting the people manager and their kind of direct report at the center of everything we do. So coaching and we assess our people as much on how they are developing others and coaching as we do on their business results. It's equally important. It's a big factor in, you know, what it takes to grow in the company. So it really, really puts, you know, your money where your mouth is, where coaching others, developing others is very much a part of what every one of us needs to do. Right. So you see that and that is again, very enabling. I think the third thing is being a global company taking advantage of the ability to be Able to move people around with different experiences, different businesses categories in many ways. We have businesses which have been around for years. We have more, smaller, which are a bit more startup in nature. I myself have worked across so many different businesses and countries and that's a unique experience that we very intentionally try and provide. So those are the maybe the few things I would say that I won't say we do differently, but we really know that these are the core to preserving who we are and developing our next generation of leaders. And we try to keep focused on those and making sure that we get better and better at it. Absolutely. Look the way P and G does, talent development is a great example. I remember when I was graduating in gfc, it was one of my top employers of choice. I didn't make it even to the interview rounds even once, but I remember applying to a couple of positions in P and G when I was graduating. And that's because we've seen our seniors and our alumni grow holistically. As you mentioned. It's not just okay, we are in this department and we stay here forever. There's a very intentional growth which happens every two, three years. You're given different exposure and I think that's the key to retaining people throughout so many years. You're not an anomaly in PNG world. There are so many people I meet who've been in PNG for like 20, 30 years and they have no reason to look out. So that's simply amazing. So I'm going to, you know, switch the gears a bit because we have audience who would love to hear from, from you about skills they should be developing, what kind of career advice they should be looking at. So I would like to know from you what skills, whether it's soft or technical skills, according to you, are essential for a professional to move to senior level leadership roles. Okay, so maybe let me start with certain softer skills and behaviors which I think then will take you to the more technical one. I was reading somewhere very recently some article which said that the half life of a skill, you know, the time from when you pick up the skill to becomes obsolete is about 5 years or less today, whereas it used to be 20 plus years when I started out in the workforce. And that really got me thinking so. Because anything that you pick up today may be irrelevant. Right. A few years down the line. So probably the most enduring skill I'd say for leaders or for anyone is curiosity. Okay. And I mean that in the way that curiosity, where you're very intentional and develop practices around learning, learning from what's going on outside, learning from things around you, trying to find ways to put that into practice. Because if you don't do that, that's going to go away. So simple example for myself, so I work in a supply chain business and we do a lot of work with data science, with robotics, et cetera, in figuring out manufacturing of the future. And honestly, I have zero knowledge of a lot of that. So I said, okay, that I need to educate myself. And I got myself someone who's a reverse mentor, one of our new joinees who's an exper in that field. And she spends, you know, a couple of hours with me every few weeks and we talk and she'll tell me, okay, read this and quiz me, and then I'll go and talk about it. So that curiosity, I think is important because it's something that helps you know enough to make sure that you're making an impact in the job that you are. And I think all leaders need to do that. The second one that I talked about is digital, all right? Because I think digital, no matter which part of the business you're in, whether it's brand or finance or hr, I mean, the world is changing and there are so many, whether it's artificial intelligence, machine learning has so much of impact in the way we deliver the kind of experiences that we do that you just cannot be effective without really going and knowing enough about it to be able to provide the right solutions in your area of work. So that's something I'd highly encourage. You know, read about it, go educate yourself, talk to people who are experts in it. And I think you learn a lot. The third one I will come back to again is again a softer skill, which is resilience. Right. And again, resilience doesn't come on its own. Over the last year, the businesses have had to do so many things to stay on track and to stay resilient. And we've seen strong businesses struggle. It's the same with people, right? Whatever you have learned from challenges and the last year, how do you build some practices around that to become. Become even more effective? Right. And I think more for leaders, the practice of resilience, what do you do to build that support systems for yourself, for your people, to keep yourself relevant is super important. So those would be the three, in my mind that I think regardless of which level you are, I think super critical to being successful and leaving an impact. Absolutely makes sense. And I love your comment about reverse mentorship. I read it in, I think of the Forbes articles Where it says that if a leader, regardless of his or her age, it does not have people who this person is hanging out who are in their 20s or 30s. They are missing out on a big, big opportunity because they bring a different set of skills which is relevant to the world. I'm very curious to know personally as well. Like curiosity. Yes. We can learn through hanging out with people, reading, expanding, learning new concepts. Then there is digital, which is, is more of a technical skill. What would you say are some of the ways in which people can build up on their resilience? And resilience has become such an important thing, which the last one, one and a half years has taught us. Yeah, I think one way is putting yourself in situations which sometimes push you into, not just out of your comfort zone, but sometimes even your panic zone, what I call it, right. It's like when you go to the gym or you work out, right? If you're lifting like 10 pound weights, you can do that easily after some. So 20 is easy. But if you try to pull to 40, you're going to have to do something differently. But with practice it comes and it's same as building your resilience muscle. An example from our supply chain leadership team, we recently when we get together, we try and get some feedback from each other and from our organizations is that how are we doing to support our people, their own resilience. We get some feedback on how are we showing up in our resilience in tough situations or situations which are new to us. And that feedback is a very good way to keep us intentional, to keep us knowing what we are doing well. Maybe the areas that we are not doing so well, which are new to us and how we showing up to the organization and therefore what do we do differently. Similarly, you know, go try and pick up a skill which is completely new to you. So back to my reverse mentee. She gave me some homework at one time and to write like a little bit, really tiny bit of code because we were talking, you know, she's a coder and she said, okay, go try it. And I was so panic stricken, it kept me awake the entire night. And it was super tough. But having done that, you know, I just felt such a sense of accomplishment. I'm not going to be a coder ever, but I just felt that, okay, if I can do this and learn this at this stage of my life and career, there's so much more I can do. So putting yourself in situations which make you uncomfortable, doing it frequently, intentionally, even if it's small I think that builds resilience. That's a beautiful example and beautiful story shared with us. Thank you so much, Shunani. So I'm going to ask you sort of last question as a closing comment. What advice would you give to people entering workforce if they want to have an exciting career? Wow, that's a loaded question. You know, exciting means so many different things to different people. But. But I will go back to maybe two things that I think think work no matter what you choose to do. One is again, going back to curiosity. Okay. Don't box yourself in because the world is changing so fast that sometimes you discover your passion or your passion discovers you. Right. But you have to keep yourself open to it. So at least in early parts of your career, stay open, go for new challenges, meet new people. And I think opens many doors. In my career, I've done lots of roles which I never thought I would do, and they've totally surprised me in a positive way than I had imagined. The second one would be, I think, reflection and taking some time to figure out what your personal drivers are. Right. Everyone works and has a career for very different reasons. And if you're really thinking about, okay, this seems to be the cool thing to do externally, so let me go do that, or my friends doing this, which we are all tempted to do, that lasts only so long. So I think a bit of reflection and figuring out what drives you and why you do what you do. Once you answer that question, choices in life and career become pretty easy. So whether you choose to stay in a company for many years like I did, or you move to a lot of different environments, so take some time to do that and really ask yourself, what is it that drives you? Got it. I'm going to quickly take one question we have and that's related to your international career. What you think are the key factors which allowed you to have such a thriving international career. I think the first time I moved out internationally was quite early in my career and honestly, I didn't know what to expect. I got a lot of great advice and all of that, but nothing prepares you for when you actually do go to a new environment. And you really have to start establishing your credibility and your impact from scratch. So one is immerse yourself. Whenever you are in a different culture, immerse yourself. Don't start with thinking that you know it. Of course you bring certain experiences and skills, but immerse yourself, understand where the other person and the business is coming from, and then you'll be much better able to speak the language of the country or the business that you're in and take some time to do that in the beginning. The second thing is something that's common, no matter where I've worked in the world is human beings are essentially similar in what they want, no matter where they are, what nationality or culture. You know, they want to be recognized for the uniqueness they bring. They want to contribute, they want to belong long right. And they want someone that you work with them, that you're able to partner and leave an impact together. That's fundamentally what all of us work for. I found keeping that at the back of my mind is very useful so it doesn't kind of distract you from all the other things that thinking okay, people are people no matter where you go. And we all kind of want two or three of the same thing. So how do I focus on that, on the person and then take it from there? And that's usually worked well and I have fond memories of wherever the various countries that I've spent time in. Fantastic. So Sonali, I think with that I'm going to wrap up this podcast with a big theme of inclusion, belonging and focusing on mental health. And what a week we've chosen for this podcast where we had Simone Biles bring the whole mental health, you know, to the forefront. We had case with the AirAsia video being leaked about the inclusion issue and then we get this perspective from you. Thank you so much for sharing all these little stories which make so much sense and we've learned so much from you today. Thank you very much and have a great evening. Thank you for listening to our podcast. If you liked what you heard, be sure to go to www.alcottglobal.com and click the podcast button for all the show notes of the interview. 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