Our Purpose is why we exist; our Values guide how we act and our Culture is who we are.
Ours is a young and dynamic organisation that delivers value-driven services to clients and stakeholders through our exceptional people. Our focus is on creating a work environment in which they can thrive, one that promotes inclusion, diversity, learning and well-being.
To hold ourselves accountable for change, we’re now defining measurable goals that will sit at the heart of this plan. This will ensure that each of us becomes more aware of our expected behaviours, channels for speaking up and the opportunities we have to take positive action.
With a focus on career development, flexible work arrangements and the overall wellbeing of our people, our robust Employee Value Proposition helps us attract top talent and embracing diverse perspectives enables us to provide fulfilling career opportunities.
The culture of an organisation is the true indicator of its character and our past Global People Survey scores are a testament to the fact that ours is awesome!
The KPMG Employee Value Proposition is at the heart of this culture, and we are truly proud of it.
At KPMG in India, we are caring, collaborative and inclusive. Together, we foster a diverse environment where everyone can thrive, embracing their true selves without prejudice. Our people’s aspirations and initiatives make us better. And it is important to us that our people have an environment that empowers them to grow.
Here are some affirmative actions that we have taken on our culture journey:
- Initiated a Culture Study to help the firm and businesses identify their culture priorities and drive them through the Business Unit Culture Council
- Launched the Leaders’ Playbook, which helps in shaping the cultural foundation, enabling leaders to navigate through various cultural nuances with colleagues, clients and communities
- Institutionalised the Interviewers’ Playbook to be leveraged by businesses and talent acquisition teams to infuse our culture in conversations with candidates
KPMG in India, with over 40,000 people, scored 73+, on the Barrett Culture score, which is one of the best globally.
As part of our overall people experience, our intent is to move beyond conventional offerings to enable programmes that are meaningful, holistic and curated specifically for different sections of our diverse population.
- Built a holistic employer brand on internal and external platforms for all our people Initiatives
- Organised various in-person interventions across the firm, to foster personal growth and stimulate engagement
- Launched ‘Thanks,’ the digital Rewards and Recognition programme, to enhance our colleagues’ experience
- Encouraged peer-to-peer recognition through non-monetary appreciation
- Established OpEx (Operational Excellence) awards, an annual event aimed at recognising the best projects in the areas of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) and automation, across functions
- Leveraged technology platforms to gather and analyze the feedback received from our people
- Integrated Leena AI for continuous listening, and plan on initiating a pilot study to understand its capability of lead listening mechanism
- Launched QR code-based feedback collection for all in-person initiatives
In a marketplace defined by complexity, disruption and change, the most successful organisations are those that bring diverse perspectives and experiences to their functioning. At KPMG in India, our rising gender maturity can be seen throughout our people life cycle – from hiring, onboarding to preparing our people to succeed here, to creating consistency of experience for all and positioning the firm as the clear ‘employer of choice.’
We continue to approach our efforts on diversity with intentionality and inclusivity, and have set ourselves a target to have women in 29.1% of the leadership roles by 2025.
Aligned with this vision, we plan to accelerate hiring across levels, with a specific focus on women professional during our hiring drives and promotion cycles.
Further, to ensure a sustainable pipeline of exceptional women leaders, we have introduced programmes that provide opportunities for growth and advancement, while also intentionally seeking out and encouraging these high-performing women colleagues to participate in these initiatives.
- Our ‘Returning Women Programme’ promotes a work environment where women can flourish and initiatives that support, retain and reward their journeys. The programme aims to support women with meaningful career comebacks by providing opportunities in line with their skills and learning, supported by a robust ecosystem of mentors and enablers.
- Our KPMG Network of Women (KNOW), as the largest employee resource group in the KPMG network, helps to connect, share and learn from others’ experiences and best practices. The platform focuses on career development and building a pipeline of future women leaders via work-life balance and well-being.
- We offer developmental and career-acceleration opportunities to our high-potential mid-level to senior women colleagues, to help them seamlessly manage their career trajectory, build external eminence and prepare for leadership roles.
Select women Partners with Mithali Raj, former captain of the Indian women‘s national cricket team, at the All India Partners’ Meet 2022.
Supporting the other job: Parenting
Cognizant of the challenges of parenting, we enhanced our childcare support programme in FY22 to give our colleagues the flexibility of choosing their preferred day-care centre from amongst those offered by our childcare partner in the city that best suits their work and personal needs. We reimburse half this cost.
A hybrid childcare programme is also in the works, to provide a more flexible work environment. In addition, we plan to launch a ‘Baby on Board’ programme, with a robust parental leave policy.
Institutionalizing our focus on LGBTQ+ and persons with disabilities (PWD)
We are committed to embracing diversity and aim to strengthen our focus on LGBTQ+, persons with disabilities and multi-generation colleagues. To enable this, we are working on a self-identification campaign with the purpose of encouraging colleagues from LGBTQ+ and PWD communities to identify themselves voluntarily and anonymously.
Our LGBTQ+ initiatives:
- An employee resource group (ERG) to support colleagues who identify as LGBTQ+, along with those who have joined in the effort as allies
- Training to encourage LGBTQ+ inclusion and remove unconscious biases
- Medical insurance for our LGBTQ+ colleagues, covering their parents and same-sex partners
- Gender affirmation surgery included in insurance benefits
- Pride walks, celebrating Pride month and deep-dive workshops
- Gender-neutral washrooms at all offices
Support to Persons with Disability
To build a culture of empathy and trust, we encourage disability inclusion in talent acquisition. We:
- Rolled out mandatory e-learning on disability inclusion
- Launched an ERG for our PWD colleagues and the ally group
- Raise awareness by observing International Day for Persons with Disabilities every year
- Conduct periodic infrastructural audits to create a more accessible workplace
Leveraging the strengths of a multi-generation workforce
KPMG in India focuses on a robust employment model by leveraging different generations’ strengths.
- Mentoring programmes, employment models and millennial councils driven by our leadership teams
- Reverse mentoring programme with experienced leaders and young colleagues discovering new potential together
- Curated a ‘know your veterans’ series as part of the veteran’s engagement, (retired armed forces personnel) to introduce ‘veterans at the firm’ as a feature
Learning and Development (L&D) is an integral component of the People Experience at KPMG in India. We recognise the highly dynamic environment that we operate in, and therefore, it is imperative that we offer an ongoing individual and professional learning and development ecosystem to our colleagues.
Since the demands on our people are evolving at breath-taking speed, we continue to support their growth by offering comprehensive learning opportunities via technology, third-party resources and academia.
We nurture an environment of continuous learning, value unique experiences and skills, and encourage our people to make their mark.
Upskilling for ‘the new’
Our people’s development journey is supported by our Continuous Learning Policy (CLP) and digitally enabled platforms. Degreed is one such platform that enables them to learn technical, functional and professional skills at their own pace.
Given the irreversible move to a digital world, we also continue to invest in reskilling people in emerging technologies.
In FY22, we augmented ~6,000 certifications in niche technologies across the organisation and have deployed the Culture Wizard to assist our people with cultural nuances when working with people from different regions.
We are also preparing to introduce a new platform, Kaltura, to make virtual sessions more engaging.
Contemporary hiring and onboarding
The Hybrid Induction model launched in FY22 covered 10,000+ professionals and included an in-person connect on the first day, followed by a virtual induction.
We also launched ‘Coach the Consultant,’ a 90-day onboarding journey for the Advisory campus hires.
ESG is the new ABC
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) compliance is indispensable and inevitable for us. We deployed a learning charter, ESG 101, that saw over 95% completion rate in the reporting year. It is a foundation-level programme that provides a comprehensive understanding of ESG and KPMG’s initiatives in that direction.
Developing leadership talent is crucial for success in a world of constant change. Our Leadership Development programme provides learning, mentoring and coaching through collaborations with educational institutions and industry luminaries.
Our vision
- To provide best-in-class learning for our senior leaders
- To build a structured learning path for leaders and provide learning experiences that truly add value
- To design learning interventions that develop business-critical competencies, thus connecting learning goals with personal and professional growth
The curriculum is grounded in the ‘3M Learning’ framework
Milestone programmes
Once our partners reach a certain milestone in their career, these learning journeys help them develop holistic leadership competencies.
Mindset programmes
These programmes are shorter in duration and topical in nature. They build capabilities and mindsets essential for competency development.
My Learning programmes
These are online, self-paced programmes based on individual learning needs. Learners are empowered to pick the courses they deem fit for their development.
“The Digital Now 2.0+ programme, designed as part of the partner learning journey, was an enriching one, in which we got an opportunity to discuss trending and interesting concepts. The programme laid emphasis on the future of business, with a focus on digital impact via several modules on connected ecosystems, digital products and services, and trends that will impact the Big 4 firms. The discussions were thought provoking and resulted in insightful responses. This was a fulfilling learning experience.“
Nurturing future leaders
The prevailing global environment of turbulence and uncertainty makes learning and development more crucial than ever for continued success. To ensure we provide our future leaders the right tools to succeed, we have put in place custombuilt programmes and assessment centres.
The ‘New Leader Transition Journeys’ for our new Manager and Director groups focus on agility, high performance, team leadership and soft skills.
In addition, we re-launched the Leadership Experience and Development Centres for the Associate Director and Director group.
The Coaching Centre of Excellence, an in-house pool of 50 certified coaches from within our business and HR functions, is another tool that is leveraged to provide coaching support.
Our people’s health and well-being are foremost priorities for us, and we have practices, policies and facilities to ensure that they get the attention they deserve.
We believe when we’re at our best, our best work happens, and that’s why we create opportunities that can help each of us achieve physical and mental health on our own terms.
We also encourage our people to connect with each other beyond work through common interests, hobbies and talents.
- Women safety: Our security personnel escort our female colleagues on their commute to and from work, should they need to come in early or leave late, providing a safe environment for their commute, and a free mind to contribute beyond hours, when required.
- Leave policy: Our robust and flexible leave programme offers our people the opportunity to address work and home responsibilities in a balanced manner.
- Voicing platforms: Our colleagues can voice their concerns through our local hotline, international hotline, POSH mailbox and other means.
- Medical insurance: Our comprehensive medical insurance covers immediate and extended family, and has features such as advanced medical support, coverage for both sets of parents’ (for our married colleagues) co-payment, and coverage for samesex partner and gender affirmation surgery.
- Agile working environment: Flexible working hours and work-from-home policies help our colleagues maintain work-life harmony and well-being.
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP): One of India’s leading EAP providers offers 24/7, confidential, one-to-one help through qualified and experienced psychologists, to KPMG colleagues who need it. We also conduct the EAP Champions training every quarter to enable performance managers to identify colleagues who need counselling.
Our people are our most valuable asset and providing them a culture where they can come as they are and thrive is a priority. We recognize, reward and celebrate them and their outstanding work, ensuring they feel seen, supported and appreciated.
81 ➔ GPS score for health and well-being in FY22, up 6 points from FY21
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