RANK 4: SAP Labs: Looking Up

Effects of Recession Salary Increment hit: 94.3% Reduction in Perks: 74.3% Increase in work Load: 65.7% Strengths High salaries, perks and benefits Low attrition rates Impressive ‘Dream Company’ rankings Weaknesses Low average tenure, overall satisfaction levels Comparatively low training focus Staff most satisfied with... Company Image and technology Training and development Staff least satisfied with... Overseas opportunity, co-workers Performance appraisal system, compensation

This was another big jump–from number 9 in the rankings last year to number

4 this time around. Bangalore-based SAP Labs was another one of those small

companies–just 364 employees–that did very well on numerous counts this

year. Average salary is among the highest–ranked 3rd (after Cadence and Sun

Micro); it came next only to Adobe on perks and benefits; Attrition is down from

16.3% to 4.9%–the second-lowest in the industry; and it ranks 3rd on

retention, with 94.3%.

However, overall satisfaction scores were not very high (rank 8th) and ‘Peer

Satisfaction’ was only marginally better (rank 7th). Despite good attrition

and retention figures, tenure was lower than the industry average at 2 years per

employee. Some of this, though, will have to do with the fact that compared to

most other companies in the survey, SAP Labs has been in India for a shorter

while–since 1996.

The good news, though, was that despite its size and relatively-low decibel

branding, the company performed well on both ‘Preferred Company’ and ‘Preferred

Employer’ rankings. Of all IT employees surveyed, 5.4% voted for SAP (ranked

5th). Interestingly, this included a good 15.2% of Philips’ employees. Better

still, SAP Labs was one of the few companies that got substantially more votes

from its own employees this year than the last–94.3% (up from 58% the year

before). Of the rest of SAP’s employees who didn’t vote for their own

company, 2.9% voted for Microsoft.

Of the four major reasons for joining the company, employees were very

satisfied with company image, somewhat satisfied with job content and job

security, but not too happy with overseas opportunity. This is despite SAP Labs

being one of the few companies with what is called the Global Mobility Program.

The company, however, received the third-highest scores on facilities/resources

and support from its employees.

Though training performance was not outstanding (rank 7th) SAP is known to

have a strong Mentorship and Talent Management program. The challenge however

will be to keep most of these numbers up if and when the company expands.