Robert Levering is the founder of the Great Place to Work Institute, Inc., which has created a rigorous survey to identify quality workplaces

The Businessworld list of 'Great Places To Work' will make India the 23rd country to have such a list. As the co-creator of the first list some 20 years ago in the United States, I would like to take credit for the idea. But alas, the idea came from a book editor in New York. When the book editor approached me and fellow journalist Milton Moskowitz about writing a book entitled 'The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America', my first reaction was one of scepticism. As a former labour reporter who specialised in covering strikes and union organising drives, I had a very negative view of the workplace. So I responded by suggesting that we write a book called 'The 100 Worst Companies to Work for'. I knew there would be lots of material for such a book. However, the editor declined saying her company did not have enough lawyers to publish such a book. So '100 Best' it was.

Over the past two decades, I've witnessed many changes in the workplace, not only in the US, but throughout the world. In general, I've seen a striking improvement. First, I've seen advances in a variety of benefits offered to employees. In the US the biggest difference has been in the area of work-family benefits. For instance, when our first ...Best Companies to Work for book was published in 1984, only three companies offered any type of flexible working schedules to their employees. Last year, every single company on our Fortune '100 Best' list provided some form of flexible time benefit. This is an important issue for employees in the US because of the huge influx of women into the workforce. Being able to alter one's work schedules makes it possible for parents to better take care of their children. We have also seen similar improvements in Europe and Latin America where we have been doing 'Best Companies to Work for' lists for several years.

A second area of progress has been in the role of human resource management. Twenty years ago, human resources was largely confined to issues related to compensation and benefits. Senior HR managers were almost exclusively focussed on overseeing the technical implementation of benefit packages. In more recent years, HR has become much more concerned with strategic questions related to the business. So, for instance, it is a lot more common for HR managers to be directly involved in internal communications within the business.
The change in the role of HR is a direct reflection of how senior management itself is increasingly concerned with the role of people within the organisation. Enlightened managers realise that creating an outstanding work environment is no longer 'nice to do', but, rather, is a 'must do'. This has been partly a result of the 'talent wars' of the past few years, especially for highly skilled workers. This has forced managers throughout the world to go to great lengths to attract and retain the best employees. To be competitive in today's global environment requires having the most innovative and productive workers possible.

Another factor: the growing awareness that the quality of a workplace is directly related to productivity/profitability. For instance, the companies selected for the 'Best Companies to Work for' list in the US have consistently outperformed the stock market averages by two or three to one. These results have been replicated in Europe and Latin America.

What do these 'Best Companies to Work for' have in common? Many people asked me this after the publication of our first list in 1984. I thought it was a subject worth exploring, so I decided to write a book about it entitled A Great Place To Work.

Initially, I thought I could answer the question by categorising the various policies and practices. I thought I could generalise from these specific policies to arrive at a comprehensive definition of a great place to work. After all, the 100 Best... book contained 400 pages worth of examples.

In terms of internal communications, for instance, I had written about an annual meeting at Pitney Bowes, a large office equipment manufacturer, where the CEO answered difficult questions from ordinary employees. As many 100 Best companies had similar meetings, I thought I could generalise from those examples to assert that one of the essential characteristics of a great place to work is that it has meetings where the senior management answers questions from employees.

The problem is that almost all organisations would like to convince employees (and potential employees) that they are good bosses, that they care about their people. Many companies sincerely intend to create a good place to work. As time passes, the pressures of the marketplace tend to open a gap between a company's good intentions and the reality of work life. So you can't evaluate workplaces merely by listening to company slogans. The best way to judge a place... is to visit the company and talk with employees. That's the only sure way to find out what it's really like to work there...

Unfortunately, I noticed that a number of 100 Best companies had no such meetings. And I found examples of companies that had such meetings, but the employees did not rate the company highly as a place to work.

American Airlines was a great example of the latter. My co-author and I attended a meeting that was similar to the Pitney Bowes meeting - at least in form. The CEO of the company, Bob Crandall, stood up in front of a large gathering of employees and announced that he would stay all night and answer any question that employees asked him. However, it soon became clear that Mr Crandall replied to the questions in a very combative way, constantly trying to show the employees how he knew more about every subject they asked about than they did. When we left the meeting, Milton remarked: "I would hate to ask that man for a raise (in salary)."

That incident demonstrated an important point: having a progressive policy or practice is not enough. How the policy is carried out matters as much or more. It is particularly important how the management relates to employees. In the example cited earlier, the Pitney Bowes CEO answered all of the employees' questions respectfully while the American Airlines CEO responded defensively, constantly showing the employees that he had little regard for their opinions. In short, the most important issue was the quality of the relationship between the employees and the management. How policies are implemented is crucial because it affects the relationship.

If relationships are most important, what are the principal relationships in the workplace? From the employee viewpoint, there are three primary relationships - with the management, with the job, and with other employees. I looked through my extensive interviews with employees at the 100 Best companies to see how those employees described those relationships.

As far as the relationship between the employee and management was concerned, I discovered that a number of phrases were constantly used: "I believe what management tells me"; "Management has very high principles"; "Management respects us"; "You can trust management to be fair".

Regarding their jobs, employees at these firms talked about how they felt "proud" of the company they worked for. Often they said they were proud of telling others where they worked. They also spoke about how much they "enjoyed" the employees they worked with and felt a sense of camaraderie with them.

I reduced these ideas into a definition: "A great place to work is where you trust the people you work for, have pride in what you do, and enjoy the people you work with." This definition - and the model derived from it - summed up what I had learned from employees at these 100 Best companies.

But what really distinguished the very best employers was the trust between employees and management in those companies. It is possible for an employee to feel pride in his job but not feel trusted. My wife, for example, was a college professor in a large state university. Although she loved teaching, she did not consider it a great place to work because of the bureaucracy of the administration of the university. The university's extensive bureaucracy was, in fact, a manifestation of distrust.

Therefore, our Institute (the Great Place to Work Institute, Inc.) created an employee survey instrument to measure the characteristics of a great place to work. The Great Place to Work(r) Trust Index(c) is very different from most employee surveys because the latter try to measure job satisfaction. But as in the case of my wife, a high level of job satisfaction does not mean a company is a great place to work. So, one needs to focus on the level of trust in the organisation.
The Trust Index(c) employee survey used to determine the best companies to work for lists is the same survey that is used by Businessworld as well as throughout the world. Companies that participate in the process receive results from the survey for benchmarking purposes and to make specific improvements in their workplaces.

These lists have promoted a healthy form of competition. Companies now compete on the quality of their workplaces, not just for marketshare. As we all know, competition is one of the primary ways that businesses improve. In this case, those improvements have the happy side effect of raising the level of quality of the workplace for employees throughout society.