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How would you like to work for an organisation
that reimburses $3,000 a year to each and every
employee who signs up for an educational programme
of choice? How about a firm that allows parents
- yes, even fathers can apply - of young kids
to work just 50% of the time for the first year?
Or maybe you would rather work for a Bangalore-based
firm where, after completing a gruelling tech
assignment, engineers have the freedom to simply
disappear for 10 days, no questions asked.
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Chairman Pawar and his top
team at NIIT have personal
quotas of top performers to track
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Nokia takes
care of the emotional wellbeing of its employee
through short-term counselling sessions
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Infosys
and Wipro have suspended their stock option
plan and have opted for cash awards
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Understand the backdrop of the survey, and it
will be easy to relate to some of the more surprising
findings. On the one hand, many of India's frontline
manufacturing companies are beginning to emerge
out of the woods after three years of painful
restructuring. On the other hand, for the last
one year, the IT industry has been battling its
way out of a gradual slowdown in growth rates
and billing rates. The impact on the talent market
has been telling. For long, companies like Infosys
Technologies and Wipro were the hottest destinations.
But the pressures are now starting to tell on
employee morale - especially since Esops have
lost their allure. It was time for employees to
give their verdict on workplaces.
| Hughe
Software System goes so far as to
ask customers to nominate its high performers |
About 20% of Wipro
Spectramind's 7,000-odd
workforce comes through employee referrals
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Aviva has
extended its mentor-mentee programme to
its insurance agents as well.
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All the employees at the
Cadbury can track their
performance on the company intranet
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Birla Sun Life
does not make any distinction between its
agents and its full time employees
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Dr. Reddy's
believes that tolerance for mistake and
an open culture help build an innovative
organisation
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After all, it is they who determine what
makes a great workplace. Unlike other HR surveys
that tend to consider benefits and facilities
mostly from an employer's standpoint, the Great
Place to Work(r) model lays more emphasis on what
employees have to say about their workplaces.
In the end, employee satisfaction flows from a
simple precept: If you trust the people you work
with, have pride in what you do and like the people
you work with, you will find your organisation
a Great Place to Work(r). In a way, that's the
essence of the Great Places to Work survey.
That is perhaps why as many as
120 reputed companies were willing to participate
in the launch year itself. Eventually, a few did
drop out midway as they realised that they had
to cover considerable ground before they became
a Great Place to Work(r). Also, a few leading
Indian firms declined to participate this year.
Their self-assessment showed that they would not
be able to come out on top and, therefore, weren't
ready for the survey. But for the rest, the motivation
to participate was very much in keeping with the
spirit of the survey: it wasn't just about winning
a place in the Top 25 list, but also about a deep
desire to discover new ways to change their company
and improve the quality of work life.
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