Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited

Driving Change
Through Internal
Communication

Company Overview

HPCL is an Indian state-owned oil and natural gas company

Headquarters in Mumbai, India

Primary products: Diesel, Lubricants, Petroleum Gas and Jet Fuel

Owns and operates 2 major refineries producing a variety of petroleum fuels

Fortune Global 500 company with 1,100+ employees and annual revenues of $23B+

SWOT Analysis
Strengths

Indias major oil and gas

company
Owns and operates largest lube
refinery in India
Largest product portfolio

Weaknesses

Opportunities

Demand-Supply gap in India

Increasing natural gas market
Heavy industrialization causing
an increase in demand for fuel

Employee management
Human rights issues,
rehabilitation issues
Environmental hazards from
wastes

Threats

External pressures from

government
Competitors receiving subsidies
on taxes
Economic instability and
fluctuations in Indias policies

Responding to Change

A wholly state-owned enterprise within a wholly state-controlled market (2003)

New competitive pressures due to recent moves by Indian government

Inward before outward

Employees building the vision together and improving their communication skills

Project ACE (Achieving Continuous Excellence)

Workshop Practice

Project ACE (2003)

14 people from the organization became workshop coaches

Led hundreds of sessions
Reached thousands of employees
The focus is on defining, updating & implementing the visions and plans

20 people per workshops for 3 days

Employees were able to give opinion and insight for current and future course of HPCL

Back-and-forth discussions among participants

Workshop Theory

Enabled employees to talk with one another about the core purpose of the company

Created interactive process and listened to what employees had to say bottom up
approach

Emphasis on promoting communication to, from, and among employees

More informal conversation. Feedback is necessity and need more grassroots-level

participation

Responding to the change

Employees show commitment and powerful respond during the vision workshop

After the practice of internal communication during the workshop, the employees have
unity goal which is to achieve the HPCLs vision.

After the workshop, the executives formed teams to find out where the customer is

The teams give input and remained committed to the strategy

Employees felt personal sense of satisfaction and achievement

Approach to employee communication

We distinguish between transactional communications, which is the plain sharing of

information, and transformational communication, where we talk about our aspirations,
where we talk about integrating employees aspirations with the company Pshup Joshi,
GM Human Resources
USING COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

Leaders at Hindustan aimed for communication channels that were conversational

and that would influence employees to speak up
Before 2003

After 2003

Print Media

Webcast

Mass Email

Expanded Company Intranet

Standard Intranet

Vision Workshops

Town Hall

Community Blog 1-on-1 communication

Approach to employee communication

Our belief is that there is no substitute for interactive communication. Communication that
is top down, that is one way, can be useful for sharing facts and figures. But when we want
to share and idea, when we want to share the rational behind a policy or when we want to
get feedback, communication has to be two way - GM Joshi
ONE-ON-ONE COMMUNICATION

Low Tech

Indians put a high premium on non-verbal expression (body Language)

Personable & Attentive to employees

HPCL leaders waned the face to face one on one communication (open door policy over
8,000 employees)

Large scale community town hall meetings in major cities

Approach to employee communication

That is my philosophy -

that my employees are my internal customers and my

objective is to take care of those internal customers because if we take care of them they
will be willing to take care of customers of the corporation

Organizational conversation
Visiting employees out in the field at least once a month just to listen
HPCL Leaders would go out in the field and visit 8 different zones once a month, to
improve any operations and maintain good relationships
Sent employees out into the field for 2 weeks (Hamara Pumps, Washrooms)

Technologies

My HPCL Employee Webpage

Coin your idea
ICS (internal customer services) allowed for service requests and grievances
Employee weblog
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Effective Organizational Communication

BENEFITS

Immediate respond to any downturn

Held personal conversation

Executives met regularly with union leaders

Engage in two-way communication

Friendship, trust camaraderie and communication

Talking to people, meeting with front-line people and discuss with employees on company
strategies

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What Comes Next: Time to be No.1

Aim to achieve a leading position in the Indian retail petroleum sector

Continually gaining market share resulting in confidence

Ongoing conversation between executives and employees

Vision fatigue

A call to colleagues in Retail SBU: Chairmans Blog Post

Retail trade in India is still largely dependent on good logistics. If you ensure product
availability in the tank of the ROs 24 hours a day, you would grow without much problem.
Especially, when our outlets are the best looking in the country.

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Distinguishing Effective Leaders

Attributes and behaviors that distinguish leaders who communicate well

Have an on-going conversation between executives and employees at the company
Share company target online vision workshop
Development of corporate vision, an on-going interactive process
Engaged workforce whose members understood and believed in company mission

We should be happy to hear from the Sales Officers and Regional Managers. They are
closer to the ground realities than I am. Tell us what help you need to be No. 1. Lets also
have a contest for the first Zonal head, the first Regional Manager, the first Sales Officer, the
most supporting terminal / Depot Manager to reach the industrys No. 1 position.

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Baruch Communication: What Would You Change?

President and Department Heads = Top Management

Professors and Staff = Middle Managers

Students = Lower-Level Employees

Questions:

What are (major) problem(s) with internal communication in regards to what goes on in
Baruch?

What effective communication channels can Baruch (top management and middle
managers) use to communicate with you (lower-level employees)?

How can middle management better bridge communication between lower-level

employees and top management?

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