Article: Asia’s Best Workplaces 2015 – A study by Great Place To Work Institute

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Asia’s Best Workplaces 2015 – A study by Great Place To Work Institute

The Great Place To Work® Institute announces the inaugural edition of the Best Workplaces in Asia
Asia’s Best Workplaces 2015 – A study by Great Place To Work Institute
 

More than 90 per cent of employees surveyed answered positively to the statement “Taking everything into account, I would say this is a great place to work”

 

Asia will be an economic superpower but will it be a great place to work? All over the world, corporations are changing in an interesting way. They are creating and sustaining a great workplace culture for their employees. This new era is not just emerging in the West; it is emerging in Asia as well. Very soon, this will be an era when everyone can expect to work within an organization that is a great place to work.

Just as Asia is awakening as an economic power, so too are its best workplaces rising to new levels of trust, pride and camaraderie. Great Place to Work® Institute, a global consulting firm, has conducted pioneering research on the characteristics of great workplaces for over 25 years. The Institute believes that all companies can become great workplaces and its mission is to help them succeed in this goal.

The Institute studies employees’ experiences and people management practices at more than 7,000 organizations every year and defines a great place to work from employees’ perspectives as an organization where employees trust the people they work for, take pride in the work they do, and enjoy the company of colleagues they work with.

Every year, the Institute publishes lists of best workplaces in over 50 countries based on its research, and has recently released its inaugural list of Asia’s Best Workplaces. All of the organizations that made the 2015 Best Workplaces in Asia list have plenty to be proud of. But so does the region as a whole. The Institute’s research into the best workplaces in Asia shows that employee trust levels have been rising in recent years in a solid majority of nations in which it operates across the region.

While we see trust, pride and camaraderie as universally important to great workplaces throughout the world, outstanding cultures take on the flavor of their particular country and region. We analyzed our Trust Index data to find the key drivers of workplace greatness in Asia and other regions. To do so, we examined which of the 58 statements on the Trust Index survey have had the greatest impact on the overall average Trust Index score for best workplaces in Asia, North America, Europe and Latin America. The results of this key driver analysis show that employees in all regions place a high value on a bedrock of trust—whether managers deliver on their promises. But that fundamental test of credibility was the only key driver shared across all four regions.

In Asia, in particular, employees prioritize management’s hiring of people who fit well into the culture. The fact that this hiring-fit statement was the top key driver may reflect the way some Asian cultures emphasize harmonious group relationships and the good of the collective. Other key drivers for Asia’s best workplaces involve management honesty, fair promotions and an inclusive approach to recognizing employees.

Trust is the foundation of a great workplace and a key ingredient in employee engagement and business success. The findings are based on Great Place to Work® Institute’s employee survey, the Trust Index©. Of the six Asian countries for which data was available from at least the past two years, five have shown improved Trust Index scores. The region’s biggest nations, China and India, are among those where the best are getting better.

There are caveats to this positive news for employees and employers in the region. The findings focus on trends among the best workplaces rather than companies overall. In addition, Asia’s best workplaces lag behind the benchmarks set by best companies in other parts of the world, including North America and Europe.

But Asia’s best are making progress. Increasingly, they are taking on the contours of what we call “Enlightened Organizations”. Enlightened Organizations blend the best of Eastern and Western traditions. They are hungry for data and high performance but balance these goals against the need to treat employees and all stakeholders humanely, to put people at the same level, if not above, profits.

Asia’s best also are part of a wider global trend toward higher levels of workplace trust at the best workplaces. This positive development is rooted in a number of factors. These include the rise of balance-minded millennials, increased transparency in organizations, and mounting evidence that high-trust cultures lead to better business results.

These factors aren’t just pushing the best to get better. They are affecting all companies in the region and throughout the globe, nudging them toward higher levels of trust, pride and camaraderie. As a result, we believe we are at the dawn of what we call The Great Workplace Era. In it, all people can expect to work for an organization where they trust their leaders, enjoy their colleagues and take pride in what they do. A time, in other words, when workplaces make the world better by making people’s lives better.

The best workplaces in the world — including Asia’s best — are helping to shepherd in the Great Workplace Era. Just as Asia is assuming a leadership role in the 21st Century economy, so too are its best workplaces leading the way into a new, more hopeful age.

The journey towards becoming a great workplace for all of these organizations begins with the small step of finding out what their employees feel. To be considered for a spot in this list, these organizations undergo a rigorous assessment that is carried out by Great Place To Work® Institute. We invite more and more organizations to be a part of this global movement of creating great workplaces, improving lives and by beginning their journey with an assessment.

Asia's Best Workplaces 2015 - A study by Great Place To Work Institute

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Topics: Life @ Work, Employee Engagement, #BestPractices, #AsiasBestWorkplaces2015

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