Beyond pay packets

Making employees feel more valuable than clients helps retain talent.

Paucity of talent coupled with a high rate of attrition has forced corporates in India to give more weightage to employees than the customers to ensure that their top and bottom lines continue to improve.

Cutting across sectors, employees both in the new-age and brick-and-mortar companies are today in the enviable position of choosing their employers, contrary to the dictum of chasing a job. With this reversal in trend, companies are striving to become the "employer of choice", industry players believe.

Becoming employer of choice

Finding the right talent has become much harder in today's world and the employers need to create brand value for themselves among the job seekers, executive search firm Teamlease Services' CEO Manish Sabharwal said in New Delhi recently.

"Employers are now working in a small pond with very few quality candidates and finding the right person is three times harder than it was 10 years ago. Employer branding comes as a rescuer in such a scenario," Sabharwal said.

Waking up to the need, a number of companies, from IT firm HCL to tyres-to-pharma group Apollo International, are projecting themselves as the 'employer of choice', while valuing their workers more than customers.

At HCL, a strong message is conveyed — customers come second to the employees, HCL Comnet's HR Head Piyush Dutta said. HCL Comnet is a subsidiary of India's fifth largest software exporter HCL Technologies.

"This imbibes a feeling in the mindsets of employees that they are the priority for their organisation. This creates a sense of belongingness and employees on their part feel a sense of responsibility for the organisation," Dutt added.

Sharing similar views, Apollo International's HR Director Vijay Rai said, "Apollo wants to be known as the most preferred employer of choice."

Branding is the need of the day, be it for a product, a person or a company, Rai said.

At Apollo, the "inside-out method" is followed, under which internal branding compels value proposition for external people as well as current employees, he added.

The industry players believe the new focus is helping the companies not just for hiring new and right talent, but also for retaining their existing employees. With the companies having a better brand value than others, the existing employees stay on for longer, recognising the brand promise and new candidates are also attracted. In addition, the exercise also saves on hiring and related costs.

"The tool has helped in significantly cutting the cost per hire. A high reputation in the marketplace helps in attracting specialist talent in the present difficult market," Rai said.

"This tool fosters employee productivity and helps to retain and attract employees," HCL Comnet's Dutt agreed.

However, the rule is not the same for each and every company. To create a brand value, the company first needs to be good at its original business.

"One can't put lipstick on a pig! So, firstly a company has to be successful at its business. Also, they should walk their talk by running an organisation which has a sense of purpose and which treats employees fairly, based on the current market value," Teamlease's Sabharwal said.

The dividends reaped, however, are significant for the companies that have successfully implemented this model.

HCL is projecting itself as a young dynamic company with a workforce that could pay a leading role in the information technology sector, and this projection has helped, with HCL becoming the fastest growing IT company in India, managing to be in the top five slot for the last few years," Dutt said. — PTI