There are large numbers of inputs that go into making a company that is a favorite place for the employees to work and would like to stay on. The company has to offer attractive salaries, give promotions to employees at regular intervals and learning opportunities for the employees. There are other factors that are intangible in nature that makes a company desirable.

The best employers in India

Recently Business Today has come with a list of best companies to work with in India. The list was prepared based on a survey conducted which included 6176 employees from 4436 companies across 323 towns and cities in India.

The Top 25 companies to work for are:

• Tata Consultancy Services
• Infosys
• Wipro
• IBM
• Google
• RCom
• Microsoft
• Accenture
• HCL
• L&T
• Tata Motors
• ICICI Bank
• Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
• RIL
• HDFC Bank
• Tata Steel
• State Bank of India
• Bharti Airtel
• Cognizant
• Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd
• Mahindra and Mahindra
• Dell India
• HP
• HCL Infosystems
• Oracle India

Money too is important along with work culture and growth prospects

In the lower levels of the hierarchy money is still an important motivating factor. Another important factor is the growth prospects in terms of career. In par with pay and growth prospects, work culture is an important factor that has an impact on the attraction of an employer. So the Chief Executive Officers and HumanResource heads have started to pay attention to this.

Even though many of the fresh graduates take up what comes along, most of them have started to consider work culture in selecting an employer. They are also concerned about building their career in the organizations and this is common in the senior levels also. But providing a good work culture is not easy.

Job security defines a work place

In the case of majority of the employees, a good work place is one which provides them with job security and one which do not worry them with performance. How ever the data from the survey indicates that successful employee engagement lies with offering growth opportunities, different roles and empowerment. In the case of most of the companies, they entrust more responsibilities with employees and trust them only when they realize their ability and potential. Companies do know that young graduates are hungry for experience and they often let that happen which makes the employees happy, says VP, Human Resource Agro Tech. The employee turn over rate of the company is 15 per cent and less than 5 per cent in the case of senior executives.

The ITC advantage

This is the case with ITC, where the top executives hardly quit. Turnover rate at senior level is less than 5 per cent and across the company is about 10 percent.

An advantage of working for ITC is that they support initiatives taken up by the employees. For instance the team responsible for the paper business came up with an idea of producing greeting cards. But since it did not reach anywhere, the team again came up with a proposal to enter into office stationery. ITC for the second time backed the employees and it became a huge success. In four years time, it has become an Rs 500 crore business for the company. ITC is well known as a company that nurtures human talent.

Fun at work place

MakeMyTrip is another company which is considered to be employee friendly. Dushyant Arora, Assistant VP, User Experience, says that at the time of joining he was not sure whether he would be get salary on time. But not only the he gets the salary on time, but there is lot of fun too in the company with rock bands from among the employees. He even turned down offers from renowned companies such as Accenture. MakeMyTrip is the best place for music lovers.

For those who are not comfortable with music, there are other activities such as Thai foot massages and wine appreciation sessions. Another attraction with the company is the flexible working hours. Senior VP, Human Resource at MakeMyTrip, Purva Misra, says that every employee has different set of needs. Some are comfortable with night shifts, while others are not. The need for leave also varies with employees where some need more number of leaves, while others need less.

Flexibility is the key

In the case of Genpact a leading Business Process Outsourcing company, they are flexible to the needs of the employees to a greater extend. This is more evident while dealing with women employees. The company is much more accommodating with women and offers them option to work from home for a period of one year.  The company claims that it is the work culture that attracts and retains employees, even though they provide an average salary.

The private sector financial services companies such as HDFC Bank and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company are considered to be better employers by women employees. There are many women employees who have worked with these organizations for more than 10 years.

Laying off

The major problem the companies faces is when they have to say that employees need to go. This happens in many of the organizations. For instance, Max New York Life, an insurance company adopted a method which laid off employees based on fair criterions and then introduced a team to help those laid off to find other jobs. They considered financial and health related issues while picking up those who were to be sent off. Those with such problems were spared from being laid off. The result, they were the only one to increase their market share in 2011.

This happens not only with Max; there are many other companies who lend a helping hand to the employees while they are in trouble, be it financial or health problems.

These are few instances which defines work culture that attracts employees to certain organizations. But it depends on the goals, objectives and strategy of the organizations. It must be clear to the employees or to the prospective employees. The culture determines how employees behave at work and how they accomplish the task assigned to them.