Best companies to work for 2013: 'People First' philosophy helps Blue Dart Express in retaining talent

There’s a certain stickiness in the ranks that makes Blue Dart Express special. UshaSawant is Assistant Manager in the Internal Audit team at the courier and logistics company and considers it her "alma mater". Rightly so, since she joined the company 11 years ago and grew up on the job learning every single day.


It is the same story for Subrato Roy, Senior Manager-Marketing, who has been with the company since 1997. Like Sawant and Roy, 80-85% of the managerial staff at Blue Dart comprises old-timers who have hung on for an average of 10-15 years. Blue Dart Express, India’s largest transportation and distribution company, attributes its track record of retaining talent to its 'People First’ philosophy that believes people are the greatest assets and differentiator and systematically focuses on capacity-building and nurturing of homegrown talent.

It also has a strong culture of communication through active leadership spearheaded by the managing director and high level of employee engagement through open houses, forums and structured team briefs with senior management on regionwise sales performance, productwise sales figures etc. The company conducts an employee satisfaction survey every year to encourage an open culture where employees express themselves and voice their grievances. "We have been a peoplefirst company right from inception. Our basic philosophy is that happy motivated people deliver excellence in quality," says Anil Khanna, Managing Director, Blue Dart Express.

Perhaps due to this philosophy the company did not lay off anyone even in a tough economic environment and also doled out increments to frontline staff during the worst of times. This financial year, the company has given a hike of 14-15% to its frontline employees and junior management despite there being huge pressure on the bottomline.

"Our philosophy is to keep people happy... to tackle the slowdown, across industries, organisations adopted measures like lay-offs and salary cuts. Blue Dart didn’t lay off a single employee or reduce any salary. We gave the biggest and best motivator possible in a downturn—'job security’," says Khanna. The company has an attrition rate of 13-14%, much lower than the average industry attrition rate of about 24%. Currently, the company has undertaken a talent development initiative to develop and facilitate the talent movement within different business units.

It has come up with a talent development framework focusing on structured and proactive career development approach in line with career aspirations of high potential middle managers. The framework will enable movement of managers within group business units in India based on the role availability. The initiative is aimed at opening up new opportunities for employees and helping them explore suitable roles within different business units in Blue Dart . About 96% of the company’s senior management team are grown from within the ranks, which include people who have moved up from staff category to the vice-president level.

A case in point is Roy, who says his company is a Great Place to Work because people here can look forward to empowerment and it has the depth that makes room for everyone to explore their potential and aspirations. "This organisation takes its people and customers seriously. It does not look at your pedigree. It looks at your willingness to find a solution. There is a culture of ownership. Be it frontline staff or MD, people here take personal ownership," he adds.

And it’s not just staff in the managerial role. Even for the 26-year-old Isha Raina, a customer service executive, who has been with the company for two-and-a-half years now, it’s an "emotional attachment" with the workplace, a rather unexpected comment from a member of her generation where frequent job-hopping is the order of the day. "Here, we are treated sensitively. I feel my job is safe," says Raina, who is simultaneously pursuing an MBA in human resources and plans to explore different roles at Blue Dart once she has completed her degree. And Raina is no rare exception for the company, which boasts of successfully retaining its key talent.