As you are aware the floods have hit and RB Pakistan have had to adapt swiftly to the situation to ensure business continues across the country.  Once the water began to recede we actively started to look for opportunities to increase our business potential.

Director of Sales, Saad Mahmood Rashid, visited the flood-affected areas himself to evaluate the situation and figure out alternative road links. Starting off from Sukkur to Rahim Yar Khan and then finally driving his way to Multan to have a first-hand view of the entire situation.
This is a prime example of Reckitt Benckiser’s culture, where employees go and assess the situation themselves and are not afraid to get their feet wet (as in this case); rather it’s the kind of organization where one just rolls up one’s sleeves and takes the bull by the horns to look for a solution and achieve the best from the situation.

So the Director of Sales visited our flood-affected areas along with the Regional Sales Manager (Multan Region) and me (Area Sales Manager Multan Area). We visited key logistical road links and distributions affected by the flood and discussed the estimated time for each road link to be completely operational and the business potential that can be extracted from each route.

But that was not all. Since we were visiting the flood areas, RB Kits were distributed to flood victims in certain area. These kits included; Dettol soap for germ protection, Dettol Liquid for anti septic treatment, Mortein Coils for protections against mosquitoes and Disprin tablets for head and other aches. This brought a smile to quite a few faces (including ours), giving back to society and helping people out.

At RB we staunchly believe in extracting maximum business potential but we also insist on helping out society and making sure that the community benefits from our business’s existence. One has to commit oneself to professional, ethical and moral excellence beyond everything else to fit into RB’s unique culture.

Do you want to move up in your career?
Do you really want to make fast steps? Work in an environment with a very high level of responsibility?

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Here is a great story of one of my colleagues:
She joined RB almost five years ago as a Sales Representative. After one year she became a Junior Brand Manager. 18 months later she got the promotion to Brand Manager.
After another step as Senior Brand Manager she moved to Australia to work and live in one of the most exciting cities in the world: Sydney.
She is still with RB and is moving on quickly.

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So, if you answered all the questions at the start of this post with a “yes” then you should definitely send your application to RB today!

Of course no one here makes these hugh steps like my colleague without any effort. You have to fit in with the RB culture. You have to work hard to reach your goals.
I have written previously about the culture at RB. As you might imagine, there are a lot of great things about it – BUT you have to fit in it.

Find out if Reckitt Benckiser offers the perfect culture for you by visiting the RB careers site: Are we right for you?

If you have read others’ posts here on MyRBOppportunity.com or anything on our career opportunities site at ReckittBenckiser.jobs, you’ll see that we often refer to RB as a fast-paced organization.

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But what do we really mean when we say fast-paced organization?

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Fast-paced doesn’t just refer to our operational speed to market and quick and strategic innovation.  I believe we are also referring to the constant change we at RB as a culture face every day and our ability to adapt quickly to that change.

I think that change comes in two “forces of nature”: wind and earthquakes.

Wind is the change that pushes and challenges us to keep on our feet.  Earthquakes are more significant changes that truly rattle the foundation on which we stand and can more easily cause us to lose our balance.

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Like at most companies, we at RB are challenged by “wind” all the time in the form of new competitive launches and threats, higher savings goals for the organization or even tighter project deadlines.  Forming strong relationships and cohesion within our teams and developing our core skill sets help us to keep from losing our ground.

However, what I believe makes RB so fast-paced and different from other companies are the “earthquakes” and our ability to stay standing throughout each one.  At RB, your functional and cross-functional teams are constantly changing.  This is not just due to the fact that you are working on new projects with new people, but that people around you are constantly working their way into new opportunities within the organization meaning that your immediate team and day-to-day contacts may not always be the same month-to-month.  In addition, it is sometimes you who have worked your way into a new opportunity and a new team which may require a crash-course education in a new product category and more relationship building.
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For me personally, it has been a challenge to adapt to the changes, specifically when they involve my immediate team members with whom I have worked to establish strong working relationships, as well as friendships.
However, I have quickly come to learn that this fast-paced environment and culture, full of both wind and earthquakes, is a boot camp that not only is helping me grow as a professional much more quickly, but will serve me immensely as I continue along my career path here at RB.

This past Friday night, the RB US Marketing Team was wined and dined at our very own Household Marketing Awards (HMA’s) ceremony at the Morristown Museum in Morristown, NJ to celebrate a year of achievement across all of our brand teams.

Now I, and I am sure a number of you out there, tuned in to the 2010 Academy Awards on Sunday night; however, I can honestly tell you that after Friday night, watching similar events on television will never be the same again.

We all arrived at the front entrance decked out in our finest attire and were greeted by camera flashes and questions from 7 or 8 members of the paparazzi. Once we pushed our way through to the door, we met ceremony attendants on the red carpet who quickly took our coats and swept us over to be interviewed and photographed with “Joan Rivers” and “Howard Stern.”

Once we made it past the cameras and celebrity interviewers, we enjoyed drinks at a cocktail hour with music playing in the background while we awaited the beginning of the awards ceremony.

The ceremony was extremely entertaining, hosted by both “Ellen DeGeneres” and our GM of HH Marketing, Alexander Lacik.  The awards were fair and well deserved for all of the brands.  Lysol won best copy for its recent H1N1 TV copy featuring our very own Joe Rubino, Lysol Microbiologist and R&D Director. While each brand team is generally familiar with what the others are doing with their media, NPDs and EPDs and various campaigns, seeing the nominations for the various awards gave us real insight into everything our many brand counterparts take pride in doing on a daily basis and the successes they have achieved, and I believe that the ceremony really brought us all together as ONE overall marketing team.

After the ceremony, there was a fabulously-catered dinner awaiting us and an after-party with live music.

I thoroughly enjoyed the event and have to thank the planning committee, the event coordinators, the Morristown Museum and everyone else involved in making Friday such a memorable night.

Who knew brand managers could become celebrities?

In most large and global organizations, I would imagine that few employees get the privilege of a casual meeting and discussion with top management, especially new hires who are just starting their climb up the career ladder.

However, I can now proudly say that RB is not like most large and global organizations.  Just the other week, all of the 2009 new hires across functional areas had the honor and the opportunity to eat lunch and converse with our Executive VP of North America, Rob de Groot (pictured below on the left), and our very own CEO, Bart Becht (pictured just below on the right), during his visit to our US Headquarters here in Parsippany, New Jersey.

After grabbing some food, we sat down at a circle of tables leaving two seats open for Rob and Bart and anxiously awaited their arrival.  It wasn’t too long before they arrived and Bart jumped right into answering any and all of our questions.

I asked him what gets him out of bed each morning and what really energizes and motivates him.  He said that he is very competitive and thrives on the challenges of an aggressively-competitive environment.  This was also supported by his advice in response to someone else’s question about his career and accomplishments.  He told us that you will inevitably do more and do better in your career if you figure out what you love to do, and then strive to do what you love to do.  He knows that he loves to acheive in a competitive environment.  That is what motivates him.  And by realizing that and pursuing his chosen career path, he has set himself up well to accomplish great things.  I think we can learn a lot from his advice and success.

In addition to answering our questions, they asked us for our feedback on RB, what we like and what we like to see improved.  A number of us shared our experiences and ideas, and it was really nice to see that both Bart and Rob were so seriously interested in what we, the new hires, had to say about the company and its culture, especially considering how many priorities they have on their plates at every moment of the day.

That lunch has really motivated me on a professional and personal level to contribute more to the momentum RB already has behind it.  I don’t doubt my fellow new hires feel the same and hope that current and future RB team members have the similar opportunity moving forward.