By Omar Nabil, Head of Human Resources Department at Mondelez Mashreq Region
A people-oriented business is a business that puts people’s best interest as a top priority; a business that cares about the community beyond its own benefits. At Mondelez International, our Purpose to empower people to snack right is ‘why’ we exist. Our Mission to lead the future of snacking by offering the right snack, for the right moment, made the right way describes ‘what’ we do. And our Leadership Framework made up of our values and commitments guide ‘how’ we behave.
Being people oriented is no longer an extra-mile; it is what should be done in terms of morals and in terms of sustainability as well. People no longer expect businesses to provide quality products perse, they are interested in the role businesses play in society and mostly measure the success of a given company by how effectively it contributes to their lives.
A Purpose-led, values-enabled approach, and growth mindset allow us to be agile, execute with excellence, and positively impact people and planet. It also allows us to evolve, accelerate our growth, and realize our vision for the future. When making decisions, businesses have to priorly consider the impact of such decisions on individuals and society. This particular aspect about decision making is what makes Mondeléz unique; giving back to the community is one of our core values and what we continuously aim to develop whether internally or externally.
Our Vision is to be the Global Snacking Leader, winning in Chocolate, Biscuits & Baked Snacks and we cannot do that we count on every maker and baker around the world at Mondelez to make this vision a reality and promoting people’s welfare is an integral part of our agenda.
Creating a community culture starts ‘at home’. A people-oriented business looks out for its own people and acknowledges that they are real assets. Employee loyalty can make or break any company. Feeling that one works in a place where their wellbeing is genuinely cared for makes all the difference on an individual level and pays off on an organizational level.
In this respect, Mondeléz has won Top Employer four years in a row for the constant demonstration of employee appreciation. Providing accommodating work-conditions, like flexible remote working, enables employees to create balance between making work easy and maintaining the value of face-to-face interaction. Moreover, engagement surveys and connects on how to improve work-conditions are held regularly to ensure that decisions are in favor of the workers. In addition to that, we offer technical workshops to improve their skills as well as an extensive healthcare program to help them take care of their physical and mental wellbeing.
Prioritizing inclusion is another key element in the people-oriented strategy. It is important to make sure that all workers feel that they are valued and that they are included within the organization. Accordingly, Mondeléz works on empowering women and minorities; we are proud to have a management board that’s 50% female and we continue to ensure that there are policies in place for ensuring that our work force is diverse, inclusive and that our work place is bias-free.
But for Mondelēz, people are not only limited to employees, but rather customers and consumers, who, on the other hand, do form emotional bonds, that can last for a life, with products provided by companies that show care and appreciation. We believe in the Cycle of Goodness: “No one prospers without rendering benefit to others.”
Thus, building trust with the customers and consumers, is key to the success of our business. The opinions and feedbacks we receive from them are highly considered whether they come through social media platforms or through monitoring of public response, and gathering information from vendors. When customers and consumers feel heard and cared for, they develop a loyal bond with the products and company at large which is one thing that Mondelēz puts on top of its priorities as part of its Leadership framework “love our consumers and brands”.
While feedback is one thing, engagement of consumers and customers is another important factor that we give special attention to within our campaigns. Mondeléz, specifically Cadbury, is known for Goodness Campaigns which foster acts of kindness towards the community where consumers are encouraged to give back through meaningful acts.
That brings us to the last component of driving successful businesses, which is the community and environment at large. In today’s world, people do not want to choose snacks that are only convenient and delicious, but rather, snacks they feel good about eating, made with ingredients they know and trust and made with a lot of respect to the environment and community at large. Thus, as a global snacking leader, we have a responsibility to reduce our impact on the environment, have a positive impact on society and conduct ourselves in an ethical, efficient and inclusive manner. We’re focused on making our snacks more sustainably by using less energy, water and waste, with ingredients consumers know and trust. We have specific goals to which we hold ourselves accountable, and we’re continuing to make progress and scale our efforts to deliver meaningful change.
For instance, in several Cocoa and wheat growing communities, we work closely with farmers, their communities and partners to source our key raw materials sustainably. Also, we’re on a mission to deliver packaging that delights our consumers, protects our products and is a 100% recyclable. By 2025, we aim to reduce our CO2 emissions as well as water usage by 10% and our food waste in manufacturing and distribution by 65%. Successful companies do more than focus on financial results; they create value for people and world at large.
We are proud that at Mondeléz, every employee has a role to play in our sustainability agenda, we are wholeheartedly committed to going further and faster in terms of sustainable growth and impact.