Mumbai:

The study, being conducted in association with Business Today, identifies those organisations whose human resources practices and levels of employee motivation and loyalty make them outstanding places to work, and determine how these practices effectively meet employee needs and drive business results.

Using data gathered from participants, the study identifies a league table of the country’s best employers. This year’s study will be the third annual survey of Indian workplaces.

It will also rank the Best Employers in India, and provide insights into the HR practices that set these companies apart from the rest. The study is open to all organisations in India that have been established for a minimum of three years and employ not less than 100 white-collar employees.

Organisations with an interest in participating in the study can either contact Hewitt Associates, or submit their application through the official website at www.BestEmployersIndia.com. Applications must be submitted no later than 15 February 2003. The results of the study will be published in August 2003 in Business Today.

Says Hewitt’s South Asia managing director Ravi Virmani: “It is becoming increasingly important for companies to adopt Best Employer practices, as the worldwide shortage of talented people becomes more acute. Following the success of the Best Employers in India study in the last two years, we are hoping to capture a larger number and a wider range of companies in the study this year.

“By conducting the study again this year, we will be able to deepen the research by monitoring developments on the cutting edge of HR. It will help us analyse how external economic, social, and other factors can affect Best Employers,” he said.

Two hundred and four companies across more than 15 industry groups participated in the study last year and data was collected from more than 52,000 employees. The study identified a number of characteristics shared by the companies designated Best Employers in India. The main shared traits were high employee-satisfaction levels, aligned people practices and the CEOs’ commitment to people.

Last year’s Best Employers displayed a high degree of faith in leadership, offered a compelling employment proposition, accelerated development opportunities, and strong orientation towards company culture and values.

The Best Employers, in alphabetical order, included companies like Agilent Technologies, American Express, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Colgate Palmolive, Compaq, Dr Reddy’s, Gillette, Hewlett Packard, Hughes Software, Indian Oil, Infosys, Johnson & Johnson, LG Electronics, Maruti Udyog, Microsoft, Oracle, Polaris Software, Procter & Gamble, Reliance, Sasken, Satyam, SmithKline Beecham, ST Micorelectronics, Tata Engineering and Tata Iron & Steel.

Hewitt Associates is a global outsourcing and consulting firm delivering a complete range of human capital management services to companies, including HR and benefits outsourcing, HR strategy and technology, organisational change, retirement and financial management, and talent and reward strategies. The firm provides services from 86 offices in 37 countries. In India, Hewitt has four offices, in Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bangalore, and with over 150 associates.