How Trane Technologies Creates an Inclusive Culture Inspired to Innovate

Meet Trane Technologies

About The Company

Trane Technologies is a global climate innovator with a clear purpose to challenge what’s possible for a more sustainable world.

Employees:1,700+ India – based Employees
Industry: IT & IT-BPM
Indian HQ: Bengaluru

Global climate solutions innovator, Trane Technologies has earned Great Place To Work Certification for five consecutive years, with 94% of employees endorsing its culture. Spread across multiple states in India, it uses the Trust Index Survey to enhance recognition and community ties, ensuring a unified employee experience.

Initially functioning as a part of Ingersoll Rand, Trane Technologies was established as a pure-play climate company in 2020, with the purpose to: “Boldly challenge what’s possible for a sustainable world,” truly embedding sustainability into its DNA.

Building a Better Tomorrow Today

Trane Technologies aims to develop sustainable solutions that reduce carbon emissions and improve energy efficiency. In 2014, it established its first set of climate commitments and exceeded them two years early. Since then, its ambitions and actions have grown, with significant progress toward its bold 2030 Sustainability Commitments and 2050 Net-Zero carbon target. Its 2030 Sustainability Commitments include:

Leading by Example: Reimagining the supply chain and operations to have a restorative impact on the environment
Gigaton Challenge: Reducing one billion metric tons – one gigaton – of carbon emissions (CO2e) from customers’ footprint
Opportunity for All: Uplifting its culture and communities through an inclusive approach and a focus on education and career development for everyone

Challenge

Building a culture of shared purpose

Shirin Salis, Vice President- Human Resources at Trane Technologies shares, “Trane Technologies is committed to addressing global climate challenges. To achieve the desired output and sustainability commitments, it became a priority to create a high-performing culture with competent and empowered members with a shared vision.”

Solution

Power in the hands of employees

To address the challenges, Trane Technologies placed people first in its business strategy. By fostering a culture of innovation and accountability, Trane Technologies encouraged its workforce to actively contribute to business goals, ensuring that every employee played a role in driving sustainable success. It also empowered employees to take charge of driving sustainability, technical training, and other innovation-boosting initiatives.

Great Initiatives

Performance & Development Connections

A comprehensive development plan supports improving employees’ skills and capabilities to contribute to organizational goals. At Trane Technologies, each employee is required to have a performance goal aligned with one of its 2030 sustainability commitments, ensuring that every individual contributes to its overall sustainability objectives. Every employee can contribute in many ways to help deliver on the three sustainability pillars.

Some notable examples of employees committing to supporting the Sustainable Futures initiative are by dedicating time to local nonprofits through the Volunteer Time program, participate in knowledge sessions to build capability to manage Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, or developing a predictive data model that accurately estimates potential savings from switching to core product offerings from a legacy product by analyzing customer/dealer usage data.

Technical Training Council (TTC)

The Learning Employee Resource Group (ERG) and Technical Training Council (TTC) are dedicated to providing employees with the latest technical skills and capabilities through targeted training and development programs. A cross-functional team of leaders and a group of employee representatives work together to identify and prioritize the organization’s technical training needs. Training programs are hosted quarterly, which also helps develop internal trainers and creates opportunity for future trainers.

The TTC promotes employees who are subject matter experts (SMEs) in Trane Technologies products, processes, and the latest technologies to train and coach employees. This year, about a third of all the trainings conducted by the TTC were by internal facilitators, and it contributed to about 44% of training hours. The internal SMEs are recognized during the India ETCs all-employee Town Hall meetings, which has bolstered its uplifting culture, and inclusive approach to sharing internal expertise. The training council also results in financial savings for the organization as well.

At the same time, the ever-expanding Global Online Learning Module and Learning Labs offer continuous learning opportunities where employees share their experiences and best practices. In its technology centers, a key priority is equipping the workforce with the future capabilities and competencies needed for the ambitious 2030 goals.

Operation Possible

Operation Possible was founded on the principles of open collaboration and inclusive platforms, aiming to unite the Trane Technologies community around a shared purpose. It empowers employees to use their creativity and expertise to solve major global challenges. Through an open crowd-solving platform, employees from all functions and locations can submit ideas, collaborate, and develop practical solutions. By leveraging crowdsourcing and diverse skill sets, Operation Possible fosters innovation, encourages feedback from peers, and drives real-world impact on sustainability challenges. Through this, the innovative spirit has permeated other areas of the culture, with engineers having filed more than double the patents in 2024 as compared to 2021, and value engineering efforts also increasing annually.

Cooling Cart: A Success Story of Bold Move Making Real Impact

Through the crowdsourcing platform, Operation Possible, the co-existence of food wastage and hunger emerged as the first challenge for sustainable growth. Employees across the globe joined forces to develop potential solutions that were efficient, affordable, and scalable. What began as an initial idea from an employee, evolved into a design team with members from five countries, and the initiative continues to evolve today. Through crowdsourcing solutions, the employees brought diverse skill sets to brainstorm, provide feedback, and develop a solution for street vendors. After consulting with street vendors to understand their greatest needs, the team developed a cooling cart that leveraged the latest innovations in passive cooling technology. This cart keeps fruits and vegetables fresh for longer, reduces food waste, and increases the street vendors’ potential income—all without using electricity and at a low cost by making it a retrofitted solution.

Since its inception, participation in Operation Possible has continued to grow year over year, with more employees contributing to the ideation process. In our conversation, Salis mentions, “Following the successful product launch of cooling carts, the company is actively working towards solving other critical challenges like- alternating plastic packaging and providing affordable access to life-sustaining heating and cooling solutions to vulnerable and displaced people, providing access to clean energy, etc., through the employee-driven innovation program.”

The introduction of Cooling Carts skyrocketed the profitability of fruit and vegetable vendors from a modest 8% to an impressive 48%, transforming their business landscape.

Sustainability- Inwards and Outwards

Trane Technologies keeps sustainability at the core of its product design and development, from initial design to end-of-life disposal. Beyond product innovation, it also makes operations more sustainable by reducing energy consumption, minimizing waste, and implementing sustainable practices across the manufacturing facilities and supply chain.

Trane Technologies has proudly recorded a 4% absolute energy reduction since 2019, despite an increase in demand and production, and is targeting to reach 10% by 2030.

Key Highlights

Trane Technologies’ commitment to a great workplace culture has fuelled a powerful synergy by successfully creating a workplace that is better for people, better for business, and better for the world.

Overall retention at 94% (India)
Global growth in revenue from $12 billion in 2020 to nearly $20 billion in 2024
7 patents granted in 2024 (India)

Looking Forward

With the aforementioned practices and a firm leadership intention, Trane Technologies has successfully united its employees with a shared purpose of sustainability. Employees are encouraged to question and challenge existing processes, and the company has actively found ways to empower teams to take action, move more quickly and foster increased collaboration between teams.

Through the culture-building process, implementing the Trust Index tool has enabled Trane Technologies to regularly engage with its employees and nurture a spirit of innovation and collaboration. This commitment not only enhances the workplace environment but also helps the organization align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), further demonstrating its dedication to sustainable practices.

"At Trane Technologies, our leadership mantra is centered around fostering a culture of innovation that is inclusive, sustainable, and customer focused. We believe that innovation thrives when every employee feels empowered to contribute, challenge the status quo, and collaborate across functions and borders."

Shirin Salis, Vice President - Human Resources at Trane Technologies

Author

Shambhavi Agrawal, Consultant- Research & Insights, Great Place To Work® India

Transformed your workplace culture with insights provided by Great Place To Work? We want to hear all about it! Share your organization’s journey, challenges, and triumphs by emailing us at in_researchandinsights@greatplacetowork.com. Your story can inspire others to create exceptional workplaces.

Tell your story. Join the movement. Let’s make every place become a great place to work for all.