Indian workforce seeks competitive salary & benefits: Randstad survey

Microsoft is 'Most Attractive Employer' in Randstad Awards

A competitive salary and employee benefits are the factors that attract prospective employees to a company. According to the Randstad survey that was conducted to find the country's most attractive employer brand in India, salary & employee benefits is the top priority followed by job security and interesting job content.

Microsoft emerged as the winner of the Randstad Award 2014 for the fourth year in a row and was awarded the 'Most Attractive Employer' in the country, followed by Sony India as the Runner-Up. The Randstad Award 2014 event was held at New Delhi, where Special Recognition awards were won by Larsen & Toubro in the Infrastructure Sector, State Bank of India (SBI) in the Banking Sector, Taj Group of Hotels in the Hospitality Sector and Tata Power in the Energy Sector.

The Randstad Award, instituted globally by Randstad, leading HR Services provider, aims to encourage best practices for talent attraction and to identify the best 'Employer Brand' in the country based on perceived attractiveness of a company. This is in fact the world's largest employer branding survey that is conducted with over 200,000 respondents across 23 countries in the world. In India, the survey was conducted amongst a large audience of 8,015 respondents to find the country's most attractive employer brand for the year 2014.

Moorthy K Uppaluri, MD & CEO, Randstad India said, "The Indian economy is showing positive economic movement and shifting into a higher gear, which will have a significant bearing on the attraction and retention of talent across sectors. With employee attrition on the rise, employer branding has become crucial, now more than ever, and companies are viewing this as a 'Competitive differentiator tool' to build great brands that will help them attract, manage and retain the best talent."

With respect to the top five influencing factors, competitive salary & employee benefits, long-term job security are the most selected factors, followed by the financial health of the company, good work-life balance and a pleasant working atmosphere.

The survey showed that men give higher importance to factors like competitive salary and employee benefits, long-term job security, financial health, career progression opportunities and strong management. Women preferred companies which offer pleasant working atmosphere, work-life balance, accessibility, flexible working, and good training.

Uppaluri added that the survey captures the levers that influence the perception of company choice by individuals where 'honesty, security and reliability' ranked the highest in symbolic values.

The Indian respondents with a master's degree are more attracted to companies which offer competitive salary, job security and work-life balance; whereas respondents with lower education look for companies offering good training, job content and with easy access to work place.

As per the survey, Indians see their work-life balance threatened mainly by unfavourable work environment, too many deadlines, poor cooperation with colleagues, lack of support to meet deadlines and mental pressure from employer to finish job.

Bad work environment poses as a major threat to work-life balance for women & mature workforce and respondents with low education. While men, younger workforce, well educated, office executives and managers believe that too many deadlines is a major threat.

The Randstad Award program is based on a robust research platform that gives unique insight into the key drivers of talent attraction within our country and across the world. The 23 participating countries (Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungry, India, Italy, Japan, Luxemburg, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, USA) are from Europe, Asia/Pacific and the Americas, where Randstad has active presence. In each country 150 large companies with over 1000 employees are chosen for the survey.