Our first step towards building a diverse organization was defining our ‘WHY’ and collaborate with the organization at a large while we join hands with each one to make this change happen/alive. We explored and defined our ‘WHY’ through multiple interactions within the organization and put together Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy which sets the direction for building a diverse organization. It also helped us in reaching to the last mile employee with our commitment, guiding principles and DEI approach. Our DEI policy also guides employees to understand their responsibilities towards DEI in the organization.

Basis DEI guiding principles, our twofold DEI approach depicts a foundation of 3 key elements which focuses on building diverse teams, tailoring resources and policies to strengthen equity in the organization, and empowering and retaining them by creating an inclusive culture. These key elements would help elevate our DEI journey while we put forward concerted efforts for developing competencies & career, creating network of ally and sponsors, leveraging DEI brand internally and externally and celebrating of success.

Attracting Women to Manufacturing

To attract women to manufacturing, the team focuses on raising awareness about the opportunities available to women in this sector through social media, campus connect programs and location-based initiatives. During last one year, the team has conducted several all women walk-in drives to invite women to be part of manufacturing teams across India. The team at each location is striving to build campus connections and engages with students in cities around their manufacturing locations to leverage local talent.

One of their key initiatives involves sharing inspiring stories of successful women working in Sun Pharma plants. These stories aim to dispel misconceptions and encourage more women to consider careers in manufacturing.

Supporting Women in their Careers

We recognize the need to support women in their career development. To facilitate this, the company closely monitors progress of women colleagues in the organization through talent management process and annual pay and performance parity analysis and amends. We offer a range of policies and benefits that help women balance their work and personal lives. Work flexibility during pregnancy, maternity support, additional resource to the team during maternity break of woman colleague, wellbeing counselling and a series of health awareness sessions are few of them.

We have also established employee resource groups at all locations under the brand of ‘SUNnari’ which provides a platform for women to network, learn from experienced professionals, and receive guidance on navigating their career paths within the organization.

Internalising Inclusion

We have implemented several policies and programs to promote a more inclusive workplace for all employees. These initiatives include articulation of DEI policy, gender intelligence sessions for leaders, workshops on mitigating unconscious bias for people managers, and gender sensitization sessions for employees at large. Gender & inclusive intelligence for leaders and mitigating unconscious bias are two programs which we are focusing upon to enable understanding of the cultural nuances and consciously build inclusivity. All our people managers are being coached on how to lead and manage a diverse team. They are also encouraged to share real life inclusion challenges in a safe space where they learn from each other’s lived experiences. Second focused intervention for us is mitigating unconscious bias wherein people managers undergo a workshop on addressing these biases and stereotypes. Managers are made aware of unconscious bias and are equipped with tools to mitigate them from conversations and decisions. This has also helped them conduct bias free interview to ensure hiring decisions are solely based on merit, learn how to support their team considering they may have different needs, using inclusive language, working on inclusive team norms etc. What makes this intervention stand apart is all these sessions are facilitated by our internal middle level leaders from not only HR but also from business. These sessions have helped our people managers understand how diverse experiences shape our social identity and why diversity is critical for business success.

Innovative Best practices

All women walk-in interviews

All women walk-in drives proved to be a breakthrough idea for us. We announced all women walk-in interviews at 6 of our locations in phase 1 against which we had total 1200 candidates turnaround. When leaders and employees at different sites saw a group of hundreds of women willing to work in a manufacturing plant, their beliefs were challenged for good. This intervention was a major breakthrough in our journey.

Campus connect & hiring for sales roles

Women representation in pharma sales in India is very low at this point of time. The issues and roadblocks are not very different than manufacturing. For sales role, most of the sourcing happens through references and the team used to receive fewer references for women. There are multiple reasons for this pattern starting from social perception of medical representative role, social conditioning for women to not opt for traveling role and also missed opportunities for pharma organization to brand/pitch MR roles to women. We decided to change this and started connecting with pharma colleges in tier II and III cities where we have large scale opportunities to hire them. We visited 30+ colleges during last 1+ year and spoke about opportunities and pharma industry, specially for sales role. With these efforts we inspired many women to come forward and consider MR role as a viable career option.

Likewise, manufacturing team has reached out to 17 colleges in 8 cities to spread awareness on opportunities for women in pharma industry in India.

Mitigating Unconscious bias by senior internal business leaders

Our mitigating unconscious bias sessions are led by certified senior business and HR leaders. When we started conceptualizing these initiatives, the first thought was partnering with an external expert. As we started designing the program we realized its not only about a 2 hours session on the subject. Our people may need continual support even post session to share their experiences, bounce of their dilemmas or to celebrate their successes in building diverse teams and this made us think to leverage our own leaders who are available and are so much part of the eco-system where we want to bring positive change. We have a team of 24 leaders (as senior as GMs & VPs) who are facilitating these sessions for 4000+ people managers this year.

Leadership Connect 

Working very closely with leaders and making them sponsors of DEI has helped us elevate our progress in this direction. 

• During year I we ensured to partner with N-1 leaders through policy formation, being part of their important leadership meets and having conversations on DEI
• In year II, we visited large scale budget meets, department annual meets, quality circle events etc. and had series of conversations on DEI
• Site leadership DEI session, we curated a 2 hours session with site HoDs and we ensured any senior HR leader visiting sites from corporate will engage with leaders and have this 2-hour session where they talk about our ‘WHY’ and set expectations with leaders at respective sites
• We have DEI check-ins with HR team every month and quarterly DEI check-in with business heads. Our leaders are our key DEI champions and are front runners for building diverse teams

Sustained Implementation

Sustainable implementation of each intervention is of superior significance for us. Our DEI policy also talks about our approach which depicts our foundational practices and how do we plan to elevate our efforts to leverage diversity for our business success. Few specimens of our sustainable efforts are 

• All women walk-in drive became part of our regular drives – after 6 successful initial drives, we had 15 more at different locations and now each quarter we have 1 such drive at most of the locations
• Campus connect programs for BPharm/BSc colleges came to existence because we felt a need of creating more awareness at this level for women to be aspirational and dream big for their career 
• On building inclusive culture front – full day leadership sessions mean a lot of time investment to deep dive and process these subjects which are new to them with an expectation to make long term changes happen
• For mitigating unconscious bias – year I is targeted to reach out to people managers and year II is targeted to reach out to employees at large and Year III is planned to create more open conversations through human labs, culture labs to keep our journey move with solid positive impacts
• Our ongoing efforts for specially curated women development program and our participation in multiple external co-hort programs have been successful. In the next phase, we are now in the process to design 4 career stage wise ‘Women focused programs’ which will help us cater to some essentials for women career development 

Diversity friendly policies

• Additional support (headcount) during maternity break of female colleague The team gets an additional support during maternity break of women colleague to be able to manage work. This policy is applicable to all employees in India in all functions. It has not only helped women have smooth transition during maternity but also has helped us create a solid support system for team.
• Flexibility during maternity phase & beyond
• Internal job movements for relocation to align with family decisions or any personal aspiration
• Door to door pick up and drop facilities for women working during second and night shift 
• Creche facilities at locations

 

 

 

DEI Philosophy

Our Inspiration

Sun Pharma deeply believes in the strength of people. We acknowledge that valuing diversity, fostering systemic equity and nurturing the culture of inclusion is a competitive differentiator that helps us grow and reach people globally with valued medicines. Our Sunology inspires our ways of working which also encourages us to be limitless and bring our authentic selves to work.

This DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policy document sets the direction for building a diverse organization. It will also help us in reaching to the last mile employee with our commitment, guiding principles and DEI approach. The document will also guide employees to understand their responsibilities towards DEI in the organization.

DEI Vision

Build an equal opportunity global organisation which promotes equitable and inclusive culture by embracing diversity

Through DEI approach we meaningfully engage with different perspectives and leverage intersectional blend of age, ethnicity, gender, gender expressions, nationality or origins, family or marital status, physical, mental and development abilities, language, religion or belief, sexual orientation, race, skin colour, education, social or economic class, caste, political affiliation, work and behavioural styles and other individualities which make our employees diverse. We believe each building block in our DEI journey is critical to success and needs attention from all employees.