Just Kidding

Jayashree loves to play with her little kid when she gets back home after a tiring day. The smile on little ones face makes her forget all her worries and tensions. She quickly starts to finish all her regular chores for the evening and sits down to feed the baby his dinner. "Tomorrow I must close the financial report of the month and submit the final numbers to the boss. I have to be back home on time to take chhotu for his vaccination as well. Hope the quarterly update meeting gets over on time and am able to send the summary to the headquarters before that", she thinks. Her husband enters and finds her smiling on her own and asks, "hey, who are you smiling at?" She suddenly gets back from her thoughts and says,"just wondering about the regular jobs for tomorrow and also that its feels great to be balancing it all. Its so satisfying. Never thought I would be able to sail through it all after the baby."

Jayashree is our GM compliance working with finance function where the diversity ratio is compratively lower than other functions. I happen to interview her one day for our newsletter and here are the excerpts:
How does it feel to be back after maternity leave?
Jayashree (JS): Feels rather uncomfortable in the beginning, since your thoughts are on the baby – how is he coping, is he comfortable and so on. With time, you learn to switch off home when you are in office and switch off office when you are home.

What was the response of your colleagues & Supervisors when you returned?

JS: Generally everyone was interested in knowing whether it was a boy or a girl, what had we named him, what arrangements I had at home for looking after the baby, how was I coping with work & whether my baby was keeping me awake through the night and so on….

What thoughts come to your mind when you decided to go the family way?
JS : Lots of thoughts crossed my mind – to name just a few:
· the infrastructure that one would need at home to look after the baby – this is vital
· Whether the manager would be willing to allow you to adjust the work timings a bit or allow you to work from home, if this is possible for the role that one has
· How to manage career and home?

What kind of support did you get from PepsiCo during this period?
JS: All infrastructure required to work from home – data card, courier docs to my place, send the rider to pick them up etc.

Do you have any suggestions for PepsiCo to deal better with gender diversity / to make this place more female employee friendly?
JS: It would really really help if we can have a crèche at our office to keep babies upto at least 2 years of age. The cost can be picked up by the employees who use it.

Jayashree's phone rang which she picked up quickly and said,"baby ko kela dena mash kar key, thoda dudh bhi daalna usmein" (give him mashed banana and put some milk as well). She smiled at me and said,"time for lunch for baby and for me too. Catch you later. Bye."

Career opportunities for Women at PepsiCo

Monday Blues

I got up from my bed at 7 am….oh my God! It’s another Monday…In another two hours I have to get ready, search for my shoes, belt, wallet, my Yamaha keys (I call it Tiger) and have to reach office…

…..lying in the bed I could visualize how the office would be on a Monday morning…………the large 10000 sq ft office will be fully packed with professionals acting busy, all 7 conference rooms will be engaged with people pretending to have meetings, some at their workstations some on phone, some will be glaring at their laptop screens, a few would be figuring out the way to come out of their weekend mood and a few chirpy ones would also be gossiping in the corridors… oh My God! It’s another typical Monday where my boss will review me on my projects.

I reached office at 9 am. My boss reached at 9:45 am and as usual I am at her workstation with my D630 laptop (my life) ready for all downloads.

I get a call from Vasudha, R&D Manager…. “What should I do for Southern Challengers” she asks me. In the corridor Nishi Malhotra (the happening EA) from MD’s office checks with me, “Which team do I belong to? Southern Challengers or MT Max?”

In HR Cubicle I could hear Manvi, our OD Manager talking with someone on phone (old American accent) “ Avijit, why don’t you update me on Western Warriors Agenda and Sales Achievement Communication Plan” ??????. She otherwise generally talks about CGM (its PepsiCo’s Career Growth Model)

Muralidharan, the irritating Trade Manager asks me “When will I come to know about my team?” And adds another question rather quickly and aggressively “Where are my cheer leaders”….

Why Vasudha from R&D talked about Southern Challengers, Nishi about MT Max, Manvi about Western Warriors achievements and why the hell Muralidharan is enquiring about Cheer Leaders instead of his trade routes….all these funny questions on a Monday which visually has no connection to their regular job!

After getting puzzled for some time, I suddently realized its all about FPL. What is this FPL????????

FPL has created a revolution in the organization. Currently the talk is on for “Chalo Bazaar Day” and taking entire office to the market. I mean the ones who have the privilege of sitting in this air conditioned office in Gurgaon’s upscale Global Business Park, will now have to go to market and sell the product in this scorching heat along with the frontline sales men. In the next two months of FPL, there are plans of road shows, spot awards, exciting month end meetings, website, trip to Dubai, meeting with Indra Nooyi…etc etc.

Frito Premier League (FPL) is a summer mega sales contest of Frito-Lay between May to July 2008 focusing on sales target achievement and market share. Ok, our name sounds quite familiar with a well known contest recently happened. But what the heck! It has no connection with any one of those. It is our own league. The great Frito Premier League.

This contest has been designed to reward individual performers and team performers covering 100% Sales Team spread across 5 teams South, East, North, West and Modern Trade including our channel partners

This FPL contest is an organization-wide momentum with ExCom taking ownership of each team personally and has more than 6800 awards for our Sales and Support Teams. The teams have been categorized into 5 Sales Regions – South as Southern Challengers, North as North RDX, West as Western Warriors, East as Eastern Tigers and Modern Trade as MT Max. Each of the team is owned by one Ex Com (Executive Committee) member with non-sales office employees playing the role of Cheer Leaders (Support team).

Some exciting titles are :

• Player of the League
• Master Blasters
• League Champs
• Champion of Champions
• Heros of the huddle

Hai na exciting ?? For the next three months, every Monday rather every day, I will see each one of our employees talking about FPL and working hard for their teams to win….Monday never seemed to be so exciting before...

- contributed by Krishna Kumar, Sales HR Manager

Do you Engage Every Day?

Frito-Lay India's HR Program recognized for being top 6 Innovative practices in the industry
It’s not too long ago when we mentioned about our clean sweep at the Employer Branding Awards in January 2008. Our guys just can’t sit without making any stir in the industry. Dev Raj Sharma, our Operations HR head was complaining last time around as we could not showcase our Operations HR innovative practice called ‘Engage Every Day’ at Employer Branding Awards since there wasn’t any specific category for such an initiative.
This time however, he had his way and sent his registration for ‘Innovation in HR’ awards organized by DMA & Erehwon and undoubtedly became the only one among us to have reached the final stage after great amount of grueling and auditing by the Erehwon representative. In fact, this practice has already made its mark on the PI world and has won ‘Talent Sustainability’ Award by Indra Nooyi. To give a brief overview on the practice this is an initiative led by our plant HR teams which connects Frito-Lay India with all its stakeholder on an ongoing basis making it a way of life through a 3 way connect:
· Connecting with employees and their families on a personal level
· Connecting with the community through CSR initiatives & community leaders
· Proactive engagement with bureaucrats on community initiatives /CSR agenda

(photo: L to R Dev Raj Sharma – Vice President Operations HR, Suchitra Rajendra, EVP Staffing and OC, Sudharshan Banerjee, Managing Director India Market Business Advisory Board (Jury member) & Suweshi Sharma Agro HR Manger Frito-Lay India accepting the trophy).

A short AV can be viewed on you tube link -Engage Every Day

Our other two entries on ‘People Certification Process and Employee Communication program were also seen as Best Practices that other organizations can imbibe. To give a snapshot, People Process Certification is a unique self paced online learning tool designed to on-board and build capability on People Processes. It has this very interesting format based on Karate Belt System. Employee Communication initiative is an innovative design to reach out and engage existing employees, potential employees and impact external environment to build the employer brand.

The other two apart from us were – HCL on its program of Employee First – where the HR has many flexible programs of meeting the needs of the employee. And Carborundum Universal Ltd (part of the Murugappan group of South) for its innovative recruitment where workers were hired as supervisors in a new factory which was technology intensive.

DMA Erehwon had received 40 odd entries. Some of the other organizations that have participated are Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance, Crompton Greaves Limited, NIIT Technologies Ltd, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), CavinKare Private Limited, IPCA Laboratories, HCL Technologies Ltd, Zensar Technologies, Indian Hotels Co Ltd, Aviva Life Insurance Company India Ltd., TATA Projects Limited, Coromandal Fertilizers Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare Ltd, Satyam Computer Services Ltd, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Aricent Technologies (Holdings) Ltd and Wipro Technologies

Through an exhaustive round of debate and dialogue and shortlisting , 21 entries were first chosen of which further 12 entries (4 of which are from PepsiCo – 3 from Snacks and 1 from Beverage) were chosen for the third round which was the in-context audit. From these 6 finalists were given an opportunity to present their practices in front of the Jury and a live audience of about 150 delegates from various organizations across India.

Heartiest congratulations to our Beverage division to have won the 1st runners up trophy for their highly innovative and unique PepsiCo Values roll out initiative. Don’t miss how it was done, call up someone in HR PepsiCo and find out. We have a lot more to tell!

Bhoot Hotay Hain (Ghosts Exist)

Last Saturday, we took Frito Employees and their families to watch ‘Bhoothnath’. Other than a lots of Bhootiya (scary) scenes, well played by senior AB, there was a lot of Juhi and our very own Kurkure and Pepsi in the movie. In one particular scene, they even show Bhoothnath munching on Kurkure along with the kid ‘Banku’ (played by Aman Siddiqui) and his mother (played by Juhi Chawla). We all simply loved the movie for the fact that kids really laughed their heart out more often than getting scared and along with them parents (our employees) and even the grand parents of a lot of families were part of the laughter. Overall an enjoyable great Indian family moment. My 5 year old too was very excited since morning about the movie and he pulled us out of the house 45 minutes prior to the show. It was a good decision however, to leave early, keeping in view the dearth of parking space in Gurgoan malls which had made us loose first 10 miutes of any movie that we have seen in the past. Ok, let me get out of the cribbing mode and get back to the movie show. The hallway was full of kids of our employees, some running around, some piling on to the snacks counter, some just clinging on to their parents making it difficult for them to stand straight. My own son was also after my life to buy him Lays & Pepsi and after failing to convince with words like, “Beta I will get you once we will move inside the hall”, I had to give in to his demands and found my self at the snacks counter with a jumping jack – My son! Finally we were inside the dark hall and suddenly my son’s loud scream astounded me, “Mamma Bhoothnath !” Well, his preoccupied mind works overtime and he called the PVR hall escort (ticket checker in old terms) a Bhoothnath because he was holding the torch up while looking at our tickets. We all settled and the movie started. First few scenes were a bit scary and my son had no choice but to hide in my lap out of fear. Am sure a lot of parents were thanking the Movie Director to create such a start which settled down the kids quickly. Movie progresses to an interesting plot and there were some rib tickling scenes between the Ghost and Banku which created hysterics. "When the company outing includes the whole family, find something everyone will enjoy and Going to a movie Bhoothnath was just the thing." said Arvinder Singh, (on left with family) one of our senior executives. Everyone enjoyed and it was quite clear from the fact that after the movie, while getting out of the hall, I overheard Shaminder Singh, one of our senior executives telling another colleague, “It was a good movie and enlightened kids to respect elders by projecting some good family values”, who brought his two wives and one son (oops!) two sons and a wife to see the movie. Manisha Arora, (photo on right with husband and two lovely kids) another colleague brought her family to watch the show and said, “Movie was scary initially but turned out to be a good comedy, kids enjoyed a lot. It was a good experience to see all Frito families around while watching movie in the theatre. I look forward to many such fun events in future.” Well, 45 minutes to the movie and my son finished his big glass of Pepsi, (and was ready to go to the loo). “Why can’t they make attached toilets in theatres keeping in mind the age group that turns up now a days to watch movies?” I thought. Am sure the fear factor of Bhoothnath was adding to this and many parents would endorse the same.

Movie however, towards the end, seemed to drag a bit because of which most kids were back in action. Last 45 minutes of the movie one could clearly see little Ghosts running around the hall up and down disturbing the non Frito crowd and we were quietly confined to our seats assuming no ones knows whose kids.

What are your angels doing this summer??

Straight From The Heart

Some of the guys who join us, we do a quick fun interview to know them better. Here's a sneak peak into the lives of our 4 Frito Champs who have joined at 4 different regions of Frito-Lay India Sales team and what they feel about working with Frito! Enjoy.....

"Me" in one word : Energetic

Hobbies : Travelling, watching movies

First Day @ Frito-Lay : At the Corporate Office, skeptical, cautios but a lot of optimism

Most enjoyable moment @ Frito-Lay : Yet to come

Dream : To play an active role in improving the environment be it company/society

What I like about Frito: It allows people to think BIG

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"Me in one word : Target

Hobbies : Playing and watching Cricket. Going for long drives

First day @ Frito-Lay : Was the best day of my life

Most enjoyable moment@ Frito-Lay : Too early to zero on one

Dream : Become a good Manager

What I like about Frito : Sales system

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"Me" in one word : Positive

Hobbies: Adventure sports (Mountaineering)

First day@ Frito-Lay : Good atmosphere to work

Most Enjoyable moment @ Frito-Lay: Yet to come

Dream: To grow my territory in higher double digits and combat competition to less than 10%

What I like about Frito: Exciting product portfolio

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"Me" in one word : Go getter

Hobbies : Watching sports

First Day @ Frito-Lay : Proud to be associated with strong brands

Most enjoyable moment @ Frito-Lay : Placed a second rack at a disputed outlet in Frazer town

Dream : To become an Area Sales Manager

What I like about Frito : Brand strength

EVER TASTED SUCCESS AT PEPSICO?

Frito Reality Show

“Oh! My God…”, said Nishi Malhotra, the ever so happening EA to our CEO, almost creating a mini quake in my cubicle. Other 2 fellow colleagues looked at me as if I was surfing some other sort of ‘interesting’ stuff. Let me tell you nothing unusual needs to happen to get such overly exaggerated statements from our folks in the office. I was just casually flipping through the drafts of my newsletter when she caught Dhoni’s pics peeping from the pile. The cascading effect takes place and another one joins in, “ Wow…Dhoni, look at his biceps, he sooooooooo cute!” "Dhoni is cute indeed", I agreed.

These pics are live from our promo that is currently running with our products called Chala Change ka Chakkar (CCC in short) details of which I had posted some time back on this blog (check out guys..its for real!). FritoLay gave three thrilled fans a chance to live their favorite stars life – Dhoni’s, Saif Ali Khan’s and Juhi Chawla’s through this promo. In this pic Dhoni is checking out Hiren's bike…how cool.. (Nishi would have almost imagined herself sitting behind him). He also went to Hiren’s office and tried his hand on answering a few calls and assembling a few sockets, prepared some tea for his family while Hiren was off to being a cricketing superstar. Hiren enjoyed a meal at Dhoni’s favorite Dhaba while Dhoni was enjoying a game of gully cricket with Hiren’s mother and boys of his building. “I ended the day reliving my experiences over a cup of tea at a tea stall overlooking the Ranchi landscape”, said the youngster. “It was a perfect end to a perfect day.”

Another 20 year old Paras Kakkar swapped lives with Juhi, complete with being pampered at a spa, picking out an elaborate wardrobe, getting a make over and doing a photo shoot in a true star style. And well, Juhi was in a for surprise because it turned out that it was Paras’s parents anniversary and she was incharge of their surprise party!! She cooked Paranthas with the ladies of the house.

Umed Rana, the lucky man from Bhiwana got to live Saif Ali Khan’s life for a day. Not surprisingly his schedule involved getting fit. “I followed his fitness routine, workout at his gym and a dance rehearsal at the end of the day, full on Bollywood ishtyle! Saif in the meantime did shopping with his family at a mall, went go-karting with his kids and had meal with them. He also played guitar while kids did a small dance performance.

Well, can we have a ‘Live life of your Boss’ kinda internal contest in here? Is anyone listening?

Ok Abhijit, you say good bye and wash your hands off this Blog..but you bet, there is something special to this organization which made you write this emotional note. You miss Frito-Lay..don't you? In the meantime we’d like to continue reckoning and marveling at our rehires which reached no. 14 last month.

To start with let me announce that PepsiCo is named among world’s Top 20 Most Admired Companies in the World! PepsiCo has been recognized by Fortune and Business Week magazines recently as "Top 50 Performing Companies in the U.S.," as well as the list for Fortune's "World's Most Admired Companies."

PepsiCo made Fortune magazine's the list at #13 on their "World's Most Admired Companies." The magazine's survey asked businesspeople to vote for the companies that they admired most, from any industry. To read the full list, visit http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/globalmostadmired/2008/top50/index.html.
PepsiCo was also #31 in the BW50, which represent BusinessWeek's picks as the top performers in each of the 10 sectors that make up the S&P 500. To select this year's winners, BusinessWeek ran the S&P 500 through a proprietary screen that ranks those companies within sectors by two key metrics: return on investment and sales growth over the past three years, and for financial-service firms, their returns on equity and growth in assets. To read about the list, visit http://www.businessweek.com/bw50

THE RETURN OF ABHIJIT BHADURI

We’d like to announce that Abhijit Bhaduri has decided to return to PepsiCo owning to the emotional farewell he got from the team and the peer group. Over a quick phone call to our CEO he mentioned that he could not give up thinking about the good times he spent at PepsiCo and that he cannot afford to miss the excitement and passion that runs through FritoLay India Snacks team. He broke down looking at the scrap book presented to him. Upon hearing him sob and snivel, his family had to literally break the door to find out if he was alright. Attached is the glimpse of the farewell booklet we presented to Abhijit and a few clips from the AV we presented to him as a small token of affection.

Just kidding ….just a small way of celebrating fools day guys…Abhijit is perfectly sane, healthy and happy doing some great stuff at U.S. of A

Au Revoir

On 18 Sept 2006, I started this blog. To write about the fun filled culture of FritoLay, India. To get it going there was a short 3 min video of What is it Like to Work for FritoLay? That video uploaded on Youtube (click here to watch it) got us a lot of eyeballs. Research (basically that means all the people I spoke to) showed us that it was the first place for candidates to get a feel of the culture of PepsiCo's Snack division in India. Candid confession: When I saw that a lot of people were using that to decide on whether they would fit in to this culture or not, I did feel a tad bit inhibited and stopped doing videos of giggling employees on candid camera kind of stuff. Thats was truly tempting given the number of applicants who wanted to come into work in a giggly environment! Honestly - someone did say that to me.

Thereafter the focus was more on describing all the fun moments at work. The innovative people that we have here inspired us to do more. The media and other bloggers took notice and we got a gazillion suggestions on what to put into the blog. That made me realize that the challenge in having an unofficial corporate blog are two. One is to avoid sounding like a commercial for the company. More than that is the challenge of getting more than a few enthu guys to post. How do we update the blog continuously and frequently?

Madhu Rajesh was our answer. Besides being a part of the Employee Communication piece of HR, she brought oodles of ideas and enthusiasm to the table with her stories on our efforts at being RJs for a competition (which we lost miserably!) and many more.

Meanwhile it is time for me to say goodbye as I choose to pursue my dreams outside of FritoLay. So this will be my last post on the Frito blog - heck nothing stops me from commenting on the posts as a reader does it? So maybe instead of saying goodbye, I should say Au Revoir.

FORTUNE Teller!

Our very own Indra is back in news. This time on the FORTUNE COVER in its March 3 issue with the title, "What Makes Pepsi Great?" and then answers that question by offering "an inside look at how she has transformed an American business icon." (BTW doesn't she look amazingly cool & composed? She can easily give any Cosmopolitan, Vogue cover model a sprint for their job!)

Getting back to the business, here are the excerpts imparted by PepsiCo headquarters . The article examines the company's success from many angles. It looks at the Frito-Lay and Pepsi cultures that were merged to form PepsiCo in 1965, contrasting "the get-things-done expertise of Frito-Lay and the never-take-anything-for-granted underdog mentality of Pepsi-Cola." The magazine says the result is a "contrarian, risk-taking big company that prides itself on acting like a small company" and has posted an eye-popping compound annual growth rate of 13% over the past 42 years." It points out the company's revenue has nearly doubled since 2000.
The article also highlights "Performance with Purpose," which it says puts a positive spin on how PepsiCo does business both at home and abroad, boiling it down to "balancing the profit with making healthier snacks, striving for a net-zero impact on the environment and taking care of the workforce." FORTUNE lauds PepsiCo for taking on a completely different flavor in balancing the old with the new. It contrasts Fritos and Cheetos with Stacy's Simply Naked (pita crisps) and Flat Earth (fruit and veggie chips); Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew with Naked Juice Pomegranate Blueberry and IZZE Sparkling Clementine; North American Van Lines and Wilson Sporting Goods with partners Lipton and Starbucks.
The article also provides a timeline on how snacks and beverages got healthier, highlights PepsiCo's business unit leaders, discusses the rivalry of Coke and Pepsi, as well as Wall Street's reaction in recent years. To download the online version , please click here

An exclusive family picutre of Indra published by Fortune ......(the smiling tall lady on the left)

The queen of transformation! Surely, Indra Jaisi Koi Nahin! (No one's like Indra)

Frito-Lay India wins Marketing Excellence Award

Our 'Love Mark' flagship brands Lays and Kurkure are not only being loved by the consumer but also accepting accolades from the industry for setting standards in marketing excellence. At the 7th Indra Marketing Excellence Awards held on 23rd February at Pune Pepsico India (Fritolay Division) was awarded under the category “Brand Excellence”. The Award is presented to those organizations who have put passion into building their brands and shifted the paradigm in setting a new trend in Brand Excellence. Top FMCG companies and advertising agencies were among those who were evaluated for the award. The function was held in Pune, attended by approx 2000 people which included senior professionals from the industry.

On a seperate note, just wanted to share how our innovation in India is making us proud gloablly. After creating a special place for itself at ‘Chai Time’ (Tea time) of Indian consumer, Kurkure is now being introduced to various international markets to showcase the unique magic of Indian spices. Check out our brand new campaign ‘Chala Change ka Chakkar’ and change everything you have.....even your life. Ever thought of exchanging 1 day of your life with your favorite celebrity? Well..do leave us a comment, it feels great!

Sum Of Us Is Not All of Us

Last evening we had a great party to celebrate the slew of awards that the FritoLay HR team won at the Asia Pacific HRM Congress. So we had to get our new Managing Director, Gautham Mukkavilli to foot the bill for a Rock 'n Roll party. Gautham has taken over as the head honcho of FritoLay India from the 1st of January 2008. He is a 16 year old PepsiCo veteran who was part of the early team that launched Pepsi in India in 1991. So like all good PepsiCo employees he enjoys our "work hard party hard" culture. Gautham loves to play the flute and guitar and promised us a performance soon. Watch this space for more.

The venue was this cute little place in Gurgaon (I think the place is called JMD Plaza) where the HR team from the FritoLay office had one helluva rocking time. The place plays classic rock and they play it loud and that forces everyone to scream out their conversations.

The high energy HR team had many others from the office joining in to burn the dance floor. Suchitra won the award for finally armtwisting our CFO, Kimsuka Narsimhan to do her first ever dance performance. Thus proving that she can handle all kinds of numbers (that was a bad pun, but y'know the worse the pun, the harder they are to resist).

On the dance floor was Deepika Warrier our Marketing Veep who was in the news recently for signing on Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the star cricketer as our brand ambassador.

We missed having the HR folks in our plants at Channo, Pune and Kolkata at the party. Also missed were the Sales HR folks in the various offices across India ... but here are the rest of us.

Sitting (L to R): Bhavna, Mridula, Umang, Krishna, Mohit and Sekhar

Standing (L to R): Madhu, Romika, Suweshi, Dev, Manvi, Abhijit, Suchitra and Charu

Frito Buzz - True Stories from Life @ Frito-Lay India

This is a quick little Promo of our in-house AV Newsletter Frito Buzz. Our highly inquisitive and info hungry employees would like to be continuously informed of what's happening in and around the organization and they refuse to accept the conventional ways of communication. That’s when we thought of creating our own production house called – ‘HR Entertainment Limited – a product of Employee Communication’ and created this interesting format. Manvi Sarkar, our HR Manager and Amitabh Pandy, our VP Consumer Insights are the anchors of the movie (imagine after we gave him this break, he got a job offer in UK and is now an international star!) and the rest of the characters are as real as it can get including our CEO and the highly enthusiastic women force in our Kolkata Plant. We first released this promo and then the movie was shown to all our employees across the country by creating the ambience and feel of a actual movie show (worx n'all!) . It turned out to be a huge hit :) We had fun making it and employees had fun watching it indeed. Remember, if you are thinking of joining Frito-Lay, do brush your acting skills…who knows you might be our next Frito Buzz star anchor!

Vaisay bhi..Yeh toh sirf Trailor hai...picture abhi baki hai mere dost!!

COMING SOON...FRITO BUZZ 'four'

FritoLay Wins Employer of Choice - Thirst RU

That's not a typo. We did get the "Thirst" R.U. Award But let me talk about our Employer of Choice award in a moment. First things first.

We had already won three awards at the Asia Pacific HRM Congress held in New Delhi a fortnight back. But then this was the national round. So it was a different game. We all keep joking with each other about how inherently competitive a FritoLay employee is. Basically we like to win. Hey I am different. For me winning is not the only thing - it is EVERYTHING!! When we decided to go across to Mumbai (we were apprehensive. Would we win or wouldn't we. It is a tough thing to go to an awards ceremony and then return empty handed. That just sucks.

Well we did win awards. Allow us to preen and strut for a brief minute. The first one was the Global HR Excellence Award that recognizes FritoLay for being an Organization With Innovative HR Practices.

In addition we won all three categories of the Employer Branding Awards for 2007-08 at the national level. These were for FritoLay Division being recognized has having the Best HR Strategy in line with Business, Innovation in Recruitment and the fiercely competitive category of Excellence in Training

We won the 3rd Runners Up award for being Employer Brand of the Year 2007-08 the national round of Asia Pac HRM Congress which celebrated 16 years of the awards. Mahindra and Mahindra got the award for being the Employer of Choice. Congrats M&M. This was no mean feat with "2600 entries, out of which 50 companies reached the finals." According to Suchitra FritoLay is "THIRST Runners Up". I agree. Until we win the first spot, we will remain "thirsty for more"!

Here is a closeup view of the awards. And the awardees (from L to R): Madhu Rajesh, Abhijit Bhaduri, Suchitra Rajendra and Sanjeev Dixit.

Sidelight: Both Suchitra ("Suchi" to friends) and fellow blogger Madhu are diehard fans of Shah Rukh Khan. Since the venue of the competition was bang next to the superstar's house and it just happened to be Valentine's Day - yes the competition was on 14th February 2008, Madhu and Suchitra decided to camp outside the Bollywood actor's house (called Mannat - means a vow made to a deity) in Bandra. They clicked this photo of Pepsi's brand ambassador Shah Rukh's mansion (Mannat is marked with the arrow - and that's a road sign. Not what you thought). Both of them swear that if you look hard enough you will see Shah Rukh Khan standing in the Balcony. Leave your comment behind to let me know if you spotted SRK.

FritoLay Wins 3 Awards at Asia Pacific HRM

Just so you know it first from us. Last evening our HR Team went to attend the awards function for the Regional round of the Asia Pacific HRM Congress in New Delhi. The entire HR team had turned up hoping that we would win at least one of the three categories we were competing for. And then the first one happened...

"The award for innovation in Recruitment goes to FritoLay India...". The rest of the announcement was drown by the loud applause. It was great to see how our Employee Referral Program aptly called "Bring a Friend to Work" (there is a neat video on this site). It was recognition for the great done by Suchitra and her staffing team with some superb work done by Umang and the Sales HR Team with Mohit, Avijit, Dhruv and the inimitable Krishna doing some stellar work in making sure the Referral program of Frito becomes a national benchmark.

The second one was the category that saw steep competition from all the companies - Training. But our innovations in linking training to business strategy helped us win ahead of others who were competing on number of training days and all that. That's Suchitra and her Org Capability team at it. The work they have done in building the talent pipeline at Frito is truly outstanding. We always thought so and now everyone thinks so too!

But the biggest recognition came to FritoLay India came for having the "Best HR Strategy in Line with Business". This award had 600 entries and despite that we were recognized for "setting a standard for the rest of the industry". The entire HR team was delirious and was busy hugging and congratulating each other. A million sms messages were sent to friends, colleagues and well-wishers all over. And the responses kept pouring in and are still coming in.

So where are the pictures? Errrr... well.... we did not take the camera along. As one of them explained, "It would have been worse if we had brought a camera and not won any awards." But we will get some from the organizers and share them with you.

See you in Mumbai when we compete for more on Valentines Day!

Radio Jokers!

I and Abhijit, our HR Head, somehow just landed into this Radio One Office Champ contest which is on air everyday between 6 – 8 pm. Although we end up goofing up every time but the fun of the whole thing is that we are able to generate a lot of excitement in the organization. Every evening employees’ Radio’s are switched on and we all eagerly wait for our round to be aired. In a true reality show ishtyle, our success on this competition also depends on SMS voting. (Now I know how unfair these contests could be; you could be at best of your talent n’all but if you don’t generate enough votes, you are good for nothing!!) We are SMSing left, right and centre and are hopeful to win this competition. Check out this cool campaign we created :)

Now let me tell you what’s happening on this contest. The teams are : PepsiCo, Global Logic, Live India, HT, Dainik Jagran……A team of two from each of these organizations is participating by answering on various rounds. First day was an introductory round and we were thrown questions like ‘Kee Haal Hai’??!! Were we to be witty? May be funny, don’t know yet. Imagine what Abhijit would answer when asked, “what would you say to your boss if he has caught you singing looking at his wife”? BTW, we scored 9 on 10. Not bad!!

Round Two was a disaster – Bollywood quotient! Who’s got the time yaar to read Filmfare or watch Bollywood ka Boss!! Anyway, we jumped into this without any arms and ammunitions and yet came out with flying colors. WE GOT ONLY 6 ON 10, LOWEST OF ALL!! Good fun (was made of both of us!). For God’s sake how on this earth will we know “what role J.D. Chakraborty played in Satya”?

Round Three was Flirt quotient. Abhijit was very happy this time and as expected he did a great job of flirting with the RJ and the lady who called him to check out his flirt quotient. We scored 8 on 10.

Today was round Four & Five. Cricket quotient and Talent Round. Well, we are the masters at that. A perfect 10 on 10 in Cricket and 9 on 10 on Talent. Hope our happiness is not short lived and we are able to sail through tomorrow’s Quiz on Delhi. God bless us!!

But, are you voting???? SMS OC FritoLay to 53650 right now!!

Snack Smart!

On one fine afternoon, we caught Saif to do this little promo for us. Let us know what do you like about this Ad and what you don't. What do you think the Ad is trying to convey? Simply post your views in the comment box and who knows we might get Saif to answer your questions...

AR Rahman Concert in Delhi

What would you need to do if you wanted to listen to AR Rahman, Hariharan, Chitra, Kailash Kher and Rapper Blaze in Delhi. You had to go to the mega concert that was held last evening in Delhi. If you were a PepsiCo employee you got to see the show. You had to find your place among the 25,000 fans who ranged from six year olds to their grandparents (children below five years old were not allowed in).

AR Rahman came across as an immensely talented composer who has yet to make the transition to being a huge entertainer. He is an artiste who just focuses on creating great music and leaves the flash and glitz to others. I love the way he has transformed the face of Bollywood music by bringing in new sounds and singers with each venture.

When the concert started with Rahman singing the operatic overture from the film Guru

"Jage hain der tak hamein
kuchh der soney do
Thodi si raat aur hai subah to hone do.
Adhe adhure khwab jo pure na ho sake
Ek bar phir se neend mein woh khwab boney do".

Translated that would mean

"I have been up till late, let me sleep some more
Let me dream again and complete those incomplete wishes"

Rahman's voice left me with goose bumps as he closed his eyes to focus on the music that draws from the traditional Operas. Cut to the song Maiyya Maiyya from the same film, and you can smell the influence of Turkish music as clearly as the rich notes of their coffee!

For me the highlight was to see the legendary Sivamani perform. The percussionist with his trademark bandana created magic with the solo performance where he drummed without missing a beat even as he twirled his drumsticks and threw them in the air as the double bass drum thumped away. He has used even the humble wok used to make biriyani, to create music!! According his official website

"Siva was adept with his drumsticks even at the tender age of 7 and went on to give his first stage performance at the age of 12. "

He led a troupe of twenty dhols to give us a glimpse of a track from the yet unreleased Bollywood film Jodha Akbar.

Allah Rakha Rahman was born AS Dilip Kumar on 6th January 1967 and has played keyboards for Ilaiyaraja. He has a degree in Western Classical Music from the Trinity College of Music at Oxford University. Last evening he played his hits from Hindi, Tamil and even English compositions. We got glimpses of Rahman playing the synthesizer and even a grand piano. The only thing that jarred was the sound system that was truly awful. The system did not do justice to the master of music.

PepsiCo Shakiras

The newspaper Mint in its issue dated November 5, 2007 provides some statistics on the growing focus of organizations to hire more and more women. PepsiCo features in the 10th spot in India – thanks to the PepsiCo’s worldwide focus on Diversity and Inclusion. With Indra Nooyi being the most powerful woman in US, now it is our turn to celebrate. Over to the Diwali Party. Here are glimpses of our Diwali Party on 2nd November.

No, it is not a group of Shaimak Dawar Performers; these are the same colleagues you will see in the offices of PepsiCo.

From Left: Reshmi Tikmani, Surabhi Bist, Suweshi Sharma, Manika Sahni, Himani Bahuguna, Vidhisha, Aarti Shouri and yours truly. Our very own Charu was the co-host for the evening.