TOYOTA LANKA is amongst Top 10 “Nation’s Best Employers” in Sri Lanka for “People - HR Excellence”

Mr. Manohara Atukorala, Toyota Lanka MD/CEO, receiving the EFC National Best Employer Award 2025 from dignitaries at the award ceremony held at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo

In today’s world, organisations are increasingly accountable for people excellence as opposed to traditional financial performances. Employer excellence has evolved into a defining differentiator under this circumstance. Toyota Lanka’s recent recognition as one of Sri Lanka’s Top 10 National Best Employers 2025 at the prestigious EFC National Best Employer Awards concretes its “people first – customer always” philosophy.  

EFC National Best Employer Awards is the country’s most credible national benchmarks for employer brand excellence and was held at Galle Face Hotel, on 20th January 2026. With the stringent criteria, the applicants were evaluated through a comprehensive, independent framework designed to identify institutions that showcase exceptional maturity in people management, leadership, culture, innovation, ethical governance and future readiness. In the year 2025, approx. 75 leading Sri Lankan organisations from a variety of sectors applied. Following a multi-stage evaluation and peer review process, 25 organisations were shortlisted for final assessment, of which the Top 10 National Best Employers were chosen from. 

The inclusion of Toyota Lanka, places alongside some of the elite league of corporate entities. Notably, Toyota Lanka is the only entry from the automobility sector, truly a reflection as the leader in people excellence. At the core of Toyota Lanka’s recognition is its deep-rooted commitment to the ‘Toyota Way’, which is a globally respected philosophy built on two fundamental pillars: ‘Continuous Improvement and Respect for People’. Guided by the Toyota Global Vision 2030 and Toyota Lanka’s CSR and Sustainability Policy, which is outlined in the HR Framework / Handbook 2025. The company ensures continuous alignment of its people practices, business operations, and community initiatives with national development priorities and long-term societal wellbeing. This ensures Toyota Lanka’s people-first philosophy and customers-first extends beyond the workplace and contributes to broader economic, environmental and social progress.

Toyota Lanka’s people excellence is anchored in the corporate core values framework, TOYOTA LIFE, which denotes Loyalty, Integrity, Fairness, and Ethicality, forming the foundation of Toyota Lanka’s mission to “create delighted lifetime customers and lifetime delighted employees,” reinforcing the belief that sustainable success begins with its people.

Recognising human capital as its most valuable resource, Toyota Lanka has embedded TOYOTA LIFE values across its people strategy, leadership practices, and workplace culture. Loyalty reflects organisation’s commitment to building long-lasting trust with employees, fostering dedication and alignment to the brand. Integrity guides transparent decision-making and ethical conduct, ensuring honesty and accountability remain central to employees and customers. Fairness underpins equity across the organisation, demonstrating justice, whilst Ethics shapes responsible business practices to safeguard stakeholder interest to remain a global powerhouse in driving TOYOTA VISION. 

TOYOTA LIFE governance model emphasizes empowering employees, fostering mutual respect and encouraging collective problem-solving. Instead of seeing Human Resources as a strategic, business and operative function, Toyota Lanka treats its people strategy as a central driver of market dominion led performance, resilience and sustainability.  Strategic HR Excellence is one of the five core dimensions, which evaluates the extent to which people practice actively drives engagement and employee happiness through business impact-driven HR initiatives.

From talent acquisition and onboarding to learning, performance management, and career progression, Toyota Lanka’s people practices have been designed with a global-to-local blended practices to create people-business value creation. People development intervention focuses, leadership pipelines, bench strength, people, digital and green skills whilst upgrading Toyota’s technical mastery. 

Toyota Lanka Auto Academy (TAA), the industry’s flagship skills development institute, is playing a key role in strengthening the local technical workforce. More than 1500 trainees from leading vocational institutes such as NAITA and AETI have received world-class training in automotive, hybrid and mechatronics. It has also fortified 275 graduates, with jobs opportunities overseas, thus contributing to global skill demand with foreign income generation.

Toyota Lanka provides technical assistance to regional countries such as India, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan, Brunei, Bangladesh, Seychelles, Laos, Cambodia, inclusive Zambia and SaudiAarabia in Middle east and African nations. We continue to assist local Tech Colleges by the Hybrid Technology Learning Centre to AETI, and its strategic partnerships with the University of Colombo and the University of Peradeniya under the JICA Chair Programme reinforcing the nation’s future tech capability and innovation.

Toyota Lanka’s commitment to employee wellbeing is also of equal importance. The company recognises that sustainable performance goes hand in hand with physical, mental and emotional health. The organisation has invested in initiatives that promote work-life management and psychological safety as tangible, measures for success factors for operational and people pulse.

A critical pillar of the EFC evaluation framework is Leadership and Organisational culture. Toyota Lanka’s success in this area is solidified by CEO-Employee led ownership of the people strategy, linking to Human Resources and functional strategy champions at the highest possible value delivery to the company. As opposed to delegating culture-building solely to HR, Toyota Lanka’s leadership plays a very active role in reshaping values, through competencies, which is referred to as “Book of Business Behaviours” across the company. The top-down approach and bottom up (gembality) have led to a culture of trust, transparency with responsibility and accountability exemplified. 

Toyota Lanka’s inclusive and value-drive culture has been a clear differentiator. Employees are encouraged to speak, share problems, ideas for continuous improvement initiatives thus giving a vitamin to voice. 

The company’s strong performance in Ethics and Compliance, especially in an environment where corporate integrity is under continuous scrutiny, further fortified its standing as a national benchmark employer. Toyota Lanka demonstrated robust governance structures, adherence to ethical standards, and full compliance to labour laws and regulatory requirements whilst ethical leadership has led to stronger stakeholder trust for longevity. 

Toyota Lanka’s ethical governance and people-centric leadership are further reinforced by its brand reputation. Recognized by LMD as Sri Lanka’s Most Loved Automobile Brand, Most Loved Brands Awards 2024, and ranked No. #1 Product Brand and No. #1 Most Loved Brand at the LMD Brands Annual 2025 reflecting deep consumer trust, built on respect, quality, durability, and reliability. It’s brand value proposition. 

The fifth core evaluation dimension, DX (digital transformation) is the future readiness to anticipate and respond to future business needs. Toyota Lanka invests in digital HR transformation playing a significant role. By leveraging digital platforms, has enhances HR processes, data-driven decision-making and employee experience (EXp) helping to improve efficiency, whilst enabling greater accessibility. Digital initiatives support workforce planning, E-learning and performance tracking, ensuring the company remains at the forefront and relevant in the tech era. 

Moving beyond systems and tools, Toyota Lanka has laser beam focus on building a future-proof workforce equipped with competencies of innovation and digital to adapt to EV and NEV shift for the energy transition and industry dominion. 

Environmental stewardship remains central to Toyota Lanka’s CSR philosophy. Through Its lean – green strategy guides, solar energy initiatives, and employee-led tree planting campaigns, the company actively contributes to Sri Lanka’s green transition goals. All Toyota Lanka facilities over 20plus operate in compliance with ISO 14001:2015 environmental management standards. It is the first automobile company to secure ISO QMS, EMS and OHSMS in the industry. 

One of the defining criteria of the EFC National Best Employer Awards is the evaluation of national and socio-economic contribution. Toyota Lanka’s sustained investment in skill development and human capital (HC) growth, extends beyond local boundaries. Through the implementation of global training programs for local capability development initiatives, Toyota Lanka has played an integral part in the national skill curriculum of the automotive and mobility industry. The evaluation panel recognised Toyota Lanka’s contributions as tangible and impactful, aligning corporate success with national skill development priorities.

Toyota Lanka’s people-first philosophy extends into the communities it serves. Initiatives such as the Dream Car Art Contest, Road Safety Awareness Campaigns, and Children’s Day celebrations across branches promote innovative thinking, creativity, safety consciousness, and family engagement, strengthening social bonds fostering shared values beyond the workplace. During COVID-19 as a national relief effort, Toyota Lanka donated 2 Coaster buses valued at Rs. 20 million to the government exhibiting our commitment to standing with the nation in times of crisis.

The significance of Toyota Lanka’s recognition is further enhanced by the credibility of the award itself. The whole award process was governed by a dedicated EXCO Committee and assisted by globally acclaimed Ernst & Young (EY) and Deloitte, and this is to ensure independence and transparency throughout the evaluation process is underscores the depth and authenticity of Toyota Lanka’s people excellence journey.

Top 10 National Best Employer is more than an award. It is a testament to the company’s long-term commitment in creating a workplace that defines customer centric marketplace. As the sole automotive company with a clear distinction, Toyota Lanka has set a benchmark as a multinational mobility corporation and beyond.

As a Sri Lankan corporate, navigate in an increasingly complex economics and technological landscapes, the example of Toyota Lanka manifests that success is built on respect for people, ethical leadership, innovation and futurism. Guided by its mission to create delighted lifetime customers and lifetime delighted employees, Toyota Lanka remains committed in nurturing a people-first, customer-first culture that drives the future of work in Sri Lanka.