Best Companies

to Work For,
India 2012-13

By Business Today and

PeopleStrong in
association with
Naukri.com

Contents
1.

Methodology ........................................................................................................... 2
1.1. Survey approach and respondents profile ...................................................... 2
1.2. Sample Size and Representation ..................................................................... 4
1.3. Ranking ........................................................................................................... 5
2. The Sampled Respondents Profile .......................................................................... 7
2.1. Organizational Spread ..................................................................................... 7
2.2. Geographic Spread .......................................................................................... 7
2.3. Age, Experience and Education ...................................................................... 9
2.4. Type of Households and Income Levels ....................................................... 10
2.5. Industry Sectors ............................................................................................. 11
2.6. Kind of Companies represented .................................................................... 12
3. Ranking of Companies ......................................................................................... 13
3.1. The Overall Ranking (across all sectors) ...................................................... 13
3.2. Ranking on each of the 6 parameters (across all sectors) ............................. 15
3.3. Variation of Rankings by regions ............................................................... 16
3.4. Variation of Rankings by different age groups .......................................... 18
3.5. Variation of Rankings by type of companies ............................................. 20
3.6. Variation of Rankings by different industry segments ............................... 21
Ranking by BPO Sector Respondents.................................................... 21
Ranking by BFSI Sector Respondents ................................................... 22
Ranking by Core Sector Respondents.................................................... 22
Ranking by Engineering and Automotive Sector Respondents ............. 23
Ranking by Hospitality Sector Respondents.......................................... 24
Ranking by Manufacturing Sector Respondents.................................... 24
Ranking by Pharma and Healthcare Sector Respondents ...................... 25
Ranking by Software and IT Sector Respondents ................................. 26
Ranking by Telecom and Allied Sector Respondents............................ 26
Ranking by Others and Diversified Sector Respondents ....................... 27
4. Ranking of Companies within Sector ................................................................... 28
4.1. Sector Business Process Outsourcing (BPO/ KPO/ ITES) ........................ 28
4.2. Sector BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, Insurance) .............................. 29
4.3. Sector Core Sector (Oil & Gas/ Power/ Steel/ Minerals) ........................... 29
4.4. Sector Engineering and Automotive .......................................................... 30
4.5. Sector Hospitality (Includes Aviation, Tours & Travels, Hotels) .............. 31
4.6. Sector Other Manufacturing (FMCG, Durables, Other non-Engineering) 32
4.7. Sector Pharma and Healthcare ................................................................... 32
4.8. Sector Software and IT ............................................................................... 33
4.9. Sector Telecom and Allied ......................................................................... 34
4.10.
Sector Others and Diversified................................................................. 35
5. Non Ranking Parameters ...................................................................................... 36
5.1. What makes a company a fantastic place to work in? ................................... 36
5.2. Rating of own company on the five factors identified .................................. 40
5.3. What makes a company attractive? ............................................................... 41
5.4. What upsets employees strongly enough to start contemplating change? .... 42
5.5. Satisfaction in current job role ...................................................................... 43
5.6. Adherence to Ethical Values ......................................................................... 43
5.7. Relationship with the immediate boss/ supervisor ........................................ 43
5.8. Satisfaction level with certain key issues at work ......................................... 45

1. Methodology
"The Best Companies to work for" is an annual survey conducted by Business Today and PeopleStrong
HR Services that aims to understand the Perceptions and Aspiration of India's Talent across industries.
It gives a great insight into how Industry at large and in specific verticals can align their Employer
Brands to how the workforce of India is aspiring and thinking. "Best Companies to Work for in India",
as a feature, has been institutionalized over the past decade by Business Today.
The survey aims to provide a feedback to the companies on what the employee marketplace thinks
about various companies, what factors are considered important, what factors attract people, what
factors demoralize people, and other inputs in an unbiased representative manner. The cornerstones
of this research are the respondents who work in different types of organizations.
For the last 11 years, we have sought responses and inputs from the workforce community directly
through a large database of employees across diverse spectrum of vintage, age, industry, location and
job grades. This survey primarily aimed to capture the Aspiration and Perception across key variables
of Organizational interface with an employee.
With this year, we induct a platform for a reality check through HR Metrics with the Employers as
well. To include the "The Employers' Perspective", key Metrics of HR across the employee influencing
variables have been included. These metrics complement the variables that an Employee experiences
and provides the inputs on the key influencers for the employee Perceptions and Aspirations.
Like last year, Business Today and PeopleStrong decided to continue with the methodology of inviting
employees of any and all kinds of companies to participate in an open online survey in association
with Naukri.com. This allows all kinds of salaried employees from different kinds of companies to
participate and express their views and make the survey participation wider and more representing.
The survey was conducted using an internet based self-filling questionnaire, where the questionnaire
was sent to about 4 million people registered on the Naukri.com platform. To cross-check the
authenticity of the respondents and to ensure that quality of responses were of acceptable standards,
validation checks were done by Naukri team and PeopleStrong technology team by calling back a
certain proportion of the respondents randomly.
The PeopleStrong Study Team then constructed a ranking of companies and an analysis of various
aspects that go into making a company a great place to work in.
This study does not report on specific aspects of any company (positive or negative). The Best
Companies to Work For rankings are done across industries and within specific industry/ economic
sectors. The study further reports on the respondent employees satisfaction and aspirations, but at a
sector level and at the overall level only, not at a company level. Differences of views across different
geographies and demographic segments are also presented, highlighting the differences between
various segments.

1.1. Survey approach and respondents profile

Internet was chosen as the medium of survey to get the highest bang for the buck deeper reach at
comparable costs. We leveraged the rich database of Naukri.com to reach out to approximately 4
million people. Further, online research is known to get more honest opinions, though there is a
limitation that the questionnaire needs to be short and easy to understand (which in a way leads to
better responses and therefore better quality of data collection). Online surveys are known to often
achieve better randomness in collection of responses than land surveys.
To conduct this survey, PeopleStrong used Naukri.coms online panels (of over 4 million Indian
respondents), which permitted us to target the survey to only the relevant audience. Mailers and
other forms of online communications were sent to the respondents through Naukri. About 20,000 of
these potential respondents (0.5%) came to the survey page. Of these, 6,320 respondents (32%)
actually filled out the questionnaire. After doing thorough scrutiny and cleaning of these respondents
questionnaires, we got a final reportable sample of 6,310.
2

Data authenticity was ensured in two ways a) the questionnaire design itself had built in
verifications which rejected responses with contradictory/ incomplete information and b) a
verification back check of about 10% of the accepted responses.
These 6,310 employee respondents, when profiled, were found to be highly representative of the
great Indian workplace as depicted in the diagram below:
Demographic

Sub-categories

Percentage (%)

City Type

5 Metro Cities

38

City Type

5 Mini Metros

18

City Type
Region

Other Cities
North

44
27

Region

South

29

Region

East

14

Region

West

20

Region

Central

Gender

Male

92

Gender
Age
Age
Age
Age
Age
Age

8
16
40
18
15
8
3

Annual Income

Female
24 years or less
25-30 yrs
31-35 yrs
36-45 yrs
46-55 yrs
56-65 yrs
Rs. 400,000 and below

Annual Income

Rs. 400000 800000

22

Annual Income

Rs. 800000 1200000

Annual Income

Rs. 1200000 and above

Household type

Single income

78

Household type

Double Income

16

Household type

More than 2 earning members

Educational Qualifications

Below graduate

Educational Qualifications

Diploma holder

12

Educational Qualifications

Graduate

43

Educational Qualifications

Post graduate

38

Educational Qualifications

Experience at work

Others
1- 2 years

Experience at work

3-4 years

21

Experience at work

5-7 years

23

Experience at work

8-15 years

21

Experience at work

More than 15 years

19

Company Type

Public Sector

10

Company Type

MNCs

34

Company Type

Indian private sector

40

Company Type

Others

15

Industry

Engineering and Automotive

11

Industry

BPO, KPO and ITeS

Industry

Pharma and Healthcare

Industry

Telecom

61

16

Industry

Industry

Manufacturing
Banking, financial services and
insurance

Industry

Core sector- Oil, Gas and Power

Industry

Hospitality

Industry

Software and IT

13

Industry

Others and Diversified

35

Overall, the respondent base this year is relatively younger and more Indian companies - possibly a
result of a relatively more spread out (non-metro) geographical base. It appears that due to our
accessing larger survey panels, which had a more geographically spread out respondent base, despite
a similar sample size compared to the last year (6176 respondents) we have been able to achieve a
better representation of the Indian urban corporate employee base this year.

1.2. Sample Size and Representation

An often misunderstood factor is the sample requirements for assessing the representative-ness of a
sample. The popular perception is that it must be a certain proportion of the population it seeks to
represent. The reality is somewhat different. The most important factor is the randomness of a
sample. A sample of 10,000 respondents from three companies is highly biased and not
representative at all. On the other hand, a sample of just 2,000 respondents from 400 different
companies is highly representative. Randomness is thus the first and the most important criteria.
Once randomness is achieved, the sample must still have two important caveats The confidence
level and the confidence interval (expected error of the estimate).
The confidence interval (standard error) is the expected range of error. For example, if you use a
confidence interval of 5 and 53% percent of your sample picks an answer you can be "sure" that if you
had asked the question of the entire relevant population between 48% (53-5) and 58% (53+5) would
have picked that answer.
The confidence level tells you how sure you can be. It is expressed as a percentage and represents
how often the true percentage of the population who would pick an answer lies within the confidence
interval. The 95% confidence level means you can be 95% certain; the 99% confidence level means
you can be 99% certain. Most researchers use the 95% confidence level.
The graphs below depict, how, depending on the confidence level and the confidence interval
(standard error), the sample requirements can vary.

A few things that the above diagram illustrates:

1. The sample requirement flattens as soon as you reach a certain population. In general, beyond a
population of 100,000, as long as the sample is randomly selected, the sample requirement does
not increase further.

2.

The higher the confidence level required, and the lower the standard error desired, the higher
will be the sample requirements.

Most surveys accept that beyond 95% confidence level and 5% standard error, the trade-off between
the high cost of survey and the precision enhancement are not worthwhile. For instance, the sample
required for 95% confidence level and 5% standard error for a population of 100,000 is around 660.
As one increases the precision to 99% confidence level and 2.5% standard error, the sample
requirement jumps to 2,647 a four-fold increase in the required sample size. Such precision or higher
is usually recommended in research of rare diseases or similar such issues.
For this survey, any segment with a sample size of around 600 random selections has an outstanding
representation. Segments with sample size of 200 random selections are also good samples because
they give us a confidence level of 90% with a 5% standard error. Even a segment of 100 random
selections give us a confidence level of 90% with an 8% standard error.
We recommend that we do not report for any segment where the sample is less than 150 with 90%
confidence level with 6% confidence interval.

1.3. Ranking
We have asked the respondents to select and rank the 5 companies which in their opinion are the
best companies to work in. This exercise would define the employees aspirations.
Respondents rank companies on various parameters. Rank 1 has higher weight as compared to rank 2,
and so on. Also, the gap between rank 1 and rank 2 is considered to be more significant than the gap
between rank 2 and rank 3, and so on. This is because the top ranks stand out and beyond a few ranks
all other ranks are deemed to be also ran, in terms of perceptions.
This difference is implemented by using 90% rule, wherein rank 2 gets 90% of the weight as rank 1,
and rank 3 gets 90% of the weight given to rank 2, and so on. Therefore, if a respondent is selecting 5
companies (A, B, C, D and E) as ranks 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 from the universe, the weighted score for each of
these companies, will be as follows (with the 90% rule):
A
100

B
90

C
81

D
73

E
66

Once rank scores were computed, the top ranked company was given an index score of 100 and the
scores obtained by the other companies were indexed to the score of the top ranked company.
We have collected data on 7 HR metrics from the top 10 companies of each sector. These companies
are identified from our analysis in phase 1.
The metrics are as follow:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.

Early Attrition= employees leaving in initial 6 months/total employees

Training man-hours = total training man-hours/total available man-hours
Training penetration = total employees attending training/ total employees
Cost per hire
Average TAT
Promotion percentage = total number of promotions/total eligible employees for
promotion
vii.
Internal growth and development = total positions closed through internal job
posting/total positions
Some additional metrics are:
viii.
Total HR headcount
ix.
Total employee headcount
x.
Absence rate (%age)
The analysis of each of the metric is done on the basis of its difference from the best of the lot. The
best performing companies on the parameters is given 1 and the worst is given 5. After collecting the
data points for a particular metric for the top ten companies of a particular sector, we identified the
best and the worst performer. We took the best one as our TARGET and used the formula of (maxmin)/5 to come up with the intervals. Thereafter, we divided the 10 data points into 5 buckets with a
5

common difference of the derived value. The companies lying in the best bracket gets 1 and the worst
would get 5 and so on.
This exercise was repeated for all the metrics. At the end we got the grades for all the 10 companies
across all HR metrics. Given that all the metrics have equal weightage, we took out the average of
each of the each company on the metrics. All companies got a cumulative score. These score were
arranged in ascending order and given ranks from 1-10.

Overall results
We got a rank from 1-10 on the basis of employee survey analysis and another set of ranks from 1-10
from the metric analysis. Given that employee survey has 95% and metrics have 5% weightage, we
weighed both the ranks in this proportion to come up with the final ranks.

2. The Sampled Respondents Profile

th

th

The survey was conducted during the period of 15 March- 24 April, 2013, and was open for about
40 days. The total number of respondents surveyed was 6,310 of which 8% were women.
The objective of the sampling was to get a representative randomized sample, which would be as
widely spread as possible. The objective was to have adequate representation of various geographies,
a large number of companies, at least 7-8 key industry sectors, various functions, age groups and
experience on the job.
For all the important segments under consideration the target was to have 90% confidence level and
6% standard error. Accordingly, we recommend not reporting the findings of any segment where the
sample representation is of less than 150 respondents.

2.1. Organizational Spread

The reported sample respondents in this years survey came from over 5070 different companies
(compared to 4436 companies last year). This is truly well spread. There were only 2 companies with
more than 20 respondents and only 11 with more than 10.

2.2. Geographic Spread

The survey respondents were spread over 300 cities and towns of India. The five major metros
(Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Delhi) accounted for 38%, the 5 mini metros (Hyderabad,
Pune, Coimbatore, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad) accounted for 18%, and the other cities accounted
for 44% of the respondents.
Region wise, North, South, and West accounted for 27%, 29% and 20% of the respondents. The East
accounted for 14% and Central accounted for 9% of the sample base.
The key urban clusters in terms of representation were:
Mumbai-Pune- Thane - 987
The NCR (Delhi, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad) - 1007
South Majors (Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad) 1,264
East Majors (Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar) - 335
The leading cities in terms of respondents were - Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai,
Gurgaon, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmadabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Indore, Bhubaneswar, Nagpur,
Coimbatore, Noida, Gurgaon, Surat, and Vishakhapatnam.

Respondents by Type of cities and Regions

Maximum participation has come from the North and the South Regions with 29% and 27%
respectively. The spread across regions is quite balanced except from the Central zone where only 9%
response rate is recorded.
The 5 metro cities have contributed 38% of the responses as compared to the 5 mini metros with 18%
responses. Maximum responses (44%) have come from the rest of the cities in India.

2.3. Age, Experience and Education

The bulk of the respondents were young, with almost 40% of them being between 25-30 years of
age. Except for the 46 years and above age group all the other age group respondents were almost
evenly distributed.

rd

Almost 40% of the respondents had over 8 years of work experience. Almost 1/3 of them (37%)
were relatively inexperienced with less than 4 years of work experience. The spread across the
experience brackets was quite balanced. The respondents were almost equally distributed across the
various years of experience brackets.

rd

Just under half of the respondents (43%) were graduates and over 1/3 of them (38%) were post
rd
graduate. In terms of stream of education, almost 2/3 of the respondents (64%) had a professional
degree. Only 4% of the respondents were educated below graduation level.

2.4. Type of Households and Income Levels

th

Almost 3/4 of the respondents (77%) were sole earners of their respective families. 16% came from
double income households and 6% came from households which had more than 2 earning members.
th
3/5 of the respondents earned less than Rs 400,00 per annum, whereas only 9% respondents
earned more than Rs 12,00,000 per annum.

10

2.5. Industry Sectors

9 out of the 10 broadly defined industry sectors had good representation and reported sample of over
rd
150 each (the only exception being the hospitality sector with a sample size of 148). Almost 1/3 of
the responses (33%) came from the new age industry sectors like BFSI, Software and IT, BPO and
Telecom, though a good 29% of the respondents came from the mainline conventional industries like
Engineering and Automotive, Core sector, Manufacturing and Pharma & Healthcare. Other sectors
and diversified companies constituted the remaining 38% of the respondent sample.

The industry sector-wise reported samples were as follows:

Industry
Others and Diversified
Software and IT
Engineering and Automotive
Banking, Financial Services and Insurance
Pharma and Healthcare
Core Sector- Gas, Power and Steel
Manufacturing
BPO, KPO and ITeS
Telecom and allied
Hospitality
Total

Reported Sample
2230
840
705
543
468
397
357
313
309
148
6310

11

2.6. Kind of Companies represented

Indian private companies account for the bulk 40% of the respondents, with 10% also coming from
the PSU sector. MNCs accounted for almost 1 in 3 of all respondents (34%).

12

3. Ranking of Companies
This chapter addresses the responses to the question - Your Rankings on the Best Companies to work
in (Overall across sectors). Over here, we asked the respondents to select and rank the 5 companies
which in their opinion are the best companies to work in. Once they selected these companies, we
asked them to give their views on how they would rank them on each of the five factors specified.
The specific question asked was Among all the companies that you know of in India, what are the top
5 dream companies that you would want to work for? This was followed by the question Which
company would you rank the best on each of the factors? The follow up question was asked only for
the top 3 companies of the 5 selected by the respondent in the first question.

3.1. The Overall Ranking (across all sectors)

Among all the companies that you know of in India, what are the top 5 dream companies
that you would want to work for?
On compilation of the responses of all the sample respondents, we found that Google emerged as the
Best Company to Work For amongst all the companies. The company had only 0.5 relative index
point lead over the second ranked company Accenture. TCS, Infosys and L&T followed as the distant
rd
th
th
3 , 4 and the 5 ranked best companies to work for.

13

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26

Company Name
Google
Accenture
TCS
Infosys Technologies
Larsen & Toubro
BHEL
IBM
Tata Motors
Wipro
Hindustan Unilever
Microsoft
Tata Steel
ABB
Airtel
State Bank of India
ONGC
Axis Bank
Mahindra and Mahindra
Indian Railways
ACC
HDFC Bank
HCL Technologies
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation
Limited
Abbott Laboratories
Vodafone
ICICI Bank

Absolute Index

Relative Index

24192
24072
19871
16813
15924
14816
14769
13694
13111
11744
11530
10995
10463
10298
9410
9115
8615
8018
7850
7842
7719
7517

100
99.5
82.14
69.5
65.82
61.24
61.05
56.61
54.2
48.54
47.66
45.45
43.25
42.57
38.9
37.68
35.61
33.14
32.45
32.42
31.91
31.07

7448
7338
6669
6400

30.79
30.33
27.57
26.46

Here sample means the reported no. of respondents who chose the company as the best company to work for.

14

3.2. Ranking on each of the 6 parameters (across all sectors)

Which company would you rank the best on each of the (6) factors?
There are not very significant variations in the rankings across the five factors, except some marginal
changes for a few factors. For instance, BHEL is getting rank 6 (and not rank 5) on the parameter
financial compensation.
The top ten companies and their rank index scores across the five factors are presented below:
Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Google

Accenture

87.76

86.17

87.14

87.28

87.97

88.03

99.5

TCS
Infosys
Technologies
Larsen &
Toubro

63.26

63.24

63.01

64.52

64.47

63.58

82.14

57.87

57.17

57.56

58.23

57.56

58.59

69.5

54.51

53.01

54.18

54.26

55.07

54.25

65.82

BHEL

52.57

53.37

52.58

52.68

53.98

53.35

61.24

IBM

48.58

47.57

48.45

48.76

48.64

49.17

61.05

Tata Motors

46.26

45.69

46.13

47.6

47.53

47

56.61

Wipro
Hindustan
Unilever

40.8

40.66

41.08

41.37

41.44

41.47

54.2

39.97

40.12

39.87

40.06

40.39

40.21

48.54

4
5

10

There were 47 odd distinct respondent segments with significant sample sizes. We examined how the
ranking varied across the key different segments.

15

3.3. Variation of Rankings by regions

Google stays firmly placed amongst the top of the order across all four regions. However, thereafter
the rankings change a bit. While BHEL is no. 2 in the eastern and central region and Accenture is no. 1
in northern and southern regions and no. 2 in the western region, TCS is no. 3 in all the regions except
the eastern region. Apart from Google, Accenture and TCS, only L&T is among the top 10 in all the five
regions, though their ranks vary across the regions.
Infosys technologies, TATA Motors and HUL figure in the top 10 and BHEL, TATA Steel and Microsoft
figure in the top 10 list of 3 regions, while Wipro and IBM appear in the top 10 lists of 2 regions.
Indian Railway, ONGC and SBI figure in the top 10 in central India only, Airtel only in eastern India and
ABB in northern India. There is no company which appears in top 10 list of southern and western
region only.

16

17

3.4. Variation of Rankings by different age groups

Again, Google and Accenture retain their top 2 positions across all age groups till the age of 35 years.
L&T leads in age groups between 36-55 years while is there no clear trend coming out for the age
groups of 56 years and above. L&T is the only company that figures amongst the top 10 across all the
7 age groups.

18

19

3.5. Variation of Rankings by type of companies

Four types of companies were identified PSU, Indian Private Sector, MNCs and others.
Once again, Google dominates one of the top 2 positions, Accenture is amongst the top 2 in all sectors
expect PSU. TCS is amongst the top 4 in all the 4 sectors. L&T, Infosys, and TATA Motors are the other
companies that figure in the top 10 lists in all the sectors. Wipro, BHEL and Microsoft appear in the
top 10 list of 3 company type respondents. IBM and HUL appear in the top 10 list of 2 company type
respondents
PSU respondents have the most distinct list of top 10 companies, with 2 of these companies being
PSUs ONGC and Airtel. ABB appears in the top 10 list of Other sector respondents only.

20

3.6. Variation of Rankings by different industry segments

Ranking by BPO Sector Respondents
This segments respondents have mostly chosen companies from the Software and IT sector and the
BPO sector in their list of best companies to work for. Only 2 companies in the top 10 list seem to
not fit the above two industry sector strictly, namely, American Express and E&Y. In general, the
segment has also rated Software companies as better places to work in as compared to its own BPO
sector companies.

Rank

Company Name

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Accenture
Google
TCS
Infosys Technologies
IBM
Microsoft
Wipro
TCS BPO
American Express
Ernst and Young

Absolute
Index
5092
4017
2371
2002
1880
1662
1537
1458
1329
1228

Relative
Index
100
78.89
46.56
39.32
36.92
32.64
30.18
28.63
26.1
24.12

Sample
60
44
28
24
22
19
20
19
16
15

21

Ranking by BFSI Sector Respondents

Interestingly, 4 of the top 10 companies ranked by the BFSI respondents are non-BFSI companies
st
(Infosys, TCS, Google and Accenture). 6 banks show up in the top 10 list, namely, Axis bank (1 ), HDFC
nd
rd
th
th
th
bank (2 , SBI (3 ) and ICICI Bank (4 ), Citi Bank (6 ) and Bank of Baroda (10 ). Interestingly, none of
the insurance companies show up in the top 10 list.

Rank

Company Name

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Axis Bank
HDFC Bank
State Bank of India
ICICI Bank
TCS
Citi Bank
Google
Infosys Technologies
Accenture
Bank of Baroda

Absolute
Index
4877
3804
3635
3491
3471
2747
2447
2313
2046
1863

Relative
Index
100
78
74.53
71.58
71.17
56.33
50.17
47.43
41.95
38.2

Sample
58
46
42
40
42
34
31
26
24
22

Ranking by Core Sector Respondents

Respondents working in the core industry sectors have largely been loyal to own sector companies
but the top 2 companies are from the engineering sector. They chose L&T as the best company to
nd
work for, along with ABB at the 2 position. The next 4 ranking companies are from the core sector
only (Tata Power, Jindal Steel and Power, BHEL and ONGC). Only 4 non-core sector companies figure
in their top 15 list L&T, ABB, TATA Steel and Alstom, 3 of which belong to the Engineering Sector and
1 from the Manufacturing sector.

22

Rank

Company Name

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Larsen & Toubro

ABB
Tata Power
Jindal Steel and Power
BHEL
ONGC
Tata Steel
NTPC
Alstom
GAIL

Absolute
Index
4726
4259
4097
3958
3667
3658
3416
3160
3116
3010

Relative
Index
100
90.12
86.69
83.75
77.59
77.4
72.28
66.86
65.93
63.69

Sample
57
51
49
46
45
43
40
39
37
34

Ranking by Engineering and Automotive Sector Respondents

Respondents working in the Engineering and Automotive industry sectors have largely been loyal to
own sector companies. 9 out of 10 companies chosen by them belong to their own sector. Only TATA
steel is an exception belonging to the Manufacturing sector.

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Company Name

Absolute Index

Relative Index

Sample

Tata Motors
Larsen & Toubro
Mahindra and Mahindra
BHEL
Tata Steel
Ford India
Engineers India Limited
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited
Toyota
GAIL

5485
5119
4000
3475
3038
2752
2636
2297
2168
3010

100
93.33
72.93
63.35
55.39
50.17
48.06
41.88
39.53
63.69

65
61
48
40
35
34
31
29
27
34

23

Ranking by Hospitality Sector Respondents

As a group, they are the most loyal to their own industry segment sector. All companies chosen by the
st
hospitality sector respondents belong to their own industry with India hotel Company Ltd as the 1
preference followed by ITC, Oberoi and Marriot. Last year, only 2 out of the top 10 companies were
from the hospitality sector.

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Company Name
Absolute Index
Indian Hotels Company Ltd.(The Taj
3168
Hotels Resorts & Palaces)
ITC Hotels
2323
Oberoi Hotels(East India Hotels)
2115
Marriott Hotels India
1736
Hotel Leela Venture
1687
Asian Hotels Ltd.
1527
Indian Railways
1289
Cox and Kings
1080
Jet Airways
1007
Radisson hotels & Resorts
992

Relative Index

Sample

100

36

73.33
66.76
54.8
53.25
48.2
40.69
34.09
31.79
31.31

28
25
21
20
19
16
13
12
12

Ranking by Manufacturing Sector Respondents

Interestingly, only 9 out of 10 top companies are FMCG companies (HUL, ITC and Nestle) same as last
year. Only TATA Motors belongs to the Engineering and Automotive sector.

24

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Company Name

Absolute Index

Relative Index

Sample

Hindustan Unilever
ITC
Nestle
Britannia
Procter and Gamble
Coca Cola India
Colgate Palmolive
Dabur India Limited
Godrej Consumer Products
Tata Motors

5022
3683
3627
2861
2558
2264
2253
2156
2126
2071

100
73.34
72.22
56.97
50.94
45.08
44.86
42.93
42.33
41.24

57
45
43
33
32
26
28
27
27
26

Ranking by Pharma and Healthcare Sector Respondents

As a group, they are the most loyal to their own industry segment sector. All companies chosen by the
pharma and healthcare sector respondents belongs to their own industry with Abbott Laboratories as
st
the 1 preference followed by Dr. Reddys, Pfizer and Cipla.

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Company Name

Absolute Index

Relative Index

Sample

Abbott Laboratories
Dr Reddy's Laboratory
Pfizer
Cipla
Glaxo Smith Kline
Novartis
Ranbaxy
Johnson & Johnson
AstraZeneca

6095
4441
3998
3730
3484
3313
3241
2595
2576

100
72.86
65.59
61.2
57.16
54.36
53.17
42.58
42.26

69
54
50
46
43
40
41
31
31

Biocon

2409

39.52

28

25

Ranking by Software and IT Sector Respondents

This segment has not looked beyond its own sector. All the top 10 companies ranked are from within
the IT, software and internet sector. The list is led by Google followed by Accenture, TCS and IBM.

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Company Name

Absolute Index

Relative Index

Sample

Google
Accenture
TCS
IBM
Microsoft
Infosys Technologies
Wipro
HCL Technologies
Adobe Systems India Pvt Ltd
Dell

10562
9967
8176
7521
7373
7030
4984
4658
3201
1906

100
94.37
77.41
71.21
69.81
66.56
47.19
44.1
30.31
18.05

114
119
99
91
83
86
64
57
39
25

Ranking by Telecom and Allied Sector Respondents

The telecom sector respondents find their own sector companies quite worthy of being the best
companies to work for. The top 2 companies are Airtel and Vodafone however Google and Accenture
feature amongst the top 5. 6 out of 10 companies belong to the telecom sector. Other 4 companies
belong to the Soft and IT sector (Google, Accenture, Microsoft and TCS).

26

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Company Name

Absolute Index

Relative Index

Sample

Airtel
Vodafone
Google
Ericsson
Accenture
Idea Cellular Limited
TCS
BSNL
Reliance Communications
Microsoft

4114
3621
3041
2617
1969
1818
1813
1775
1728
1567

100
88.02
73.92
63.61
47.86
44.19
44.07
43.15
42
38.09

48
43
32
30
22
22
22
20
22
19

Ranking by Others and Diversified Sector Respondents

Rank
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Company Name

Absolute Index

Relative Index

Sample

BHEL
Larsen & Toubro
Hindustan Unilever
Wipro
ABB
Accenture
Tata Steel
Airtel
Google
TCS

6865
3967
3829
3323
3216
3178
2943
2860
2775
2695

100
57.79
55.78
48.4
46.85
46.29
42.87
41.66
40.42
39.26

78
48
45
41
40
39
35
33
33
33

27

4. Ranking of Companies within Sector

This chapter addresses the responses to the question Within the industry sector you are currently
employed in - Among all the companies that you know of in India, which company you would rank the
best, considering all the factors?
Over here, we asked the respondents to select and rank the 5 companies within their respective work
sectors, which in their opinion are the best companies to work in within their industry. Once they
selected these companies at the overall level, we asked them to give their views on how they would
rank them on each of the six factors specified.
This was followed by the question Which company would you rank the best on each of the factors?
The follow up question was asked only for the top 3 companies of the 5 selected by the respondent in
the first question.
The rankings thus obtained for the 10 broad industry sectors are presented sector-by-sector below.

4.1. Sector Business Process Outsourcing (BPO/ KPO/ ITES)

Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

Genpact

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

TCS BPO

98

98.33

97.39

96.4

98.32

97.07

98.19

Wipro BPO

86.85

87.67

86.87

86.67

86.87

88.74

83.2

IBM Daksh

64.71

66.92

65.73

65.2

65.53

67.64

65.33

56.2

55.7

56.27

56.56

56.52

56.43

55.14

33

32.6

31.9

32.84

32.35

32.1

31.59

29.67

30.52

30.17

29.65

30.46

29.38

28.97

24.26

24.76

23.51

24.47

23.78

23.64

24.12

22.88

23.71

22.3

23.07

23.05

22.77

22.41

18.72

18.37

18.29

17.66

10.65

18.58

18.8

5
6
7
8
9
10

HCL
BPO
Services
Aegis
BPO
Services
WNS
MphasiS BPO
EXL Service
Holdings
24/7
Customer

28

4.2. Sector BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, Insurance)

Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

84.06

84.66

85.04

85.21

88.47

85.24

84.65

Axis Bank
State Bank of
India
HDFC Bank

80.76

81.95

80.94

82.03

82.33

82.07

81.04

ICICI Bank

70.9

71.68

71.43

72.7

72.62

73.08

71

Citi Bank

35.6

35.61

35.56

35.75

35.32

35.46

35.39

HSBC
Standard
Chartered
Bank
American
Express
HDFC
Standard Life
Barclays

32.1

32.23

32.42

32.65

33.05

32.93

31.16

28.13

28.73

28.68

28.56

27.83

28.29

28.34

25.39

25.87

26.08

26.49

25.93

26.41

26.14

20.45

21.28

20.58

20.73

20.9

20.78

20.3

18.49

18.58

18.91

18.9

18.94

19.21

18.48

1
2

7
8
9
10

4.3. Sector Core Sector (Oil & Gas/ Power/ Steel/ Minerals)

29

Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Jindal Steel
and Power
Tata Power

97

94.93

96.92

97.69

95.59

98.04

95.93

NTPC

91.67

89.61

90.67

90.48

91.67

91.58

89.04

Tata Steel

85.78

85.49

85.29

86.7

85.62

86.7

85.03

ONGC

77.04

75.91

76.24

77.73

75.6

76.86

75.01

GAIL

65.51

66.04

65.53

67.14

65.32

66.52

65.87

SAIL
Coal
India
Limited
Hindalco
Industries
ACC

48.95

49.74

49.52

49.38

49.83

49.63

46.9

48.8

48.38

47.76

49.04

49.68

48.27

46.77

42.16

42.46

42.35

42.53

43.59

41.74

41.77

40.47

40.45

40.31

40.81

40.12

40.96

39.07

8
9
10

4.4. Sector Engineering and Automotive

Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Tata Motors
Mahindra &
Mahindra

85.02

86.17

87.25

85.12

87.66

85.03

84.58

70.16

69.68

71.46

71.57

70.98

68.63

69.42

BHEL

58.55

59.29

58.46

58.12

59.63

57.38

57.57

Maruti Udyog

36.22

36.09

36.44

35.99

35.81

35.69

35.86

Hyundai
Motors

34.76

35.89

35.23

35.68

36.17

34.92

34.56

Ford India

34.57

34.79

35.54

33.75

34.72

34.23

33.52

ABB

30.78

31

30.41

29.95

30.38

29.25

30.02

Toyota

27.29

27.37

27.9

27.94

27.73

27.26

26.95

Bajaj Auto

26.27

25.9

26.27

26.31

26.36

26.89

25.12

1
2
3

10

Larsen
Toubro

&

30

4.5. Sector Hospitality (Includes Aviation, Tours & Travels, Hotels)

Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

ITC Hotels
Oberoi
Hotels(East
India Hotels)
Marriott
Hotels India
Radisson
hotels
&
Resorts
Hotel Leela
Venture
Club
Mahindra
Holidays
Asian Hotels
Ltd.

97.74

96.66

96.2

98.34

97.84

99.05

94.68

56.26

55.11

55.74

56.28

56.02

58.24

54.67

43.15

42.73

42.64

42.46

42.41

42.49

42.8

41.79

41.52

43.85

42.3

41.43

42.47

40.5

38.87

37.88

38.53

39.38

37.97

38.53

37.38

33.66

32.93

33.18

33.18

33.18

33.26

33.26

32.1

32.56

32.23

31.46

31.87

31.94

33.1

Cox and Kings

30.99

31.09

31.33

31.11

30.75

32.19

31.2

10

Jet Airways

30.35

30.05

30.08

30.29

30.3

31.15

28.87

2
3
4
5
6
7
8

Indian Hotels
Company
Ltd.(The Taj
Hotels
Resorts
&
Palaces)

31

4.6. Sector Other Manufacturing (FMCG, Durables, Other non-Engineering)

Rank

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Nestle
Coca
Cola
India
Procter and
Gamble
Dabur India
Limited

85.89

84.96

87.78

88.66

85.55

85.42

86.55

76.66

76.09

77.89

77.7

75.52

76.9

75.44

63.05

62.48

63.16

62.12

61.51

62.66

62.42

50.64

48.24

50.32

49.07

48.92

49.92

51.83

Asian Paints
Colgate
Palmolive

49.82

49.63

49.24

49.7

50.19

50.38

50.18

47.18

44.71

47.26

47.01

45.11

46.69

47.23

Britannia
Godrej
Consumer
Products

45.1

44.47

45.13

45.54

44.67

44.1

45.26

41.64

41.57

41.68

42.12

42.42

41.86

43.48

Samsung

33.71

33.89

34.15

34.1

33.89

33.92

34.31

Hindustan
Unilever

4.7. Sector Pharma and Healthcare

32

Rank

1
2
3
4

Company
Name

Relative Index

Abbott
Laboratories
Dr
Reddy's
Laboratory
Glaxo Smith
Kline
Novartis
&

Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

80.7

81.11

80.52

80.71

82.01

80.43

80.82

67.55

65.87

66.76

67.49

67.83

66.89

66.53

67.08

67.28

65.79

67.39

67.77

68.33

65.5

65.89

65.58

64.79

66.6

66.55

65.11

63.65

Johnson
Johnson

Cipla

62.43

61.18

61.34

62.65

63.03

61.97

61.08

AstraZeneca

55.12

56.66

55.15

56.95

56.94

57

56.17

Pfizer

55.62

54.39

54.74

55.97

56.33

55.26

55.61

Ranbaxy

43.54

42.59

42.44

43.95

43.61

43.78

43.46

10

Biocon

41.17

39.47

40.65

41.73

41.94

41.53

39.21

4.8. Sector Software and IT

Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

Google

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Accenture

77.23

77.41

76.95

77.62

76.81

76.2

77.61

Microsoft

71.13

70.71

71.98

71.71

71.63

71.72

71.75

4
5
6

TCS
Dell
IBM
Infosys
Technologies
HCL
Technologies
HewlettPackard
Wipro

55.53
54. 83
53.07

54.5
53.52
52.04

55.62
53.66
52.24

55.89
54.78
52.47

56.11
55.89
53.21

55.62
52.96
52.73

55.7
55.69
53.05

49.94

50.11

50.54

50.36

51.02

50.53

50.1

41.57

40.55

42.15

41.39

41.33

41.82

42.01

37.75

35.32

38.72

39.69

37.64

38.55

38.71

28.89

28.49

29.06

29.04

28.73

29.38

28.97

7
8
9
10

33

4.9. Sector Telecom and Allied

Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

Airtel

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

Vodafone
Idea Cellular
Limited
Ericsson
Reliance
Communicati
ons
Nokia
Tata
Teleservices
BSNL
Siemens
Communicati
ons
Aircel

84.04

81.98

82.47

83.56

81.73

83.41

81.12

70.05

68.14

70.77

69.42

70.16

70.54

68.92

66.96

64.61

67.02

66.24

64.22

65.75

65.39

44.59

42.71

44.55

43.59

44.02

44.3

43.41

37.25

37.01

37.19

36.6

38.11

37.37

37.01

30.05

28.96

30.25

29.31

29.6

30.3

29.49

27.72

27.64

28.24

27.29

27.47

27.73

26.95

22.3

22.45

22.81

22.46

22.64

23.12

22.55

22.2

21.73

22.04

21.55

22.2

21.97

21.28

3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

34

4.10. Sector Others and Diversified

Rank

Company
Name

Relative Index
Career Growth
Prospects

Financial
Compensation

Work Life
Balance

Performance
Evaluation

Stability

Other HR
Practices

Overall

100

100

100

100

100

100

100

34.91

34.62

35.17

34.95

34.84

34.91

35.02

30.22

31.05

30.72

30.45

31.03

30.26

30.14

29.22

29.75

29.81

29.81

29.79

29.49

28.89

24.03

24.63

24.29

24.43

24.75

24.14

23.59

17.08

17.36

17.2

17.08

17.13

16.82

16.86

13.85

14.04

14.02

14.25

13.91

14.52

13.65

Indian
Railways
Delhi Metro
Rail
Corporation
Limited
Engineers
India Limited
DLF Universal
Limited
Canon
Boston
Consulting
Group
CRISIL

Mc. Donalds

13.24

13.71

13.26

13.62

13.24

13.4

12.92

Xerox
Jaiprakash
Associates

12.84

12.87

13.24

13.17

12.83

13.16

12.45

12.92

12.66

13.09

13.17

12.9

12.95

12.45

3
4
5
6

10

35

5. Non Ranking Parameters

Apart from pure ranking and rating of companies, the respondents were asked several questions on
various aspects of employee satisfaction, relationships with superiors, etc. This chapter presents the
findings of these aspects.

5.1. What makes a company a fantastic place to work in?

Over here we asked the respondents to identify the factors that make a company a fantastic place to
work in. The respondents were presented with 5 factors:

Growth Oriented- Career and Growth Prospects

Compensation and Benefits
Progressive Culture promotes Diversity & Work life balance
Ethical High standards of Fairness, Objectivity and Transparency
Stability Large scale diversified operations
Other HR practices of the company (Training/ Mentoring/ Working atmosphere)

They were asked to rate each of these factors on a scale of 1-5 (1 being low importance, 5 being high
importance), based on which the percentage importance of each factor was computed. They were
also asked to rank their own companies on each of these factors on the same scale to see the
difference between the expectations of the employees and the reality.
Growth Oriented- Career and Growth Prospects

37% of the employees feel that career and growth prospect is the most important factor that makes a
company a fantastic place to work for. Against this, only 13% employees feel that their companies
provide excellent career and growth opportunities and 42% feel that their companies fail in providing
the expected growth and development.

36

Compensation and Benefits

27% of the employees feel that compensation and benefits is the most importance factor in their
professional careers. Nut only 11% of the respondents feel that their companies are able to meet
their compensation expectations, whereas 43% employees feel that their companies fail in meeting
their compensatory expectations.
Progressive Culture promotes Diversity & Work life balance

37% of the employees feel that progressive culture is not an importance factor in making a workplace
a best place to work for, whereas 24% employees feel that it is extremely important for companies to
have a progressive culture. But only 11% of the respondents feel that their companies are able to
create a culture of their choice and 45% employees feel that their companies fail in creating a
progressive culture.

37

Ethical High standards of Fairness, Objectivity and Transparency

37% of the employees feel that it is not important for a company have very high standards of ethics to
be classified as a best place to work for, whereas 29% employees feel that it is extremely important
for companies to have high ethical standards. But only 12% of the respondents feel that their
companies are able to maintain the desired level of ethical balance and 44% employees feel that their
companies fail in meeting ethical standards.
Stability Large scale diversified operations

39% of the employees feel that it is not important for a company have very high stability to be
classified as a best place to work for, whereas 24% employees feel that it is extremely important for
companies to have stable and large scale operations to hedge any risks in the future. But only 12% of
the respondents feel that their companies are highly stable and 46% employees feel that their
companies are very unstable.

38

Other HR practices of the company (Training/ Mentoring/ Working atmosphere)

40% of the employees feel that other HR practices like training, mentoring and working atmosphere
are not important for them, whereas 27% employees feel that it is extremely important for companies
to have good HR practices to become a best companies to work for. But only 13% of the respondents
feel that their companies have good HR practices and 47% employees feel that their companies are
have poor HR practices.

Career growth seems to be the most important factor for the employees, which attracts them to a
given company. Stability is seen to have the least importance amongst all the factors.
In conclusion, the big picture that appears is that the employees see the attractiveness of a
company as a place to work for from the perspective of what the company has to offer to him/her
and not what the company has to offer per se.

39

Comparison:

The overall sense is that companies fail to meet the expectations of the employees across all the 6
factors.

5.2. Rating of own company on the five factors identified

As mentioned earlier, the respondents were asked to rate their own companies on these 5 factors on
a scale of 1-5 (1 if their company fares poorly and 5 if their company is excellent). The purpose of this
exercise was to ascertain how happy or unhappy the respondents are with their own employers on
the 5 factors identified.
Overall, the respondents rated their companys performance at an average of 2.27 on a scale of 1-5,
which implies that respondents do not rate their respective companies too highly. In fact, for all the 6
individual factors, the performance rating scores averaged around 2.3 except for Other HR Practices.

40

5.3. What makes a company attractive?

What would be the most important things that the employees would look for that would make a new
job attractive enough to change to? The respondents were asked to pick out 3 out of 9 factors.
Based on the proportion of respondents choosing a factor, inferences regarding the most important
factors were drawn.

Interestingly, higher job role and responsibility edges past compensation and benefits to emerge
as the most important factor of attraction of a company when it comes to a new job just like last year.
There is no change in the percentage importance in these 2 factors from the last year.
Despite a noticeable increase in its importance (+5%), work environment and culture of the
prospective company hung on to its position of the third most important factor. On the other hand
Learning opportunity gained importance to emerge as the fourth most important factor at 39% as
against Brand of the company.
With the top two important factors which makes a company attractive to the respondent employees
being higher job role and responsibility and compensation and benefits, clearly their own personal
growth prospects is what drives the employees the most when it comes to moving jobs. The company
based factors (work environment and culture, company brand image and learning opportunities)
are only of secondary importance to them.
The factors that are not really considered important by most of the respondents when looking at a
new job opportunity (company) are:

Location/ city
Change the career into a new functional role or industry
Global/ Regional responsibility
To work with well-known person

41

5.4. What upsets employees strongly enough to start contemplating change?

Often, people change jobs because of push factors in the current job, i.e., things that are not working
to their satisfaction. Which factors will make you stay with your current organisation, and in case not
fulfilled, will make you look for job in other organisation? The respondents were asked to pick out 3
out of 10 factors. Based on the proportion of respondents choosing a factor, inferences regarding the
most important factors were drawn.

If career and growth prospects is what employees considered as the most important factor in their
evaluating a company to be a fantastic place to work in, it is no surprise that lack of career growth
came out clearly as the most important factor considered by them to think of leaving a company (with
66 % selecting it as against 71% last year).
In fact, the second most important dissatisfier dissatisfaction with the financial package is a
significantly lesser devil than lack of career growth with only 49% employees selecting it (against
47% last year). At 41%, non-conducive work environment and culture also emerged as an important
dissatisfier triggering a job change (as compared to 46% last year).
This clearly indicates that personal career growth is what drives employees at the core. Lack of it is
what triggers most of them to look out; it is what they believe is the most important factor that
makes a company a fantastic place to work for (manifested as career and growth prospects in a
company) and therefore, it is what they seek in the new company that they consider attractive
(manifested as higher job role and responsibility).
Thereafter, it is about money honey! Dissatisfaction with their current financial package is what
triggers the next most of them to look out; a good financial package is what they believe is the most
important factor that makes a company a fantastic place to work for and therefore, it is what they
seek in the new company that they consider attractive.
The factors that are not really considered important dissatisfier by most of the respondents in their
current jobs (company) are:

Lack of recognition
Location/city
Relationship with current supervisor/manager
The company is not growing
42

Brand of the company not being attractive

Sense of belongingness with the company not being strong

5.5. Satisfaction in current job role

The specific question asked was whether people were satisfied in their job role given their
qualifications. Only 53% were satisfied (against 70% last year) and 47% were not satisfied (against
30% last year).

5.6. Adherence to Ethical Values

The respondents were asked about the ethical values of senior management in their company. The
specific question asked was How well do you believe that the senior management of your company
lives up to the company's standard code of ethics? The five choices given were:

Don't abide by company's ethics at all

Not very well
Sometimes do, sometimes don't
Very well
Extremely well
Dont know

The dis-heartening thing for companies is that only 43% of the respondent employees believe that
their senior management adheres to ethical values very well or extremely well (as compared to 71%
believing so last year). 23% (as compared to 15% last year) think that their management does not
adhere to their expected ethical values and standards.

Don't abide by company's ethics at all

Not very well
Sometimes do, sometimes don't
Very well
Extremely well
Dont know

Overall
percentage

Last year

Change
from Last
Year

5%
17%
32%
28%
15%
2%

7%
8%
15%
31%
40%
-

-2%
+9%
+17%
-3%
-25%
-

5.7. Relationship with the immediate boss/ supervisor

The respondents were asked about their satisfaction level with their relationship with their immediate
supervisor. How satisfied are they with the current boss/ supervisor. The answers were captured on a
5 point scale (1 extremely dissatisfied, 5- extremely satisfied). The parameters explored were:

My Boss cares about my career growth

My Boss communicates with me regularly & effectively
My Boss recognizes me for work well done
My Boss cares about me as a person
I see a leader in my Boss
43

Less than 20% of the respondents were extremely dissatisfied with their bosses on any of the 5
parameters probed, with the dissatisfaction being the highest for the bosss leadership capabilities at
18% and the lowest on communication with the boss and recognition from the boss at a lowly 10%.
On the other hand, if we look at the satisfaction levels, then on an average almost 1 in 4 employees
are extremely satisfied and again 1 in 4 are fairly satisfied with their boss on all the 5 parameters.
This finding is in consonance with the fact that only about 16% had indicated that their unsatisfactory
relationship with their current boss/supervisor is the most important reason for them to seek a job
change.

44

5.8. Satisfaction level with certain key issues at work

The respondents were asked about their satisfaction level with certain key issues at work. The
answers were captured on a 5 point scale (1 extremely dissatisfied, 5- extremely satisfied). The
issues explored were:

Workload
Connection between pay and performance
Social recognition that working in your company provides
Training and Development opportunities provided
Your job is conducive to skill enhancement

Again less than 20% of the respondents were extremely dissatisfied with some other key aspects of
their work situation in their company that were probed (be it their workload, pay - performance
matching, social recognition, or opportunities provided for taking responsibilities or for training and
development). The dissatisfaction was the highest on training and development opportunities and
pay performance mismatch at 17% and 16% respectively and the lowest on workload and social
recognition at lowly 7% and 9% respectively.
On the other hand, if we look at the satisfaction levels, then the employees appear to be most
satisfied in terms of their workload (30% extremely satisfied and 33% somewhat satisfied) and
opportunities for skill enhancement (19% extremely satisfied and 30% somewhat satisfied). They
appear to be relatively less satisfied on pay performance matching (only 14% extremely satisfied
and 25% somewhat satisfied) and on opportunities for training and development (16% extremely
satisfied and 23% somewhat satisfied).
From the above responses it can be concluded that workload, skill enhancement and social
recognition are relatively less of an HR issue in the organizations at the moment as compared to
the pay performance mismatch and training and development ones.

45