Oracle: An Exciting Place to Be

Oracle's climb from #14 to the 7th rank this year is driven by in an improvement in both HR and Employee parameter scores. In a year when it almost doubled employee count, the company strengthened some of its HR processes, which reflected in some employee satisfaction scores going up. A significant image makeover-both internal and external-was the other key change. 

The big one though was the increase in composite satisfaction - the true measure of employee engagement with the company. A year ago, composite satisfaction ranked pretty much at the bottom of the heap at #19 and rose dramatically this year to #2, next only to Cadence. As a result, scores on whether employees would recommend this company to a close friend went up from just 67% a year ago to 95% this year. Compared to just 67% the year before, 76% of all respondents said they looked forward to work every morning. Though overall company culture rank fell from #13 to #15, key questions saw marked improvement. These included better communication, a lot more freedom at work, more transparent policies and procedures and better attention to employees' work-life balance. As a result, the work atmosphere has brightened up considerably-more fun at work, and more exciting growth opportunities. Result-very low employee stress and high sense of job security. 

The other key upswing came in image-46% of its own employees voted for it as their dream company, putting it at #8 on the preferred employer rankings (up from #15 a year ago). And overall, it rose in the dream company rankings from #10 to #3-coming next only to Infosys and IBM. Satisfaction on salary remained at a decent #4. 

But there are challenges too-relatively low scores on “people in my company treat each other with respect,” (Ranked 17th) and “I respect this company's work values and ethics,” (ranked 15th). Compared to 90% last year, only 78% respondents this year said immediate managers were available for help or advice when needed. The upswing, the number of employees who said they would leave for a 20% cut in salary went up from 40% to 60% (ranked 2nd ). There could be testing times ahead.