Great places to work...... some thoughts.....

Reading through a write up by Prasenjit Bhattacharya, CEO of The Great Place to Work@ Institute, India was quite interesting and enlightening..... The definitions of a 'great place to work' goes like this : Your workplace is great if you trust the people you work for, take pride in what you do @ work, and enjoy the company of people you work with. Sounds simple... i guess not really so. Another interesting observation by Prasenjit is that Great places to work@ companies, as a matter of policy, do not plan to be in the top quartile of compensations paid to its employee work force. Thats is very interestinga and calls for attention of the numerous large brands, who even now resort to luring and retaining talent only by that whopping hike over the current employers compensation. The widely foreseen slowdown in the US post the sub-prime crisis throws up a great opportunity to many organisations to innovate and do well in all the intangibles of talent engagement and acquisition. Key take aways: Never assume money to be the prime motivator, ensure that the organisation is percieved as a fair and equal opportunity employer in its truest sense, ensure a work-life balance for the team, communicate organisational goals clearly top down till the last and mosr recent joinee, keep the channels of communication open for questions and clarications, address all employee grievances and doubts with 'straight answers' rather than being hush-hush..... for all this it is critical and paramount to ensure that the leadership team and managers across all functions are sensitised... obviously a great place to work cannot be in isolation to the managers in the organisations... connecting the widespread reason for someone leaving the employment - a bad boss - only Great Bosses can create these Great Places to work@....... And the best thing that can happen is to see that surveys in this context are made to have TOP 250 or 500 Great Places to work@ in India.....