Trust, consistency key to building great workplaces: study

Mid-sized Indian workplaces are setting an example for their larger peers in keeping employees happy and creating an environment that allows them to perform well.

These workplaces were identified in an annual study by the Great Place to Work Institute, a global management consulting and research firm. A total of 34,501 people from 219 mid-sized organizations—those employing 100 to 500 people—participated in the exercise.

“Why is it that companies which are so successful over time, we don’t remember the names of their global CEOs? Because culture becomes the CEO in these companies,” Prasenjit Bhattacharya, chief executive of Great Place to Work Institute, India, said at an event in Mumbai where the best midsized workplaces were named.

“The most important thing that CEOs do in these companies is that they keep their promises and walk the talk. Consistency is the key, and leaders at great workplaces use every opportunity and interaction to build trust,” he added.

“Trust is the magic word,” Srabani Dubey, vice-president of the institute, said, highlighting some findings of the 2017 study. “We find that when people are financially invested, they want a return. But when they’re emotionally invested, they want to contribute. When they contribute, business happens (grows) not two times, not three times, but five times the market performance.”

Dubey said the reward for great workplaces that follow exemplary human resource practices is that they can retain loyal employees.

“What is there at the end of the road? The great workplaces have an amazing bunch of loyalists,” she said.

“No headhunter can poach their employees away. Their attrition rate is way lower at 12% compared to 19% in other companies.”