4 Ways PepsiCo’s CEO Energizes (and Retains) Her Employees
Offering perks and incentives are the strategies of gone-by time. Innovative leaders have new ideas to retain employees. These could be as simple as connecting to the family members of employees by writing letters. Jean Tang discusses the strategies practiced by PepsiCo CEO for employee retention-
Most CEOs wouldn’t write letters to their employees’ families, but Indra Nooyi isn’t most CEOs—and that’s just one of the ways she’s doing things differently to retain her best employees.
One of only three women CEOs in the Fortune 50, Indra took the helm of PepsiCo in 2006 and created a new mission for the company: Performance with Purpose. A major part of that mission is empowering (and retaining) its people.
“How do we create an environment in PepsiCo where everybody can bring their whole selves to work? That attracts talent, recruiting and retention, and helps drive our top line,” Indra said in an interview with FastCompany.
Read on for a few of the techniques that Indra uses to encourage employees to grow—and stay.
Acknowledge employees—and their families—in creative, personal ways
In a recent LinkedIn article, Indra describes an ah-ha moment that came when she visited her mother in India after she was named CEO. Friends and family had showered her mother with praise, congratulating her for doing a great job raising Indra.
Seeing this, Indra decided to start writing letters to the parents of the company’s executives, thanking them. Soon after, she started sending letters of appreciation to employees’ spouses, too.