Driving holistic
people development
At the heart of our organisation lies a core belief of #TogetherweRise. To bring this belief to life, we seamlessly integrate talent with agile operations, fostering a collaborative culture in the workplace. We prioritise the growth and development of our people while fostering an inclusive and safe environment that allows them to be their authentic selves. This approach enables us to attract and retain top talent, building a robust and resilient workforce that is equipped to tackle challenges and drive success. Thanks to our industry-best practices, we are continuously recognised as a Great Place to Work.
Accelo Employee Experience
Great Place to Work® Institute
We participate annually in the Great Place to Work® Institute’s assessment of workplace culture, and our present ranks are as follows:
Ranked 3rd in ‘India’s Great Mid-size Workplaces’ in 2022
Recognised in India’s Top 25 Best Workplaces in Manufacturing, 2023
Recognised as India’s Best Workplaces: Building a Culture of Innovation by All, 2023
Employee Engagement Framework
- Our employee engagement framework is MCARES - Our ‘employee first’ approach manifests in all our endeavours, helping us nurture our agility and inclusive culture. Our engagement practices are anchored on the following themes:
- Career: Goal setting and performance discussion, career growth and aspiration, learning, and development
- Alignment: Vision and value, commitment, camaraderie
- Recognition: Timely and appropriate, encourage to outperform, learn from failures
- Empowerment:Communication, autonomy to innovate, accountability, collaborative work environment
- Strive: Walk the talk, work-life balance, sustainability, wellness
Employee Learning & Development
Our leadership development framework focusses on creating leaders who are prepared for the future. We promote a continuous learning culture and emphasise on creating a diverse talent pool to achieve inclusive success. We follow the 70-20-10 Model for Learning and Development wherein 70% of the learning is from job-related experiences, 20% from interaction with others and 10% from formal educational events.
Some of our Best Practices in Employee Learning and Development include:
UDAAN:
Our UDAAN programme is designed to upskill our Gen Next employees, specifically those in junior management positions. UDAAN, which means ‘soaring high,’ is a learning and development initiative aimed at building and developing capabilities for the future.
Leaders Teach Series:
Our ‘Leaders Teach Series’ focusses on real-world applications in the workplace. These are strategic and operational specialists in their industries, taught by internal senior executives and HR facilitators, with the ability to provide the best insights.
Shadow the MD and Shadow the Senior Leader:
Our ‘Shadow the MD/Shadow the Senior Leader’ programme allows employees to learn directly from our senior leaders by shadowing them for a day. They can learn about agile decision-making, stakeholder management, and time optimisation.
Mentor on Call:
A mentor can be a sounding board during an employee’s career. Through this best practice, employees can contact senior mentors for guidance and advice.
Innovation and Best Practices:
We promote learning in a multi-product, multi-location organisation through cooperation, information exchange, and companionship. It is also an opportunity to recognise and highlight the great work of various functions/departments and plants, motivating and engaging employees across organisational levels. To promote healthy competition and learning, we organise intra-company events and competitions like Mahindra Accelo Best Practices, Mahindra Accelo Innovation Competition, and Kaizen Mela.
Ideas Generation Platforms:
All Ideas Matter (AIM) is a digital platform, calling all employees to contribute their ideas for improvements, so they can be implemented in any department/division of MAL. This enables the employees to share both small and big ideas with our Company. ‘Dare to Dream’ is a best practice enabling Acceloites to submit their ideas related to ‘New Business Development’, ‘Cost Efficiency’, ‘Sustainability’, ‘Safety’ and ‘Safety’, among others.
Quality Utsav:
Our mantra is to always adhere to the highest standards of quality. We keep finding ways to continuously improve our operations. With the Mahindra Accelo Quality Utsav, we aim to enhance our knowledge and drive a culture of High Quality and Excellence within each of our employees. Quality Utsav is celebrated for 30 days wherein Team HR and the Business Excellence Team together host various events, chats, quizzes, and competitions focussed around the theme of quality.
Talent Mobility and Engagement
Our talent acquisition team partners with leaders to identify strategic business needs and thus achieve talent mobility and engagement goals for organisational expansion and growth.
Make the Right Move:
Our HR Practice ‘Make the Right Move’ provides opportunities to internal talent as we expand across geographies.
Job Previews:
Our potential employees get an opportunity to understand the job profile suitably before accepting the offer. Managers invest time in hiring, and we leverage technology to showcase job previews.
Sourcing Channels:
We utilise university hiring, internship programmes, diverse talent, job boards, and employee referrals to establish new sourcing models and optimise our sourcing channels. We have focussed on ‘powering’ the talent sourcing funnel and gaining access to various talent cohorts.
Intensive Industry Internship (III):
We provide opportunities for engineering students to work while still in academia. It’s a win-win strategy as we hire result-driven interns who are passionate about outcomes.
Technology-Enabled Acceleration:
We use social media, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, mobile recruitment and videos to showcase our employer brand and employee value proposition. These social/digital platforms have helped us leverage leading talent acquisition techniques with HR analytics.
Constructing a Personalised Candidate Journey:
We map applicant touch points for an Agile Candidate Experience. Transparent job descriptions, frequent HR connects, and meaningful candidate experience is emphasised. We use technical and behavioural assessment programmes to attract and retain top employees. The Talent Acquisition team engages potential candidates on the profile’s ‘meaning’ and ‘relevance’ and its link to the candidate’s career goals.
D&I in Talent Acquisition:
We believe long-term diversity and inclusion commitments promote real change. We ensure that recruitment partners have access to workforce demographic data and relevant market benchmarks, to operate effectively and with accountability.
Employee Referral Programme:
This helps us fill open roles and build a talent pipeline for future profiles. Digital content, social media updates, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, mobile recruitment, and videos are used to elucidate our employee value proposition.
Impactful Leadership Connect
Leaders make special efforts to ensure a personalised connection with employees across levels.
Mann ki Baat…MD ke Saath:
It is an individualised, confidential forum for employees to share feedback, suggestions, complaints or improvements with the MD. Our MD and Senior Leadership Team periodically evaluate suggestions, ideas, and we have implemented initiatives based on employee suggestions.
Baat Cheet with SLT/Strategy Connect with SLT:
It is a forum wherein the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) together connects with all employees to share important business strategic updates, seek feedback and suggestions.
MD Mailbox:
Employees can write to our MD directly about any challenges, concerns, issues, suggestions, and happy moments, among others. This mailbox is accessed exclusively by our MD – Mr. Sumit Issar and employees are assured complete confidentiality.
Employee Recognition and Celebrations
Our reward and recognition programmes are about thanking employees for their special efforts and also celebrating together
Special Thanks and Recognition System (STARS):
The overarching idea is to inspire and urge Team MAL to raise the bar through the public recognition of their accomplishments. We offer a variety of rewards and recognition under the STARS programme, including Accelo Star, Collaborative Champions, Alternative Thinking Award, Customer First Award, as well as several techniques for rewarding and recognising employees on an individual, team and corporate level.
Fun/Celebrations/Stress Busters:
At MAL, we celebrate various festivals, national and international days of importance both centrally and locally (at plants), keeping the vibe of the workplace happy, thriving and vibrant throughout the year.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
We are committed to fostering an environment that empowers individuals to Rise by respecting, embracing, and nurturing their ideas, opinions and experiences. By promoting an inclusive and empowering culture, we recognise each person’s uniqueness and appreciate what they bring to the workplace, sans the burden of biases.
POSH:
We promote ‘Zero Tolerance’ towards any form of harassment at work. Annual training on the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) policy are held and it is mandatory for all employees to attend. We also have several interventions such as the ‘Speak Up’ campaign, which encourages employees to speak up right away in the event of any wrongdoing.
Super Women At Accelo Group (SWAG):
SWAG, as the name suggests, is the vibe of the women employees networking and support group focussing on connecting, having fun, nurturing well-being and promoting learning. We have organised various sessions under SWAG, some of which have been extended to the women in our employees’ families and extended families, along with the inclusion of male employees. Some sessions in FY23 included ‘Success Stories’, ‘Women in Tech’, and a Video featuring all the women at MAL as they shine at the workplace.
D&I Council:
We have a D&I council which strives to create and foster a culture of inclusion, equity and empowerment. The council works on multiple projects in this space.
Accelo Women’s Council:
The Accelo Women’s Council is dedicated to creating progress in gender equality and women’s empowerment. It focusses on interventions to increase the number of women employees, highlight their challenges and concerns, and organise events centred around women and their aspiration, while fostering their physical and psychological well-being.
Young Accelo Council:
A larger segment of our workforce comprises young talent, the Generation Z and beyond. The Young Accelo Council plays an important role in ideation and gathering insights to leverage this generational diversity.
Paternity:
In a child’s upbringing, a father has an equal and significant role. We believe that both parents are responsible for caring for a child. Aligned with this philosophy we have a Paternity Leave policy for our male employee, giving fathers a chance to share caregiving duties with the new mother.
Is this me?:
Unconscious biases are learned assumptions, beliefs and attitudes. Bias is normal, though they can promote preconceived notions. Understanding these prejudices can help us experience a more inclusive and diversified reality. ‘Is this me?’ is a theatre-based learning intervention wherein through theatre employees understand the concept of bias and how we can together #Breakthebias. This programme also includes hiring managers who plays a vital role in talent acquisition and engagement.
Putting customers
at the heart of
our strategies
Our progress has always been centred around putting the customer first by prioritising their needs and promptly addressing their concerns. Our wide selection of products has been tailored to meet the specific requirements of our customers, and we remain dedicated to working closely with them to stay up-to-date with their evolving priorities and preferences.
Ensuring Best-In-Class Quality and Consistency
We prioritise quality and consistency to provide our clients with the best possible products and services. We recognise that quality is critical to gaining a competitive advantage, which is why we continuously seek quality recommendations from our consumers. Our approach is centred around meeting the specific requirements of our customers, and we have established a customer-centric approach to achieve this goal.
To ensure consistent quality, we have implemented a robust Quality Management System that includes Quality Planning, Quality Control, and Quality Assurance. We maintain quality throughout the supply chain, starting with our raw materials. Our facilities conduct thorough quality tests on automotive steel sourced from reputable Indian mills. Additionally, we import electrical steel from Nippon steel, the world’s leading CRGO supplier.
Our modern facilities use advanced technology to process raw materials, minimising waste and producing reliable results. Consistent output checks are conducted to ensure that we only supply high-quality goods. We have two TPM-certified plants and strive to internalise and implement learnings across all plants to exceed customer expectations.
Maintaining Transparency
We believe in open communication with our customers and authorities, which is why they are welcome to audit any of our facilities at any time. We provide our customers with full access to our accounting, order book management, and invoicing operations through digital channels, ensuring complete transparency in our processes. Furthermore, we transparently address customer complaints and have created a portal to expedite the resolution of issues. Our commitment to transparency allows us to build trust with our customers and provide them with a seamless experience.
Expanding the Value-Added Product Portfolio
We have consistently delivered value-added products to our clients, catering to their needs. We initially started with coil trade and supply in the automotive space before expanding to processing steel and supplying slit coils and cut-to-length flat sheets. To enhance the value chain, we also began blanking these sheets to offer specific profiles to our customers, effectively completing our journey from steel to components.
In the electrical steel segment, we began by delivering CRGO steel coils and have since expanded to offer laminations, fully built-up cores, flux plates, and core assembly. This allows our customers to focus on their core business and eliminates the need for inventory management and storage of laminations. Our electrical stampings business can deliver stator and rotor stampings from CRNO steel coils, and we offer additional services such as Aluminium Injection, Die Casting, and CNC Machining to provide our customers with multiple services from a single source.
Getting Closer to our Customer
To minimise the impact of supply chain interruptions on costs, raw material availability, and market share, we believe that being as close to the customer as possible is crucial. Our manufacturing plants are strategically located in Western and Southern automotive steel centres, and we ensure a continual supply of electrical steel from locations in West, North, Central, and South India. By being closer to our customers, we can reduce costs, expedite complaint resolution, and improve supply chain management. This has been reflected in our unbiased third-party customer satisfaction index scores.
Strengthening Customer Relationship Management
We have developed a Customer Relationship Management Portal/Customer Support Portal to manage customer complaints and efficiently ensure the best possible customer experience.
To ensure prompt resolution of complaints, we track customer response time, the number and PPM of complaints, and conduct root cause analysis, followed by swift corrective and preventive actions as necessary. We are committed to reducing turnaround time (TAT) and aim to resolve most customer complaints within seven days.
As part of our continuous efforts to provide exceptional customer service, we offer value-added products, improve our digital activities, and stay connected with our consumers.
Enhancing Customer Connect
Our senior management, sales, plant, and quality teams maintain constant communication with our customers to better understand their expectations and requirements. We reach out to our customers through various channels:
Senior Management Customer Visit: Our senior management meets with customers every month to understand their needs and expectations.
Customer Connect: Our sales team uses this portal to update the status of customer interactions.
Customer Visit Calendar: This portal helps us schedule visits, record meeting minutes, flag concerns, and provide updates on new business development.
Customer Page: This portal offers live updates on delivery, compliance, and quality to enhance transparency and ensure accountability from our teams.
Customer Support Portal: We have digitised our end-to-end customer complaint handling process to resolve customer problems quickly.
Display of Voice of Customer at Each Plant: We showcase the customer’s pulse, positive points that need to be sustained, OFIs with root causes and actions at each plant.
By leveraging these channels, we ensure that we stay connected with our customers, receive timely feedback, and continuously improve our products and services to meet their evolving needs.
Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI)
We conduct external Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) studies to ensure fair and transparent evaluations of our procedures. These studies review our customers’ changing needs, requirements, and expectations, compare our practices with industry benchmarks, and identify strategic and tactical improvement priorities. Our commitment to providing the best solutions and a customer-centric approach is reflected in our consistently improving CSI scores. This year, we achieved our highest score of 95
Customer As a Promoter Score (CAPS)
CaPS (Customer Advocacy Performance Score) is an important metric measuring the number of customers recommending our brand to others. An external agency evaluates this score on an annual basis, which provides insights and highlights opportunities for improvement. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Mahindra Group did not conduct the CaPS survey from FY 2019-20 to FY 2021-22.
Building empowered
communities
At MAL, we believe that fulfilling our social responsibilities is crucial for sustainable progress. We are committed to ensuring the well-being and happiness of our communities as we recognise their integral role in driving our future growth. Therefore, we firmly believe that creating a positive impact today is essential in securing a brighter tomorrow.
Education
Futuristic Class Room at Zilla Parishad School Kanhe. We have created a state-of-the-art, fully digital interactive classroom at Zilla Parishad School Kanhe, Pune, to drive the cause of Digital India. This classroom provides a whole new experience to young, curious minds. The digital workstations at each desk eliminate the need for books, pens, and notebooks. Instead, each desk features an interactive screen, headphones, a keyboard, a CPU, and a stylus pen.
The teacher can control what students see and read from a central podium, allowing for a more engaging and interactive learning experience. The teacher can also create lesson plans and evaluate student answers instantly on the computer screen. Parents can receive updates on their child’s progress via SMS, making it easier for them to stay involved in their child’s education.
To uplift the livelihoods of our neighbouring communities, we have undertaken several initiatives that focus on promoting education, healthcare, skill development, women’s empowerment, environmental conservation, and disaster management. Our goal is to make a meaningful and lasting impact on society by actively engaging with and supporting our communities.
This innovative concept has been very well received and appreciated by the school’s principal, teachers, and students. By embracing technology in the classroom, this school is helping shape the future of education in India and paving the way for a more digitally connected society.
~750
Student beneficiaries at Zilla Parishad School
500+
School bags donated to rural students in Zilla Parishad School near our plants at Pune
Transforming End of Life Bus into a Digital Classroom
We transformed an end-of-life bus acquired from the state road transport department into a modern digital classroom and donated it to a Government Junior High School in a rural village near Greater Noida. Fitted with the latest laptops and technology, this initiative promotes digital education and helps bridge the digital divide, providing equal opportunities for education and personal growth. The project also demonstrates our commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility. We are proud to have partnered with the Government Junior High School in this village and are excited to see the positive impact this digital classroom will have on the students’ lives.
Women Empowerment
One of our group’s primary areas of focus is empowering women. We firmly believe in enhancing women’s livelihoods in rural areas and enabling them to achieve financial independence. This, in turn, empowers them to gain a more significant voice for their rights within society.
To this end, we selected a group of 25 girls from low-income family backgrounds in villages near our plant in Pune. These girls had passed the Secondary Certificate examination (10th standard) and were trained in basic nursing. Upon successfully clearing the examination, they were placed in nearby nursing homes, enabling them to make a decent living.
In addition, we selected a group of 60 women from villages near our plant in Nashik to start micro businesses and create a source of income. With the help of an NGO that specialises in this field, these women were trained and provided with seed capital to buy the necessary equipment to run their chosen businesses. Around 30 of these women have already started their businesses and are happy with our support.
At our Vadodara plant, we partnered with the Indian Red Cross Society to provide basic healthcare training to 25 women from poor backgrounds. After six months of training, these women were awarded certificates from the Red Cross, enabling them to take up jobs at various hospitals to care for patients.
We also provided retail sales and customer handling training to a group of 20 women at our Vadodara plant with the help of a specialised agency. Some of these women have already been placed as receptionists and at retail sales counters. These initiatives are part of our ongoing efforts to empower women and improve their socio-economic status.
Nanhi Kali Foundation
Nanhi Kali, our parent company’s flagship CSR initiative, aims to provide holistic development to young girls from underprivileged backgrounds till the 10th standard by providing an annual supply kit. As part of this initiative, we sponsored 1,950 girls from regions near our factories in Maharashtra and Gujarat, providing them with free remedial after-school lessons and technical training. This program helps bridge the education gap and provides a better future for these young girls.
Health and Hygiene
Our Company spearheaded an initiative to install sanitary napkin dispenser machines and incinerators in six secondary schools close to our plants in Vadodara and Nashik. The purpose of this endeavour is to address the pressing issue of menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls in rural areas. The schools were also furnished with a one-year supply of sanitary napkins and an annual maintenance contract for the machines. This initiative aims to benefit approximately 1,650 female students and raise awareness about menstrual hygiene.
Furthermore, we arranged an eye check-up camp at a government school near our Vadodara plant, where we screened 240 students. Among them, 40 students were identified with vision problems and were provided free spectacles. Additionally, we held a voluntary blood donation drive at our Vadodara plant, and the collected units of blood were donated to a charitable blood bank.
Tree Plantation
In the year under review, we planted 3,124 trees near our facilities in Nashik and Vadodara as part of our Green initiative. This endeavour aligns with our parent company’s objective to plant one million trees annually under the ‘Mahindra Hariyali’ project.
10,000
Trees planted by MAL since inception
