About us

 The Hindu Group of Publications is 142 years youthful, vibrant iconic media organization in India.  We have a range of publications targeting various reader-segments.  We have several firsts to our credit in the  Media landscape and our Editorial and Business values have helped to enrich and sustain our viability and reliability. The organization always adapts and embraces various technological advancements and product innovation with active participation of employees.

Our Learning & Development Journey

In 2002, our HRD was set up with a clear purpose of bringing in, contemporary, best people development practice. Being a traditional organization with rich heritage and culture, the need to integrate working of various departments was felt as working in silos would be detrimental in face of advancements in technological sphere and team-work and collaboration is imperative.  Management went for expansion of production capabilities with latest technology to meet the customer demands, the need for high level of collaboration became a mantra.

Top down approach & Initial set up

Top Management committed to bring in radical change the way employees were functioning, HRD team was mandated to discuss and understand the requirements and purpose for learning interventions. We designed in-house Management Development Programme covering 12 modules giving a month gap between the modules.  Starting from vision mission values, Managerial skills, interpersonal skills, team skills, and leadership styles for the senior leaders of production.  The design was by default, in-line with the David Kolb’s model of learning, Process of Controversy, Action Research and Appreciative Inquiry.  The effectiveness of this programme enabled lots of synergy and collaboration among the leaders which enabled us to restructure the production function with one head for all the sub functions.

We continued our journey of enhancing the performance of field sales personnel – we are unique in terms of sales – product selling and space selling.  The skill set and the nuances are totally different and the programme helped the field force to upskill and reskill their go to market approach including customer servicing techniques.  The clear measurement resulted in  increased revenue and retention of customer base.

In order to meet the customer demands and delight the customer, we embarked upon :

Team Leader Programme –

The inter and intra media competition – The top management felt the need to transform by engaging professional leadership team to run the business with a clear strategic direction from top management.  In view of the above, we have changed our approach from learning to capability development. 

Formation of KSL (Kasturi & Sons Ltd) Academy

• KSL’s very own talent management and leadership development engine to create the next generation of leaders
• “Future Leaders” and “Rising Stars” programs for two levels of employees
• Nominations from Heads of Department based on transparent criteria laid down by HR and process administered by “Talent Council” (team of 6 senior leaders including MD)
• Objective to ignite individual potential and spark organizational energy
• Ongoing program annually to groom talent for KSL’s future

Effectiveness Measured

Stretch Project – Business projects have been identified by the Business Leaders who was sponsor of the project.  Cross functional Future Leaders and Rising Stars attached to the project which has benefited in solving the revenue and cost related aspects and the teams have worked on new ideas and innovated the different approach to help the sponsors and the organization.  Increased collaboration and team work.

Shifting the gear to Capability Building

Redefined the KSL Academy to The Hindu group Academy with a AIM Model :A – Align with business objectives, I-Integrate with Business & HR Process and M-Manage Learning Effectively with a clear purpose of  Improving individual and organizational performance through developing employee capability from futuristic perspective.  The capability building has been planned in the following manner covering all category of employees:

• Staff development – Enhance the efficiency to perform the assigned task more effectively
• Functional Skills – Create a workforce with adequate functional competencies to meet the future industry specific demands
• Senior/Future leadership Development – Focus on collaboration for purposeful performing organization and build talent for future
• Annual Sales conferences- Empower the sales team to deliver with purpose

Conclusion

Top Management wants  the organization to transform and be future-ready at all times.  In this regard the senior leadership team is laying out a road map for digital transformation by repurposing from publishing company to content creation company and driving the digital first initiative across the company.  Towards this direction the leadership team discussed at length the focussed on three prong approach such as embracing technology, building digital capabilities, upskilling and reskilling the existing workforce and restructure & reorganize teams to meet the objectives/goals.