Human Resource Management

HUMAN RESOURCES

MANAGEMENT

Good Practices in Human Resource Policies

Our Human Resources Management Strategies have been properly prepared in accordance with Shop and Office Act, Wages Board Ordinance, Guides issued by the Treasury and Linear Ministry and all the relevant Labour Laws presently being practiced in Sri Lanka. Adhering to the highest standards of the Administrative Regulations and E-code of the state, the company strives to optimize the management of its human resources while exercising due-diligence and transparency in creating its organizational structure, identifying its gaps and filling them against directives issued by the Salaries and Cadre Commission and giving promotions and establishing remuneration packages according to standards and directives established by the Department of Management Services.

Employee Benefit Plan

Complying with state directives, the company contributes 15% of the gross salary for Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and 3% of the gross salary for Employees’ Trust Fund (ETF).

Introduction of Benefit Plan

A qualified assessor calculates the benefit liability indicated in the financial statement each year in compliance with the accounting standards of Sri Lanka while provisions for pensions benefit liability is calculated from the first service year of every employee.

Employee Motivation

The company pays serious attention to motivating its staff to maximize their performance and productivity by creating a harmonious work environment, improving facilities, reducing stress and giving employees a stronger sense of ownership in the dayto-day business of the company as well as its short and long term profit resulting in a significantly reduced level of attrition.

Financial benefits

² An annual incentive program identifies individual performance of each employee according to internationally accepted standards for performance evaluation.

² Allowances for tea, food and clothing etc. are paid to eligible staff to reduce financial stress.

² Providing encashment for unutilized medical leave as an incentive to spend more days of the year at the place of work of all employees.

² Mobile phones are provided to eligible employees and mobile and direct line bills are reimbursed, once again, to reduce the burden on staff in conducting business operations on behalf of the company.

² Understanding its responsibility to the staff that goes beyond simple economic remuneration for work, financial assistance is offered to the children of our staff who excel in educational,

cultural or sports activities at the level of national or international arenas.

Other benefits

² Official vehicles are provided to Regional Managers.

² Motorcycles are offered to District Marketing Executives in order to reduce fatigue and increase productivity.

² A medical insurance scheme is established to improve access to health services from a financial perspective for all employees and their family members.

² Incentivized local or foreign tours are offered to Field Staff who record the highest sales.

² An organizational culture is established encouraging a fear-free environment where open communication policies encourages the free and candid flow of information from bottom to top.

² Spiritual and skills related training programs are regularly offered to our staff and aims at overall improvement of mental health and career skills.

Special programs

² The Lakpohora family day was held at the Aqua Pearl Lake Resort on 26th November 2015 where staff and family were given the opportunity to relax, enjoy themselves and strengthen the sense of belonging to a larger company family. A thousand family members participated in this event. During this event, 3 staff members who had completed 25 years of service to the company were honored for the longevity of their effort on behalf of the company with an award of gold sovereigns.

² Going with the overall human resource strategy of improving capacity by identifying and developing staff skills, the company joins hands with the National Apprenticeship and Industrial Training Authorities to offer national vocational qualification certificates to employees with identified vocational skills even though they are not employed in the technical category.

² A sum of Rs. 4 million has been set aside in the budgets for staff training and development and efficiency bar examinations.

² A sum of Rs.1.4 million has been set aside for training and development.

Our staff composition

The total commitment of the members of Lakpohora to achieving the overall goals of the company is the secret of our success. We have a team of 429 employees who have committed themselves to achieving key milestones and objectives by implementing key strategic plans of the company. Our employment categorization based on employment base, service category, areas and gender is given below.

95% 4.5% 0.5%

Permenent Contract Internship Trainee

21%

1%

21% Category Basis

1% 6%

9%

2%

39% Senior Managers Dy./Assi.Managers Junior Managers Management Assistant Management Assistant PL Skilled PL Semi Skilled PL Unskilled

Employee health and safety

Employees’ health is an essential factor for company’s continuous performance and prioritizing our employees’ health and safety is a foundation of our business process optimization process. This attention has yielded high performance and productivity results, reduced greivences among staff and increased overall confidence in the policies and strategies of the company. The effort complies with international standards of workplace safety and includes immediate review of any untoward event or incident where the health, safety or wellbeing of any staff member was compromised and steps taken to eradicate any possibility of recurrence of a similar issue.

Welfare and human resources

We have well understood the importance of creating the sort of enabling environment that would support, help and facilitate performance enhancement, selfimprovement, leadership and response to challenges among our valued staff and our commitment to this vital facet of the organization continues to be a matter of top priority for the management.

Additionally, as part of our overall human resource development activity cloud, we utilize the services of both internal and external professionals in many sectors, themes and thrusts to develop technical and leadership skills while increasing motivation, encouraging learning through experience and improving consultative capacity.

56% 13%

4%

7%

6%

5%

4% 5%

Northern and North Central Province

North Western Province

Southern Province

Central Province

Eastern Province

Uva Province

Sabaragamuwa Province

Western Province (Including Head Office)

Gender Basis Gender Basis

22%

78% Male

Female

The company has been farsighted in providing the best possible learning environment for its staff and as such, library facilities have been provided for employees to update and improve their knowledge.

Special technical training programs are conducted for the Laboratory Staff to enable them to be more efficient and more technically consistent in standardizing fertilizer analyses in the modern laboratory.

Retention

The company is proud of the achievement made by maintaining a lower employee cost and lower level of staff attrition in the financial year thanks

to employment satisfaction facilitated by staff development, equality, friendliness and the creation of a learning-enabled atmosphere where facilities and benefits are provided to optimize opportunities for developing professional proficiency.

Employee Turnover by Age Group

Number of Employees %

Below 30 Years 31 3.23

Between 31 - 49 Years 266 0.38

50 Years and above 103 7.77

Employee Turnover by Gender

Number of Employees %

Male 9 2.87

Female 1 1.16

Total Turnover (%) 4.03

Special programs are organized by the company for the spiritual development of the employees.

Religious events are held at the Buddha Statues that are present in front of the office complex and at the Central Stores Complex in Hunupitiya under the guidance and auspices of the Buddhist Society.

Rituals are performed at the statue of the ‘Lord Ganesh’ installed in front of the company in order to encourage religious cooperation.

In addition, each year, our employees and their family members get together to celebrate ‘Lakpohora’ Family Day.