Striking a balance between compensation, performance management and employee care Great workplaces usually don't get there only by doling out fat paychecks. Instead, the key is striking a balance between compensation, performance and employee care. That's easier said than done. Infosys has one of the best HR systems in the country. That is clear from the high scores that the company clocked in the culture audit. Yet employees didn't rate the firm very highly - it was No. 19 on the list. So has its dream soured? Perhaps not, but the Infosys case is a good example of how managing employee expectations is becoming infinitely more difficult for the tech firms.

Through the nineties, Infosys was a favourite among jobseekers. A great campus, big increments and stock options were a strong employee magnet.
Then came the downturn in 2001. Faced with an inclement business climate, Infosys tightened its belt and focus closely on performance.The increments dipped sharply and so did the employee intake. Finally, earlier this week, it decided to suspend its stock option plan.

Great workplaces dovetail a strong performance ethic with a fair reward system - something that global insurance company Max New York Life is particularly adept at. It ruthlessly follows a philosophy of punishing mediocrity and rewarding performance. It isn't uncommon for the high performers among its 4,000-odd agents to earn Rs 10 lakh in annual commission. Moreover, they get special offsites, where fun and training are combined in equal measure. A few agents are even sponsored for the Million Dollar Roundtables, a worldwide club for insurance agents. At the same time Max pulls up employees for poor performance. Results are monitored on a regular basis and communicated clearly. And agents are encouraged to set personal goals - even for something like setting aside money for a son's education - and then to break it down into finite targets to be achieved on an annual basis.

Stress on employee development
It's the old paradox: how do you help employees develop their skills and yet ensure that they don't outgrow the organisation? Great workplaces seem to realise that in the age of extreme worker mobility, they don't really have a choice. They need new skills and they also need to reward employees with continuous training.

The business imperative overrides fear of attrition. At Bangalore-based Ernst & Young's Shared Services Location division, employees find it difficult to cope with the drudgery of filing tax returns day in and day out for companies in the US. So CEO Sharada Cherwoo encourages employees to pick up new skills, even while on the job. E&Y SSL is still able to maintain an attrition rate of 21% - significantly lower than the industry average of 30%.

Dr. Reddy's Laboratories wants to become a discovery-led global pharma company. That's why it started the intellectual property management programme to train technicians with IP skills. "The IPM professionals can help us do more focussed research," says G. Rajkumar, general manager (learning and development). He knows that the investment in training could come to nought - the topper of the first batch is no longer with the company - but that's a risk the company is willing to take.

DRL not only sponsors students who want to do an MBA from the Indian School of Business, it recently picked up the $21,000 tab for K. Rajanikanth Rau, manager (clinical operations), who wants to do his masters in intellectual property at Franklin Pierce College in the US.
And if you are still wondering which organisation would willingly give each employee $3,000 a year as education reimbursement allowance, look no further than Federal Express (FedEx). If you want to know more about how fair their system is, speak to senior marketing specialist Vidyut Kant. He can tell you all about the training opportunities.

The fun factor
You don't really need a survey to tell you that all great workplaces are fun to work in. It's tough to have a policy on fun, but companies like WiproSpectramind are actually trying to formulate one. Others like Cadbury are using a fun culture to spark off creativity in the workplace. But for most companies, it is simply about making work more appealing.

At E&Y SSL, Gayathri Krishnaswamy doubles as a culture manager and tries to make sure her colleagues get enough fun and relaxation. NIIT's chief fun officer has quite a job on his hands - he has to organise events for employees every Friday. These could be fashion shows, games or even gulab jamun eating contests. Even the men who make steel know how important it is not to take work too seriously. Jindal Iron and Steel Company (Jisco) has a 'chief josh officer' who organises games, painting competitions and so on.

In the 25 profiles you will not only see what makes the great workplaces similar, but also what makes them distinctive. We have also identified and looked at three key workplace issues - the fall from grace of stock options, the role of technology in simplifying work lives and the growing need for outplacement services.

This issue celebrates great workplaces. But its underlying agenda is more ambitious: companies must learn from the best. Even the great places to work for in India can pick up best practices from their global counterparts.

The statistically rigorous research methodology - and the survey's global footprint - allows global comparisons. While Indian companies are on a par with the rest of the world, including the US and the European Union, when it comes to giving equal opportunity for special recognition (See 'Global benchmarks'), they still lag behind global benchmarks in areas like providing professional support and offering meaningful work.

This survey will hopefully let them take the first step towards not just bridging the gap but becoming global benchmarks themselves.

Anil Sachdev is the founder and CEO of Grow Talent.

This article is based on the results of the Great Place to Work(r) survey conducted by Grow Talent and on reporting by the BW team. Grow Talent did not divulge any company-specific information that it collected during the survey.

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