All Things Talent recently featured Dr. Varadharaju Janardhanan, who serves as the Vice President- Human Resources at Flipkart. In his role, Varadharaju draws upon his extensive HR expertise to facilitate the organization's talent discovery, growth, development, and substantial expansion. Before joining Flipkart, Varadha held significant leadership positions at esteemed organizations such as [24]7.ai, JDA Software, LG, and Zoho.
The conversation with him centered on exploring the foundational principles of a strong employer brand and provided insights into the operational dynamics at Flipkart India.
What are the core values that define Flipkart’s work culture, and how integral are these values to the company’s operations?
Flipkart’s momentous 16+ year journey of empowering every Indian’s dream by delivering value through innovation in technology and commerce has always been supported by our key behaviors of thinking big and taking bold bets, agility in thinking and execution, driving customer-centric innovation, all the while making sure that our moral compass is always pointing in the right direction. And that’s why, these behaviors were codified to form our core values: Audacity, Bias for Action, and Customer First, with Integrity & Inclusion (ABC, I&I).
Here’s how we define them:
- Audacity - Taking bold bets and changing the paradigm.
- Bias for Action - Having a sense of urgency to solve problems strategically and putting great ideas into action.
- Customer First - Looking at the world from our customer’s point of view, keeping customers at the heart of everything we do.
- Integrity - Always do the right thing and be committed to our customers and stakeholders.
- Inclusion - Value the uniqueness in everyone, respect differences and foster a sense of belonging.
Our values are at the core of what we do, and every Flipkart employee lives them each day in 3 primary ways. Firstly, by seeing them manifest around them. Secondly, by experiencing them in action through various programs and initiatives. Lastly, by deploying them in their decision-making.
These values are a key communication element in everything we do - appearing in various forms across initiatives.
Our values also make an important component of our performance and feedback processes. When evaluating performance, employees are encouraged to share how they have leveraged our values in their decision-making. During feedback, both managers and peers also give feedback by behaviors expected as per our values.
Our rewards and recognition policy is aligned with our core values and takes into account the recognition and appreciation of employees who demonstrate audacious thinking, agility, customer-first behavior, integrity, and inclusion. There are specific awards presented to employees who are custodians of our core values of ABC with Integrity and Inclusion. Annual awards such as Business Excellence, Customer Excellence, Rainmaker Award, and Value Ambassador Award, and quarterly BU-level awards such as Value Champion and Mission Impossible are designed to recognise employees demonstrating Flipkart’s values in their thinking and action.
And most importantly, our values act as the guiding light for our business decisions. So whether it be launching cash on delivery when E-Commerce was first becoming popular, to launching an AI-powered shopping assistant and AR-enabled product previews, all of our values are being put into action.
Our core values and culture have been such a strong influence that they’ve not only powered our growth but also the growth of 200+ start-ups that ex-employees of Flipkart have gone on to create and imbibe the same values and culture in.
Flipkart's work culture has received significant employee acclaim, evident from the positive reviews on platforms like Ambition Box. Could you expand on the primary factors that foster a favorable work environment?
At Flipkart, we’ve created a world of maximization which includes:
The Purpose that inspires us: Empowering every Indian’s dream by delivering value through innovation in technology & commerce.
- Our Employee Value Proposition: Together, we dare to maximize its 4 pillars - leave a mark, experiment, learn, grow, work with the best, and care.
- The Values that guide us: Audacity, the bias for action, customer first, integrity & inclusion.
When these 3 elements come together, employees can experience maximization in whatever form they choose - including the impact they can create, the opportunity to experiment and risk-taking, learning, growth, holistic well-being, and more. Therefore, every experience we design for employees has one of the above elements at its core.
I am sharing two examples from the world of wellness and learning at Flipkart which are critical to any person looking to build a long and fulfilling career:
Zen Garden: Established in 2023, the Zen Garden is a dedicated space hosted at our head office in Bengaluru. It is designed to promote the mental well-being of employees through scientifically curated healing and rejuvenation techniques sourced globally and promises instant rejuvenation within 10 minutes through 3 distinct zones.
The balance zone focuses on the realignment of focus, strength, and senses through sensitization and grounding through touch and auditory stimulation. It helps calm the nervous system, rewire brain waves, and harmonize yin and yang energies for a holistic balance.
The blossom zone focuses on transformation and acceptance of emotions, activation of joy through self-identification, acceptance and creative expression, and increased self-awareness to foster personal growth and maximise potential. The bliss zone enables energising and transcending to a higher self, through a dynamic meditative space to tap into the higher self.
Continuous Learning: We constantly strive to build a strong learning culture aligned with our EVP and career development philosophy. Our learning proposition is hyper-personalised to employees’ needs, their learning styles, and is also agile to accommodate evolving business needs. Our offerings cater to the asks of varied stages of an employee lifecycle (examples: new joiner assimilation programs, personal development training, leadership development programs, manager capability programs, developing org culture around customer centricity, enhancing business productivity, enhancing cross-team collaboration, innovation, etc.), based on skills/functions/roles. Hyper personalisation of learning offered through moderated subscriptions to content platforms enables learners to learn just-in-time for their work. These platforms offer content in varied forms including books, courses, sandbox labs, live virtual training, and streamed conferences. These initiatives, along with similar ones across areas such as talent development, learning, rewards, benefits, DEI, and more have endeared the organization to employees and make us an attractive place to maximise careers.
Flipkart is recognised as a leader in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), particularly in its efforts to hire individuals with disabilities and a special focus on women employees. How does Flipkart ensure inclusion for people with disabilities and prioritize diversity in its hiring practices?
Flipkart is an equal opportunity employer that focuses on inclusive talent attraction, talent development & retention, and culture & policies, supported by strong leadership commitment. Here are some of the things we do to prioritize diversity in our hiring processes:
- Unconscious Bias in the Hiring Process is an online module that serves as a guide to encourage Flipsters to reflect, enquire and explore biases that they may not currently be aware of, and how they may impact our hiring decisions. Currently, 80% of eligible hiring panels have completed this module.
- To ensure fairness, we screen applicants without any bias by masking the non-essential information.
- We also use open-source tools to validate that our job descriptions are gender-neutral and inclusive, focusing solely on the skills.
- Post Interview, the candidates are also asked to share their thoughts through a feedback survey that captures if the interviewer(s) was unbiased and given a fair opportunity to present skills and knowledge and whether during their interaction they were made to feel comfortable to share thoughts and be their authentic self.
- For PwDs (Persons with Disabilities), we have created special hiring constructs and programs. We also ensure that they thrive at the organisation. Some of our programs include:
eDAB: In April 2017, we first hired Persons with Disabilities through a pilot program called eDAB to offer sustainable professional and economic growth opportunities to PwD. This later evolved into a program under which we started hiring people with speech and hearing impairments as Wishmasters. Employing over 2,100 people with disabilities in 20+ states, across its supply chain, Flipkart continues to create a diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace with its eDAB initiative.
You can watch the story of one of our hubs where Persons with Disabilities are thriving: https://youtu.be/Ny6N_CCwe6o
- For Women, in addition to ensuring that our processes are inclusive, we have created several special programs targeted at engaging, empowering, and hiring women talent:
- Flipkart Inspired and Flipkart Make Your Mark: Designed to attract and engage women talent in technology and business, these 2 flagship events give women an opportunity to hear from women Flipsters. Alongside, they get to experience our cutting-edge work and participate in accelerated hiring.
- Flip Forward is our career returnship program that offers work opportunities to women who have taken a career break for personal reasons, and are looking to restart their careers. It is a 6-month program for women returnees that offers impactful projects across multiple domains and functions, and is open to any woman who has taken a career break of anywhere between six months to two years.
Flipkart Initiatives for Employee Growth and Skill Development
Individual Development Plan: Employees start by crafting individual development plans (IDPs) that outline what they want to achieve and a plan for how they will do it. Every employee has their own IDP that provides them the clarity they need to build long-term, sustainable careers at FK. Completed IDPs also help managers and team leaders in designing team structures, goals, and growth paths for their teams, as well as better understand the ambitions of their team members.
Thrive: We believe in the 70 (Experiential Learning): 20 (Mentoring): 10 (Formal Learning) framework and this is where our internal talent marketplace - Thrive - comes in. Employees share details of their current profile, share their ambitions, and the AI-enabled platform showcases training, projects and mentorship opportunities, customised to their exact needs.
Flipkart Luminaries: Flipkart Luminaries is the mentorship program that aims to pair experienced Luminaries (mentors) with eager mentees. Luminaries act as a guiding light for the mentees to develop new skills and competencies, network beyond their domain, and discuss their aspirations and development.
Flipkart Career Fest: The Career Fest is a one of its kind expo where business and HR teams collaborate to land end-to-end talent experiences for employees. It is the manifestation of our entire career development philosophy in a week-long high engagement and high excitement event.
3 key objectives of Career Fest:
- Drive Conversations around Careers
- Spreading Awareness about Flipkart’s Career Development Offerings
- Maximise employee engagement and stickiness
Is there a particular campaign or project at Flipkart that stands out to you as a source of pride?
While there are so many things that we do every year that make me proud of working at Flipkart and being a Flipster, there are two I’ll share that I think are game-changers and we hope examples that every company can emulate:
- The Healthy Flipkart Project: This project, aimed to make Flipkart the healthiest workplace in India, began its Phase 1 with comprehensive health check-ups through doctors partnered with Flipkart Health+. We covered nearly 5,000 employees in Phase 1 across 30+ locations through camps and walk-ins. In Phases 2 and 3, we will further develop and begin to offer customized offerings within the organization based on our baselining exercise. This baseline was executed at 0 cost to employees and was a significant investment by the organization.
- Democratization of Campus Hiring: We are strong believers in the fact that inclusive teams are the best ones. Therefore, a couple of years ago, we set out on a journey of ensuring that we can extend the Flipkart opportunity to as many of India and the world’s students as possible.
Flipkart GRiD and WiRED are our award winning flagship challenges which enable students to participate, solve case challenges and get hiring opportunities with Flipkart. We’ve opened both of them up to students of ANY engineering college or business school in India. This means that those with ambition, wherever they may be, will get the opportunity. Last year, nearly 1.6 Lakh students participated in GRiD - this was a national record! Over 60,000 participated in WiRED. We are extremely proud of this.
○ Specialized Programs for Women: At Flipkart, Inclusion is one of our core values, and as one of India’s leading and most aspirational employers, we believe it is our duty to provide employment and learning opportunities in an equitable manner. This is why we created Flipkart Girls Wanna Code, Runway, Neev and Disha - all of these are programs designed around learning, internships and hiring for women in sectors which typically have low gender diversity - technology and supply chain.
These are some of the initiatives that are really close to my heart and make me proud and excited to come to work every day.
Looking ahead, what does the future hold for Flipkart, especially in terms of employer branding? What strategies does Flipkart have in place to enhance its reputation as an employer of choice?
Flipkart’s employer brand story is built around our promises to potential and current employees - Together, We Dare to Maximize. This is our EVP, and the core of our messaging is built around its 4 pillars - Leave a Mark, Experiment. Learn. Grow., Work with The Best and We Care. To be the employer that we aspire to be, our entire people strategy is focused on empowering Flipsters to maximize their potential and well-being. We have a two-fold employer brand strategy of providing maximised experiences to existing employees and showcasing our stories of maximisation to potential candidates. A few ways in which we do this and will continue are:
- Authentic Storytelling: Flipkart is an exciting place to be, and we love talking about the work we do and the stories of Flipsters. For us, the scale of our work, innovation in what we do, and building an inclusive culture are key narratives that we will continue to talk about.
- Leader Voices: Our leaders are our biggest spokespersons. In addition to our owned channels, our leaders also talk about our organization and culture priorities and champion them internally and externally.
- Industry Recognition: Flipkart is recognized for its culture of maximization by several leading industry bodies - including Great Place to Work, Avtar, ET Now, People Business, Universum, Great Manager Institute, and more across categories including culture, wellness, DE&I, innovation, and more. We will continue to get more of these recognitions to tell our story.
- Industry Events: We want to share the Flipkart experience with as many people as possible. Therefore, the audience can interact with us through various owned events such as Inspired and Make Your Mark at our own offices, as well as through our presence at other industry events and campuses.
- Employee Voices: Platforms such as AmbitionBox are critical to any employer brand strategy in two key ways. It allows employees to share their experience honestly and for employers to better understand how they are doing on various aspects. We are proud winners of ABECA and have also had a lot to learn from the insights provided by the platform. It’s something that we will continue to do as a part of our strategy.
Dr. Varadharaju Janardhanan is a seasoned global HR leader, thinker, author, educationist, and coach with over 28 years of deep industry experience. In his illustrious career, Varadha has helped budding start-ups, mid-sized companies, as well as large multinational corporations, build and scale up their talent and people functions - with a specific focus on capability and talent development, leadership talent management, culture shaping, talent acquisition, and overall HR strategy and partnering.
