Article: Are You Working For The Best Of The Best?

Talent Acquisition

Are You Working For The Best Of The Best?

What drives employee perception in corporate India and which are the areas where the best workplaces have built formidable entry barriers for others competing for the title of a best employer? Prasenjit Bhattacharya, CEO, Great Place to Work® Institute, India brings insights from the recently conducted survey on 'India's Best Companies to Work For in 2011' in partnership w
Are You Working For The Best Of The Best?
 

In 45 countries across the world, more than 5500 organizations participate in these workplace studies

 

Fair pay and fair share of profits had seen the biggest dip in our previous Study in 2010 beginning

 

What drives employee perception in corporate India and which are the areas where the best workplaces have built formidable entry barriers for others competing for the title of a best employer? Prasenjit Bhattacharya, CEO, Great Place to Work® Institute, India brings insights from the recently conducted survey on ‘India’s Best Companies to Work For in 2011’ in partnership with The Economic Times.

The Great Place to Work® Institute has been tracking employee feedback on their workplace culture from over 2 million employees every year. In 45 countries across the world, more than 5500 organizations participate in our workplace studies.
‘India’s Best Companies to Work For in 2011’- the yearly Study conducted by Great Place to Work® Institute in partnership with The Economic Times has some fascinating insights. The study which was conducted in the first three months of the calendar year shows that employee perceptions about their workplace in 2011 have marginally gone up from 2010 beginning.
The people tracking this Study will recall that in the beginning of 2010, the employee perceptions had dipped across the board with even the ‘Top 25 Best Companies to Work For’ not being immune to this trend. The positive employee perceptions at the Top 25 Best Workplaces in the Study at that time had dipped by 5 percent compared to the recession hit year of 2009.
The Top 25 companies have managed a comeback and their overall positive employee perception has gone up by 2 per cent. Only 5 out of the Top 25 Best Workplaces are companies which are new to the list of Best Workplaces, the rest having featured in the list in previous years. However, similar consistency is not seen in the Top 50 list in which there are 14 companies which have never featured in our list in India before.
One reason why 14 new companies feature in the Top 50 Best Workplaces list is because a record 471 companies registered for the Study this year, up from 395 organizations last year making the India Study one of the top 3 largest studies of this kind in the world, the other two being the studies in Brazil and Mexico.
Participation in the Study this year came from more than 20 industries with IT and ITES together accounting for one-fourth. 20 per cent of the participating companies are from manufacturing, making manufacturing the second largest block. We now have the largest database of recent benchmarks in all major industries, notably financial services, professional services, construction and real estate, telecom, media and entertainment, hospitality and bio and pharmaceuticals. Media and entertainment and hospitality saw the biggest dips in overall employee perceptions this year indicating perhaps the churn which is happening in these industries. Hospitality, in spite of the dip continues to be an industry with very high employee engagement. Participation from NGOs continues to be small in this Study and separate focus will be required in future to attract more NGOs to participate.
Corporate India has loosened its purse strings and in the Top 50 best workplaces this year, 4 per cent more respondents in our survey are agreeing with the statement that they receive a fair share of profits made by their company and 3 percent agreeing that they are paid fairly for the work they do. Fair pay and fair share of profits had seen the biggest dip in our previous Study in 2010 beginning.
The Study reveals that the supervisory category continues to be the least engaged and employees with 3 to 5 years tenure are having less favorable perceptions about their workplaces compared to their other colleagues. Interestingly, the Study also reveals that in Corporate India today, 73 per cent of employees are below 35 years of age and only 21 per cent of employees, on an average, have worked in the same organization for more than 5 years.
The Study has now been done 8 times in India and the best workplaces have come a long way, particularly in areas like fair pay and share of profits to employees, providing special and unique benefits and encouraging work-life balance. Apart from these tangibles, what really differentiates the Top 25 Best Workplaces from the rest is their management’s ability to attract talent who fit in well, build a culture where honest mistakes are not penalized, ensure impartiality at the workplace and make their organizations fun places to work.
What drives employee perception in Corporate India and which are the areas where the best workplaces have built formidable entry barriers for others competing for the title of a best employer? What is driving Gen Y employees and what changes after a few years in the organization? For answers to all this and more refer to the special issue of People Matters on the Study which will hit the stands shortly.

Prasenjit Bhattacharya is CEO of The Great Place to Work® Institute, India. Views expressed are personal. Prasenjit can be contacted at pbhattacharya@greatplacetowork.in For more information on participating in The Economic Times and Great Place to Work® Institute’s India’s Best Companies to Work For - 2011 Study, write to greatplace@greatplacetowork.in contact 09920866406.
To know more about the special issue and the Special Year Book on India’s Best Companies to Work For - 2011 contact People Matters at ask@peoplematters.in
 

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Topics: Talent Acquisition, Employer Branding

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