And the best IT employers in India are...

BANGALORE, INDIA: Global search giant Google was voted the 'dream company' by Indian software professionals in the latest annual IT Best Employer Survey conducted by Dataquest-IDC India, with one in eight professionals putting it at the top of the aspirational league, well ahead of other global software giants like Oracle, Accenture, Microsoft and IBM.

While Google has repeatedly topped the list of the Fortune 50 best employers globally because of its innovative HR policies and culture, its topping the Indian techies' aspirational list is a surprise, and all the more so that just one out of twelve professionals named Indian software giants TCS and Infosys (which together employ nearly a quarter million software professionals) as their dream company.

But the actual Dataquest-IDC Best Employer Top 20 list, made up of a mix of Indian IT firms and the India development centres of software multinationals, was topped by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and followed by HCL Infosystems, iGate Global Solutions, Rolta India and Infinite. Capgemini, L&T Infotech, SAS Institute India, Tulip Telecom and Synechron took the next five slots. Other toppers are: Tavant Technologies, Sify Technologies, MindTree, Datacraft India, Virtusa, Patni Computer Systems, Sybase, Pitney Bowes, Citrix, Unisys India.

The economic slowdown of the last 18 months has perceptibly changed the attributes of an ideal company, with three out of four respondents treating job security and stability at par with growth opportunities and career development.

According to the Best Employer Survey conducted by Dataquest-IDC India, factors like work-life balance and flexible working hours (60 p.c.), positive work environment (52 p.c.) and strong employer company image (50 p.c.) were among the top five attributes of an ideal company. In all 3160 professionals from 36 IT companies participated in this two stage survey conducted between June and August 2010.

“Over the years, we have seen ‘work-life balance’ move up in priority for India's IT professionals. While that indicates growing maturity, it calls for a fundamental shift in the HR policies of employers in an industry that employs nearly three million professionals,” says Ibrahim Ahmed, group editor of CyberMedia’s flagship journal Dataquest.

The glamour of overseas posting among software professionals lost its shine, with just two out of five professionals considering posting abroad as an important factor in ranking their employer high as an ideal workplace. The glamour of overseas posting is now the 6th most important attribute, down from #2 in the 2009 survey.

The employee attrition rate for the top 20 companies improved to 13 p.c., from 15 p.c. recorded last year.

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Compensation and Retention

In a year when job cuts had become the norm especially in the first half of 2009, a high percentage of employees expressed satisfaction at being paid adequately.

However, there was a growing discontentment over salaries not being at par with industry standards.

After a year of salary freezes and pay cuts, employees welcomed salary hikes and bigger paycheques. With Indian IT services companies offering better salary packages, the Indian outfits of MNCs no longer hold the fancy that they used to a few years ago.

The DQ-IDC Best Employers survey corroborates this fact as the top four employers are Indian entities — TCS, HCL Infosystems, iGate Global and Rolta India. The top four best paying companies are again Indian companies and not MNCs.

#1 TCS: Leads in training; women make up one-third of work force

India’s biggest IT firm, TCS, topped the Dataquest-IDC best employer list with the lowest attrition rate in the industry at 11.8 percent, and ensuring gender inclusion with women making 30 percent of total employees. TCS achieved this feat by continuously investing in competitive compensation, creating a compelling work environment, empowering employees, and, most importantly, people development programs.

#2 HCL: Consistent Performer

Computer hardware pioneer HCL Infosystems, with revenues of Rs 11,956 crore in 2009-10, managed the top rank across key parameters like salary, appraisals and managing slowdown and training. It launched three schools for employee development - iLead for leadership development; iLearn for updating technical and domain learnings; and iWin for sales personnel.

#3 iGate: Tops in gender inclusivity

In a year of part recession, part recovery, the Rs 857-crore iGate adopted the mantra of ‘no reaction’ thereby avoiding pink slips or salary cuts. In order to make its employees feel secure about their jobs, the company spruced up two-way communication with them. The company’s ‘Fast-Track’ program recognizes consistently outstanding performers leading to a lower than industry attrition rate. The company has an impressive 40 percent women in its work force with plans to take it to 50 percent in future.