Mr. Maclean Raphael, Executive Director HR for India & Sri Lanka at 3M, visited the campus for an enthralling guest lecture on the 3M story, one of the most reputed companies existing today. He started the lecture by asking all the students present to give an estimate of the number of 3M products they would have used in their lives till now. After hearing some of the replies, Mr. Raphael shocked everyone by telling that the actual number would be closer to a five hundred. 3M as a company has such a diverse assortment of products and business branches that it touches almost each and every aspect of our lives in some way. He gave us an overview of the global reach of 3M and how the company has always prided itself in being synonymous with innovation. 3M continues to invest heavily on research and development and seeks to create better solutions for the future. He spoke on the three kinds of innovative practices existing within the company – the culture, the technology and the market space innovation.

Coming to the subject of human resource management, Mr. Raphael drew attention to the lack of the HR practices and incentives in 3M which is typically found in other companies. There are no joining bonuses, no ESOPs, no retention bonuses, no increments, no counter offers and so on. Yet despite all this, the employees are happily engaged and immensely loyal to the company. He attributed this result to the fact that the spirit of 3M is embedded in every employee and the 3M legacy naturally imbibes a sense of pride in every worker. He emphasized on the lattice movement rather than the ladder movement culture present in the organization when it comes to organization growth and career development. Other than that, 3M does employ certain unique and creative HR practices to continually appreciate, engage and reward their employees.

Mr. Raphael then moved on to sharing his learnings from life with the students. He spoke extensively on the ten most important lessons to remember in life. The top most among them was to never stop dreaming no matter what; to always have an anchor in life and to build a reputation. He ended the lecture by advising the student to focus on leaving their own legacy and to keep striving for their goals in life. The students were immensely inspired and thoroughly enjoyed the interactive lecture.