By Rakesh Malik, Organizational Consulting Practice Leader, India
Manasi Vartak, Senior Consultant, Talent & Performance, India

The Aon Hewitt Best Employers India 2011 study makes our belief stronger that there are companies that manage to create more engaged and motivated employees and those employees in turn help in achieving financial goals despite significant market and environmental challenges.

The Best Employers study recognizes and acknowledges the Top 25 Best Employers in India – companies that have realized, and acted, on the premise that being a Best Employer is not just a soft concept of becoming an "Employer of Choice." It is hardwired. It is about creating business results and long-term value for shareholders, clients and employees. The Best Employers are the best because they:

• Align people practices with growth objective.
• Recognize that employees are in it for their careers!
• Adopt effective people practices to fulfill a high growth agenda.
• Know that sustaining a high performance workforce must be a way of life.

Align people practices with growth objectives

"High Growth" (fast but sustainable) has emerged as the single biggest strategic goal for CEOs in all participating organizations. While products, customer, and innovation will continue to be the important enablers, CEOs know that a high growth agenda can only be achieved through a high performing and engaged workforce. As a result, among all the participating organizations, people-related metrics associated with people management (e.g. employee retention rate, employee/ leadership development, etc.) and employee engagement (e.g. employee commitment and satisfaction, etc.) figure in the top five metrics that CEOs track in order to measure the organization's business performance.

CEOs of participating organizations hold Human Resources accountable as a partner in achieving their growth objectives. Alignment of HR strategy with business strategy, and how it enables growth plans, is evident from the view of CEOs at the Best Employers. CEOs at the Best believe that HR understands and applies insights on business strategy and business capabilities to improve people management.

Back to top

Employees are in it for careers!

At the Best, alignment to growth objectives extends to all employees. For employees, the biggest driver of engagement is "personal growth" – career opportunity, recognition, and career aspiration, all pointing towards the organization's overall growth objective. This evidenced by the fact that the key driver of engagement for Best Employers in India across all seven studies has been career opportunities.

When Aon Hewitt first conducted the Best Employers in India in 2001, career opportunities were clearly very different from opportunities in 2011. Although organizations have continued to focus on career opportunity as a key driver of engagement, the landscape of opportunities itself has seen rapid changes in the intervening years. These have driven expectations and impacted engagement. In the 2011 study, 67% employees at the Best are convinced that "their future career opportunities look good" compared to 59% at the Rest. Some practices clearly differentiate the Best Employers:

• The Best have managed to broaden the definition of career movement in employees' mindset to include not just upward progression but also lateral movement.
• For the Best, careers are not a function of "function", but a function of individual potential. To the Best, cross-functional assignments are a necessary part of career development.

Back to top

Effective people practices drive high growth

In the 2011 study, People/HR Practices Driver is amongst the top five positive impact drivers for employees. Clearly, efficiency and effectiveness of people practices has become more important than ever for leadership and for employees. HR practices in the Best Employers is more aligned, and perceived as contributing to the business and HR performance is measured effectively.

HR teams at the Best Employers are measured more closely, have closer contact with leadership, and receive more training than the other participating companies. The Best Employers measures HR functional performance more stringently on a wide range of metrics such as: talent program effectiveness; attrition; HR costs; number of career moves, and size and quality of the talent pool.

The HR function at the Best has a stronger, more structured, and frequent connect with leadership and managers. HR at the Best has more 'daily' interaction with senior leaders compared to the Rest. Plus, Best Employers are more likely to combine formal training for their HR team with mentoring, external conferences, rotational programs through different functions.

Back to top

Sustaining a high-performance workforce

The Best are doing a better job of building a high performance culture. They believe that such a culture is the base for achieving their growth objective. Critical aspects of what the Best Employers are doing differently include:

They differentiate talent. The Best differentiate talent more rigorously through their performance management system. Fewer employees make the cut to be recognized as best performers. Furthermore, the Best Employers involve more managers at lower levels in the performance review process.

They incorporate performance measures in all talent programs. While the performance systems in all participating companies are well-aligned with reward programs and training & development, at the Best, the performance systems are also more closely aligned with workforce planning, career development programs, succession management, and leadership/high potentials development.

They recognize good performance and focus on high potential. After career opportunities, recognition is the second highest positive impact factor for employee engagement. Employees greatly appreciate innovative recognition programs e.g. spot recognition; redemption points program, company-level annual awards and high visibility, and non-monetary recognition. The Best Employers recognize high potentials and given them "value adds", such as coaching, mentoring, increased interaction with senior managers and customized training. The Best also have more emphasis on external and executive education provided to high performers and high potentials.

Back to top

Best Employer practices apply to all employers

Do the above themes correspond only to certain type, size or kinds of organizations to come out on top as Best Employers? No! A quick glance through the Top 25 List debunks all homogeneity theories. Some organizations such as Aditya Birla Group, Wipro and Tata Steel have a large employee base (more than 70,000 employees) while others such as Becton Dickinson, and Canon are smaller at less than 1,000 employees. There is a fair representation of foreign multinational companies and homegrown Indian firms, with the Indian firms occupying six of the Top 10 slots.

The consistent pivotal elements among the 25 Best Employers are only two, and very simple really: One – the Best have managed to build people practices that are customized to industry, and strongly aligned to business, leadership and employees needs. And two – they make genuine efforts in creating an environment that gets the best out of their employees, makes them feel good about their work and assures them a future in the organization. All this is done effectively, while contributing to Business Results!

Contact us

Rakesh Malik is the Organizational Consulting Practice Leader for Aon Hewitt in India, and can be reached at rakesh.malik@aonhewitt.com. Manasi Vartak is a Senior Consultant, Talent & Performance, for Aon Hewitt in India. She can be contacted at manasi.vartak@aonhewitt.com.

Back to top