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4 years ago

Asian Paints raises staff salaries to boost morale

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Asian Paints is swimming against the tide. Instead of slashing pay and jobs - standard industry responses to the current demand destruction - India's biggest paints maker is raising salaries to boost staff morale.

Its scope of assistance to the sales channel includes hospitalisation and insurance, full sanitisation facilities for partner stores, and direct cash support. Asian Paints 2.01 per cent also transferred Rs 40 million into the accounts of its contractors.

"We have to set an example of true leadership and an organisation that takes care of all its stakeholders. I have been updating the board regularly on all such initiatives and have received their approval for these actions,” MD and CEO Amit Syngle told ET. “I see this as a big opportunity to step in and interact with every single employee and assuage their concerns in an uncertain marketplace. We are not in the hire and fire business and as a mature brand have reassured employees that we all are together in this."

The company has donated Rs 35 million toward the Central and State Covid-19 Relief funds. The company is also making sanitizers to aid the nation’s fight against the virus.

"The germination of the idea of sanitizers came from the Ministry of Chemicals, nudging us to make them….We came out with a range of hand and surface sanitizers under the brand name Viroprotek. This launch also resonated with our health & hygiene space foray where we already have Royale Health shield, an anti-bacterial and anti-asthma paint."

Expanding its product range into sanitizers would allow Asian Paints to have a greater share of the customer wallet, with a range of sanitizers for various surfaces.

However, Asian Paints is keeping a watch on cash flows, deferring expenses where it can. “We have been debt free for years and are quite comfortably placed even if the uncertainty goes on for the next four or five months. The company had announced a huge dividend payout in March and shareholder return is our top priority," Syngle said.

 

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