Bharat Petroleumfollows a structured process for determining organisational goals and objectives and then plans to achieve them. HR Initiatives at BPCL begin with a five year dream plan that is further broken down into annual plans. Then Business plans are prepared to achieve the objectives. These goals and objectives are tabulated in the form of Balanced Score Cards (BSC) and are monitored from time to time.

All senior leaders including HR leaders have been trained in performance counselling techniques that are in line with the global trends. This ensures that Bharat Petroleum creates an integrated work environment that supports and enhances performance and skill development of every employee. Senior leaders in the organisation take regular feedback from employees regarding various issues through dipstick surveys and discussion forums.

Bharat Petroleum has various HR initiatives for employees to continually applaud and encourage individual as well as group performance. Regular appraisals are geared towards identifying, rewarding and encouraging employees who excel. Additionally, at Bharat Petroleum, training needs are identified and earmarked and employee goals are also streamlined to promote career growth. Performance targets which are mutually beneficial to individuals and the company are also clearly identified and worked on.

At Bharat Petroleum, talent management and leadership are given due importance. The company has launched programmes that help identify talented individuals within the organisation and take active steps towards nurturing their talent.

Bharat Petroleum launched the project 'CALIBER', which was aimed at creating an organised means to asses, identify and develop existing talent in the organisation. Following this initiative, middle and senior level managers underwent a complete, all inclusive assessment process which was followed by a detailed review, integrated feedback and enrichment plans. The project was well received by this tier of management and the process was then scaled to include all members of the BPCL family.

Following this, project 'ASCEND' was developed to provide multi-rater assessment, multiple level personnel review, integrated feedback and individual plans for employee engagement and skill development at Bharat Petroleum. This was, in turn, linked to other HR processes to develop detailed career plans. This created a clear, cohesive and transparent system by which the employees could clearly see their progress and allowed better definition of employee goals in line with organisational growth. The 'ASCEND' model at Bharat Petroleum uses three main parameters to assess individual performance - ability, aspiration and performance engagement.

Bharat Petroleum has a number of state-of-the art methods for learning and development that are highly experiential and constantly challenge employees to test and work on their strengths. Through these, the company has created a learning paradigm for line managers. This organisational initiative has led to strategic alignment of learning and development initiatives centre focussed on creating a 'leadership pipeline'.

These leadership resources at Bharat Petroleum benefit the employees by teaching people skills that include:

• Effective communication
• Art of giving Feedback
• Grooming subordinates
• People management
• Developing high performing teams
• Performance management

The continuous learning initiatives are developed in union with established premier institutions to offer individuals distinctive custom training programs suited to their organisational goals and growth.

Apart from this, there are different experiential learning modules that have been developed at Bharat Petroleum:

Mercurix –Storytelling as a leadership technique is a very powerful tool that can be used to effectively transfer tacit knowledge within an organization from one generation to another as they reveal who we are and how we think. This tool also has a multitude of advantages. It is an effective tool to influence others and by telling chronicles about previous success and failure, leaders can provide their employees with tacit inputs for living the organizational values. It is to encourage this aspect of leadership that BPLC launched MERCURIX – The Art of Storytelling in 2010 for employees to showcase their leadership capability to inspire and motivate using business storytelling as a tool for effective leadership and culture-building in the organisation.

Socratix – Bharat Petroleum strongly believes in employee engagement and enrichment and in this regard conducts case study events that evaluate thinking and strategic execution skills in employees. The case study challenge, was launched in 2009 with the objective to:

• Foster innovation, analytical rigor and strategic thinking across the respondents and
• Present a platform for the employees to sharpen their commercial awareness, report writing and presentation skills.

Rytink - Sharing of Knowledge and Best Practices:

The aspiration to document our extraordinary achievements, capture organization’s tacit knowledge, vital information and create a repository that can be easily accessed within & outside our organization, led to the design and launch of biannual platform called Rytink during FY 2014-‘Rytink’ presents a unique opportunity for employees to capture the critical stories and best practices that have helped BPCL in its journey so far.

VIZDOME

Organizational learning is a core competency required to respond to the challenges posed by accelerating change and increasing complexity. In line with the organisation’s vision of ‘We are a Learning Organization’ we strive towards creating varied learning platforms to suit interest of diverse learning styles of employees. Creation of learning videos by capturing employees’ tacit knowledge will act an enabler in creating a culture of learning within in the organisation and quickly bridging the knowledge/ competency gaps in a cost effective yet convenient manner. The platform enables individuals to create videos on their own and host it on the platform. The platform has business wise channels to provide specific learning inputs to the learners on various processes, SOPs, Guidelines and new initiatives.

Other initiatives include:

• LMS (Learning Management System): LMS, a technology platform that integrated Learning and Development with various HR processes, has ushered in a new way of Learning at BPCL. It has made learning opportunities aligned to the learning framework and Individual Development Plans, at the fingertips of the employees. It has contributed significantly to creating a pull towards learning offerings, thereby creating a learning culture in the organization. The LMS enables learner to access to learning information, data and repository seamless and all through the day through mobile.
• E-Learning programmes – With changing business landscape, increasing competition on account of impending deregulation and changing internal demographics, it has become imperative to quickly bridge the knowledge/ competency gaps in a cost effective and convenient manner as well as supplement the existing training methodologies with innovative learning alternatives. Keeping in mind the spread of approximately 6200+ Management staff across the country, BPCL has in place a comprehensive world class e-learning library which offers comprehensive self-paced learning options. The e-learning modules are actively used to complement the class room training to ensure blended learning to the participants.
• Educational assistance scheme – Bharat Petroleum support employees who choose to groom and upgrade their skills and knowledge by pursuing higher education, through its Liberal Financial Assistance program.
• E-library –To add value to our learning offerings BPCL has been subscribing to the EBSCOhost - Business Source Corporate’s (Elton B Stephens Company) – on-line library since 2005 onwards. EBSCO’s online library consists of top management journals like HBR, magazines, industry reports, etc. EBSCO-host is the world's most-used reference resource. It is a customizable, intuitive search experience designed to cater to user needs and preferences at every level of research. EBSCO-host offers a streamlined look and feel, for a technologically sophisticated, yet familiar search experience, with the built-in flexibility to provide individual user customization options

Additionally, in Bharat Petroleum we organize customized functional and leadership programs for our employees in collaboration with premier institutes which would significantly contribute directly to their performance.

'Continuous innovation' is a core value. BPCL has an Innovation-Engagement Initiative in place, which has been fueling and catalyzing the creative and innovation urge of the employees in the corporation since its inception in 2000. Over these years, the program has been successful in tapping the creative thinking of staff to generate ideas having huge Financial benefits to the Corporation. It has evolved over the years with a Vision of developing a culture of Innovation and foster large scale creativity and encouraging employees to proactively cultivate and pursue innovative ideas that can add value to the Corporation. This is vied for by all their business units and employees and has promoted numerous worthwhile contributions to organisational growth through state-of-the-art practices that are connected to employees' individual areas of work.

iPassion:

Our Passion areas are an extension of our personality and are a true reflection of our various intelligences. Through iPASSION initiative, a platform has been introduced for all BPCians to engage, bond and learn from fellow colleagues who share similar passions. The entire concept is based on multi-intelligence theory by Howard Gardner. All passions have been classified under various intelligences, and wherever multi-intelligences are involved, it has been categorized accordingly. On the basis of passion areas, the L&D Team crafts engagement initiatives around it and utilizes in-house talent for various internal platforms

YOUNGAGE

Is an Employees Engagement initiative exclusively designed for Generation Y officers in the organization. This initiative aims at sensitising the GEN Y employees with the work ethics, culture and values of the organization and also to understand and meet their aspirations & expectations thereby ensuring high level of engagement and performance.

Under YOUNGAGE brand, the following interventions have been taken:

• Synergy – Collaborate to Win: Experiential learning program for high performers across the organization.
• GENIE – GEN Y Annual Business Event: Designed to provide a perfect platform for the young officers to showcase their talents and skills in the areas of Strategic thinking, Marketing, Managerial skill & Creativity and Innovation.
• Meet the Leaders: Platform designed to bring leaders and GenY together.
• GEN Vent: A voluntary adventure club to satiate the GEN Y interest in activities beyond his professional life like trekking, para-gliding etc.