Best companies to work for in India

What does it take to make a company where people enjoy working and would like to stay on? Competitive salaries, timely promotions and learning opportunities and intangibles. Here are a list of companies that got the mix right. IN Business Today's 11th listing of the Best Companies to Work for, TCS emerges winner.

No.1: Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest IT exporter with 2,26,000 employees, has topped the Business Today-Indicus survey of 'India's Best Companies to Work for' for the first time. Reproduced From Business Today. © 2012. LMIL. All rights reserved. Click on Next to view the other nine best companies to work for in India..

No.2: For nearly three decades, Infosys had been used to one-way communication with employees through 'town hall' meetings and InfyTV, an internal network. Last year, it realised that would just not do; employees wanted two-way communication. And so it delved into the doctrine of Eric Berne, a psychiatrist who came up with the 'parentadult-child' theory that explains how people articulate their character through behaviour.

No.3: IT giant Wipro lost out to its rival during recession but the company is slowly pulling itself back into the race.

No.4: IBM believes that a sense of purpose drives an organisation more than money, says Chandrasekhar Sripada, the HR Head. So, while its employees will not bust industry salary charts, there is no shortage of opportunities and diversity. And then there is the pride

No.5: Googlers, as the employees are called, joke that they gain weight after joining the company. They would, given the sumptuous meals - on the house - Google provides. But Google India is also about the mind, and the 'breakout rooms' - rooms where Googlers go to 'think' - cater to just that.

No.6: Reliance Communications puts its money where its mouth is, sponsoring a good idea from an employee from start to finish. It also allows employees to move across functions. Its tablet PC has not exactly killed the iPad, but to its credit the company took just six weeks to put it in the market. Its campus in Navi Mumbai has 10 food courts, an upmarket gymnasium, a lake and a temple.

No.7: Microsoft India's appeal does not end with flexible hours. It helps - even encourages - employees to develop skills which may have nothing to do with their work.

No.8: Accenture has taken to reverse mentoring, in which young employees teach the older ones a thing or two. Accenture has two of the unique practices. One is an adoption leave policy, on the lines of maternity leave. The second allows an employee to donate 'hours of work' to a colleague who needs to be on extended leave because of an emergency. And every employee has a career counsellor.

No.9: HCL is one of the pioneers in the Indian IT market, started its business in 1976. The company believes in empowering and engaging the individuals to learn, and grow. The employees are encouraged to think, bring forth new ideas and innovate.

No.10: L&T has a problem. According to M.S. Krishnamoorthy, the company's VP (Human Resources), it has strong rivals in electrical and automation, from where it can poach good talent. "But in engineering and construction and heavy engineering, few do the kind of work we do.

Business Today, in its 11th listing of the Best Companies to Work for, compiled the results of an Indicus Analytics survey spanning 6,176 employees - 12 per cent of them women - across 4,436 companies in 323 towns and cities.

This year, the surveyors sought employees' views on their companies' whistleblower policies, sexual harassment policies, and adherence to 'green' principles while doing business. The insights gained from the responses have resulted in one of the most comprehensive reports of what the Indian employee thinks of her company.

This year's survey was conducted by Indicus Analytics from September 6 to November 14, 2011, with an online questionnaire, any employee of any company could answer.

Data authenticity was ensured in two ways. The questionnaire was designed to include built-in verifications that rejected responses with contradictory/incomplete information. Verification was also carried out of about 15 per cent of the accepted responses. Rejection was below 10 per cent.

For the overall rankings, respondents were asked to rank five companies - across industries - that they felt were the best to work in. Next, they were asked to rank the top three companies among these five on each of five specified parameters: career growth prospects, financial compensation, work-life balance, performance evaluation, and other HR practices. The same approach was used to rank companies within sectors, the only difference being that respondents could rank five companies only within their sector, and then rank the top three across the five parameters.