A DQ-IDC INDIA SURVEY: Indian IT's Best Employers

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE TOP GUN: The Infosys HR team

at the company’s campus in Bangalore

Final

Rankings: The Empex* 20, 2002

BALANCING

ACT:



The 56,409 employees (the total number

of staffers at the 20 companies ranked in this survey) were divided almost

equally across experience levels. Against the trend earlier, the number of

employees in the two-to-five years’ experience category were only

marginally higher.

Preferred

Company

The effects

of recession were felt most on the two most obvious factors–salary

increments and perks–both of which got hit. But by far the most important

finding was that a substantial number of IT employees–42.9%–said the

recession had also led to an increase in workload. Hiring came to a

standstill for a period and the same number of people were expected to

deliver more–across both technical and marketing domains. One’s own job

security became an issue and 34% of respondents said there was an increased

air of general insecurity in their companies. Interestingly, however, only

17.7% of respondents said morale was affected.



Note:

Employees were asked to name the affects of recession on the company. Since

many gave more than one answer, this is multi-mode data and will not add up

to 100%.



Source: IDC India,

2002 Base: 774 respondents.

Preferred

Employer

Most of Sun

Micro’s employees rated their own company as their preferred employer

(96.7%), followed by HP and SAP. Interestingly, the propor-tion of HP

employees who voted for their own company went up substantially from 64% to

94.4%, though the company fell in the rankings. Other companies that fell in

overall rankings but improved performance in ‘Preferred Employer’ scores

were HCL Infosystems and i-Flex Solutions. Conversely, the number of

employees who wanted to stay with Infosys Technologies fell sharply from 82%

to 70.4%. Own employee votes for Wipro Ltd and Philips Software Center also

fell significantly, though the company’s overall rankings improved.



Note: All employees were asked to name their dream company. The
percentage of employees who named their own company as their Dream Company

gave the Preferred Employer scores.



Base: 774 Employees

Job

content remained the reason most employees cited as the main factor for

having left their previous jobs. Its importance increased marginally this

year, with 29.1% citing job content, against 24.7% of the employees last

year. Despite the bad times, money remained the second common reason for

leaving, though its relative importance decreased substantially (from

24.1% people saying money last year to only 15.4% citing it as the main

reason this year). The importance of company image as a reason for leaving

decreased slightly, and instead, job security and stability became

relatively more vital. The other big change was in techno-logy — it was

not as important for as many people as it was last year–as a reason for

leaving.

Note:

Employees were asked to choose the most important reason why they would

leave a company from a set of 14 attributes. The figures given are the

percentage of employees who named any particular attribute.

Base: Those who’ve left

a company in the past.

It got

down a bit to brass-tacks this year. Job content and career development

overtook company image as the reason for which most employes said they

would chief jobs, even though image continued to (and perhaps always will

be) important. Mon-ey also took a backseat–threatened by layoffs, more

employees believed it was safer to join a company that offered better job

security than better money. Surprisingly, and for some reason quite

unexplained yet, overseas opportunity became more important than the

technology employees wanted to work on. A company’s performance

appraisal system wasn’t even in the picture last time, but emerged as a

significant factor this year–perhaps due to the fact that salary

increments became harder to come by. Work climate and organizational

culture, as well as facilities and resources, also lost some of their

sheen.

Note:

Employees were asked to name the most important attributes for which they

would join a company. They chose from a set of 14 attributes and the

numbers given are the percentage of people who voted for a particular

attribute.

Base: 774 respondents

n Total

employee strength



n Break-up of

professionals based on domain (technical, marketing and support)



n Break-up

based on experience



n Distribution

of employees by different cities



n Average

tenure



n Training

days per employee



n Employee

rollover during the year for calculation of attrition and retention

rates



n Salaries,

perks and benefits at different levels

Of these 198 companies,

48 participated in the first phase. A total of 22 were then shortlisted

based on the following parameters: employee strength, average tenure,

average training, attrition rate, retention rate, proportion of

promotions granted, cost to company, ratio of the fixed component in the

salary and the male to female ratio. Each of these parameters were given

a different weightage depending on its importance.

The second stage



In the second stage, a larger scale survey was done among the

employees of these 22 companies across the country. The employee survey

comprised individual face-to-face interviews based on a structured

questionnaire that sought information on areas such as : salary,

eligibility for perks, overall satisfaction levels, perception of peer

satisfaction, reasons why they joined the company, the effects of

recession, their perception of the most important attributes of a good

employer and how their company scores on them, reasons why they would

leave a company, and given a choice — what is their Dream Company. IBM

did not participate in the first phase of the survey. However, since it

topped the overall employee score last year, it was considered relevant

to include them in the second phase of the survey for a proper measuring

of trends. Nevertheless, the company was not considered for the final

rankings. The employee survey was therefore carried out among 23

companies (22 plus IBM) comprising 774 IT professionals in seven cities

across India. These cities were: Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata,

Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune.

In each city, the

sample quota was assigned based on the company’s employee strength in

the city. Further classification of respondents was done based on job

profile (marketing, technical and senior management) and years of IT

experience (less than 2 years, 2-5 years and more than 5 years) This

quota system was followed strictly to get a proper representation of

different types of employees in the sample. Every effort was also made

to ensure that the management of the company did not influence employee

responses and most interviews were conducted outside company premises. A

process of cross-checking was established to ensure the authenticity of

the data and the veracity of the interviews.

Analysis of data



Since the sampling itself was weighted against different parameters,

it did not require to be weighted again post collection. The final

ranking to arrive at the best employer was based on the following eleven

parameters:

5 parameters from

the HR Survey:

Attrition, retention, average employee tenure, average training hours

and number of IT professionals.

6 parameters from the

Employee Survey: overall

satisfaction, peer satisfaction, a composite score on satisfaction on a

set of 14 attributes, its rating as a preferred company, average salary

and perks.

These eleven parameters

were allotted 10 points each leading to a total score of 110 points. The

DQ-IDC Empex Score has been calculated by converting the base to 100.

The mean score for each company was plotted under each of these

parameters. The company with the highest score in a parameter was given

10 points and the scores for the rest of the companies were calculated

to that scale. This method of indexing was followed in order to make the

parameters comparable and unit-less. This method of scoring was followed

for each company and each parameter.