Competitive salary and employee benefits continue to be the top priority among the Indian workforce, while choosing an employer, followed by good work–life balance.
Google India has been named the most ‘attractive employer brand’, followed by Mercedes-Benz India, according to the Randstad’s Employer Brand Research 2017. In addition, the sectoral-specific winners for the most attractive employers this year are Amazon India for e-commerce, ITC Limited for FMCG and Philips India for consumer and healthcare.
The Randstad Award, instituted globally, is hosted each year to encourage best practices for talent attraction and to identify the best ‘Employer Brand’ in the country based on the perceived awareness and attractiveness of a company. In India this year, the Randstad Employer Brand Research captured the views of around 3500 respondents, who chose the nation’s most attractive employer brand for 2017.
Randstad’s research covering 26 countries and over 1,65,000 respondents worldwide, clearly reflects that this year too, salary and employee benefits continue to be the top drivers among the Indian workforce, across all profiles, while choosing an employer. This is followed by good work–life balance and job security. However, for the IT professionals, good work–life balance emerged as the top priority while choosing an employer. It is interesting to note that the importance accorded to good work–life balance has increased considerably across all work profiles, with this attribute moving up to Rank II from Rank V, as per last year’s findings.
The survey findings reveal that more than a quarter of employees (31 per cent), say that they are not loyal to any one industry or sector and are open to shifting industries. Compensation remains a key driver in determining employee loyalty to a sector with 42 per cent of the respondents saying that they are open to a job shift to a completely different industry, only if the pay and benefits are at least similar to what they receive now in their current operating industry or sector.
The survey also highlights that the Indian workforce prefers to work for companies operating in sectors, such as IT (65 per cent), followed by BFSI (63 per cent) and retail & FMCG (62 per cent).
Employer branding continues to be of strategic importance influencing the talent agenda, particularly so in an economy that’s driven by knowledge workers. In line with that, talking of the survey insights, Dr. Moorthy K. Uppaluri, MD & CEO, Randstad India, says, “Organisations have come to realise the value of employer branding and the return from such investments, both in terms of attracting new talent and retaining.” He further shared thatm with disruptive game changers playing in tandem— a multigenerational and diverse workplace, the new war for talent, swiftly evolving technology innovations and the evolution of new strategic talent solutions—the job market has undergone a paradigm shift to become extremely candidate focussed. Today, it is critical for employers to have a buffet of choices and an employer brand that’s appealing to various layers of this talent strata.
“At this juncture, understanding workforce trends, expectations and key Employee Value Proposition (EVP) drivers are imperatives for organisations. For the last seven years, our employer brand research has been consistently adding value to this process by capturing the voice of the ecosystem by holding a mirror to the preferences of the current and potential workforce that has helped employers transform themselves into talent magnets,” Uppaluri added.
The survey also highlighted the fact that attractive salary and employee benefits, good work–life balance and long-term job security are the top three criteria for men and women alike while choosing an employer.
However, the younger workforce in India, aged 18-24 years is more oriented towards salary and benefits, long-term job security and good training. Workforce between 25–44 years —often the age when parental responsibility becomes significant—look for companies that offer a good work-life balance. To the mature workforce of India, aged 45–65 years, salary and good work–life balance remain major drivers while choosing an employer. Since this age group might face challenges in finding a new job, they clearly prioritise long-term job security as well.
Also, according to the survey results, large and multinational corporations emerge as the preferred workplace for employees across all profiles. However, IT professionals indicated that they would rather work in the dynamic start-up ecosystem over the SME sector. On the other hand, engineering talent prefer working in startups over the public-sector companies, according to the survey.
The survey also revealed that talent across all profiles in the country find company websites to be the most trusted channel to verify brand reputation, followed by LinkedIn, which is used extensively by IT and engineering talent.