Sunil Dissanayake, Head of Group Human Resources of the Hayleys Group has been honoured with a Lifetime Gold award for his contribution to the Human Resources profession. The award was presented by the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM) at the National HR Excellence Awards 2011.
A Graduate in Hotel Management and an Honorary Member of the Institute of Personnel Management, Sunil Dissanayake joined the Hayleys Group in July 2007 and was appointed to the Group Management Committee. He is also a non Executive Director of Hotel Services, the owning company of the Ceylon Continental Hotel and Director of Hayleys Group Services.
Over the past 20 years, Dissanayake has served as Head of HR (Gulf) for Citibank NA (based in UAE), Director of Human Resources at Carson Cumberbatch, Head of HR at SriLankan Airlines and Vice President HR and Learning and Development at HSBC Global Resourcing.
Among the many achievements to his credit are the establishment of Group HR Divisions for Hayleys and Carson Cumberbatch; setting up and operating a Learning and Development Department for Citibank (Gulf) development and implementation of a successful voluntary retirement scheme which included offering retraining opportunities for over 1000 employees of SriLankan Airlines in the aftermath of the terror attack of 2001 and facilitating optional employment in other organisations; facilitating the introduction of a pioneering policy against sexual harassment at the workplace at the national carrier in 2005 and the introduction of ‘Toast mastering’ at SriLankan Airlines in 2001.
Sunil Dissanayake has also been called upon to accept many significant honorary and advisory positions in the sphere of Human Resources and in the Hotel industry. He has been President of the Ceylon Hotel School Graduates Association and a Member of the Hotel Classification Committee of the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. He is at present a member of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce Steering Committee for Human Resources and Education and is also a Steering Committee Member of the Lanka Business Coalition (LBCH) for the prevention of AIDS.
