Asia HR Leaders Spotlight: Babu Jose Kalliath of Novo Nordisk

“We have been focusing on creating awareness and enhancing trust within a psychologically safe environment, enabling and empowering leaders at all levels of the organisation to make the best decisions at the right time.” – Babu Jose Kalliath, Vice-President, People and Organisation, Asia-Pacific, Novo Nordisk

A Danish multinational national pharmaceutical company headquartered in Denmark, Novo Nordisk manufactures and markets pharmaceutical products and services with the aim of driving change to defeat serious chronic diseases.

However, to serve its markets effectively, a transformation of Novo Nordisk’s workforce has been an ongoing priority, with Babu Jose Kalliath, Vice-President, People and Organisation, Asia-Pacific, leading the company’s efforts in the ever-expanding APAC region.

With more than 20 years of experience in specialist roles across various HR functions, Kalliath has performed key roles across leadership development, talent and succession management, performance and change management, as well as culture building.

HRM Asia sat down with Kalliath to understand some of the key challenges he has had to overcome as a people leader in 2024, why Novo Nordisk sets targets to reduce stress among their employees, and his goals and targets for 2025.

Can you share with us your main roles and responsibilities as APAC Vice-President, People and Organisation, Novo Nordisk?

Babu Jose Kalliath: First and foremost, as a functional leader and business partner together with my team, I work closely with the APAC leadership team across the markets in linking business opportunities with strategic objectives through leveraging people and organisational resources. This involves overseeing functional areas that include organisational development commercial capability development, communications, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) and culture within the organisation.

What were some of the key challenges you have had to face as a people leaders in 2024?

Kalliath: At Novo Nordisk, we have focused on “driving change to defeat serious chronic diseases” and we are leaders in the diabetes and obesity therapy areas. However, as we expand our presence into newer therapy areas like cardiovascular diseases and Alzheimer’s, we need to transform our workforce for tomorrow, while continuing to outperform competition today. This requires the organisational agility to prioritise and make clear choices around where to invest, how to re-allocate resources and mobilise the best talents to drive outcomes.

All of the above would require organisational re-design in how we are organised, where do we prioritise our biggest resources (our employees) and how do we re-purpose or re-skill them to meet our future business needs.

Change management has therefore been a key focus area in 2024, wherein we have been focusing on creating awareness and enhancing trust within a psychologically safe environment, enabling and empowering leaders at all levels of the organisation to make the best decisions at the right time.

Novo Nordisk introduced a goal in 2024 to ensure no more than 10% of employees are stressed. Can you give us an update on this initiative?

Kalliath: At Novo Nordisk, we believe that having a well-designed psychosocial working environment is necessary for people to perform well in their jobs and maintain their mental wellbeing. While some degree of work-related stress can be expected, we believe that it is an occupational risk, and it is companies’ responsibility to manage stress and workplace wellbeing for long-term sustainability.

We have set targets for reducing the stress levels of our workforce, and establishing a baseline has been an important first step in making progress. It is a multi-pronged approach that involves measurements and polls, employee engagement, understanding and training across senior management, line managers, and HR, and more.

The presence of stress symptoms among employees is measured and psychosocial and organisational factors are assessed. The latter of the two gives people managers an indication of what to do to improve engagement and wellbeing, and hence reduce the risk of stress symptoms.

We aspire to create a working environment with high levels of wellbeing, where we proactively prevent stress symptoms, and employees are supported in developing strategies to prevent stress and build resilience.

What is the key to creating a happy workforce?

Kalliath: I am not sure if I can be completely successful in creating a happy workforce! Instead, I strive to create an “Engaged Workforce” at Novo Nordisk. When you have a strong purpose within the organisation like us, and as an employee when you see how your work adds meaning to yourself and contributes to this purpose, you achieve strong engagement. Novo Nordisk has always been in the top quartile amongst benchmarked companies when it comes to purpose and employee engagement levels, and we believe that our culture and the Novo Nordisk Way are key drivers.

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In addition to this, it is also important that we focus on employee growth, impact, relationships and inclusion, besides a healthy and safe environment, to drive an engaged workforce.

Away from work, what do you do in your free time to de-stress and re-energise yourself?

Kalliath: Personally, away from work, I spend most of my time with my family and loved ones as this is the core group that allows me to re-energise myself the most. I am also actively involved in my church engagements, and I volunteer in various give back activities, which give me a lot of meaning and satisfaction. Occasionally, I love watching comedy serioes and have a good laugh.

With 2025 on the horizon, what are you most looking forward to achieving in the new year?

Kalliath: For 2025, in a professional capacity, I would like to sustain and build on some of the good work on organisational development and change management which we have embarked on and fully realise the impact on business and growth ambitions within APAC.

In 2025, we will start on the journey of implementing pay transparency initiatives within our region, and we will be launching our new employer branding initiatives across our key markets. It is promising to be a busy year ahead for Novo Nordisk and we cannot wait to get started!