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.