THE ACHIEVERS 50 MOST ENGAGED WORKPLACES™ AWARDS

The Achievers 50 Most Engaged Workplaces in the United States, 2012 have been announced. This annual award recognises top employers that display leadership and innovation towards engaging their employees. The award is judged by a panel of judges which evaluate each applicant based on the eight elements of employee engagement:

1.Communication,
2. Leadership,
3. Culture,
4. Rewards and recognition,
5. Professional and personal growth,
6. Accountability and performance,
7. Vision and values, and,
8. Corporate social responsibility.

'The award understand these practices are not only good for employees but also the bottom line. Companies that focus on employee engagement tend to perform better financially, attract and retain the best talent and enjoy improved customer service and client retention.'

Indian Companies in the THE ACHIEVERS 50 MOST ENGAGED WORKPLACES™ AWARDS list -

• Infosys Limited
• Tata Consultancy Limited

Social Media Enagagement Strategy

Current efforts of engaging employees using social media has been limited to at best having a social media presence and building networks with employees. However the future of social media engagement would be drastically different and unimaginable.


The ‘internal’ resources are the set of employee that an organization has and the ‘external’ resource are the vast untapped talent in the eco-space. In my opinion the companies can use both a ‘passive’ and an ‘active’ social media engagement with these communities. Hence we create something like four combinations out of this theory – ‘Passive Internal’, ‘Active Internal’, ‘Passive External’ and ‘Active External’. I shall try to expalin each one, without necessarily intellectualising the post:

The first one ‘Passive Internal’ essentially involves using social media to passively engage the internal resource i.e. the employees. This happens through communication of company’s happenings, changes, achievements, future plans etc. Through company blogs, letting employees network among themselves, letting employees share their employment experiences and even letting employees share how they can innovatively use the products of their company for example employees of some retail companies have shared pictures & posts on Pinterest which is like a virtual bulletin boards about the garment combinations that they have used during the weekend . Alcatel-Lucent uses several social media tools in its business, including internal social media networks created specifically for employees. Within this framework, employees can engage and converse with each other about pretty much anything. Facebook-like platform – Infy Bubble, Cognizant 2.0 or C2, Wikis and Justask at Tata Consultancy Services, Channel W and My Wipro World at Wipro Technologies, Ideabank of BankWest, Australia are few but very strong examples.

The ‘Active Internal’ is where company uses social media to seek ideas, suggestions from their employees. The company also tries to connect with employees and their families and even tries to leverage internal talent identification and internal head-hunting using social media. At Dell, social media is becoming a part of everything that employees do. It is used in internal collaboration, product development, social commerce as well as talent acquisition. Some of the social media tools embraced by Dell include Salesforce.com’s Chatter tool for internal social networking as well as a number of internal blogs and instant messengers. These are great for sharing information, forming project-based or interest-based groups and generally breaking down the silos you’d expect in a large organization.

The passive and active are essentially interpreted in the above two cases according to the one-way or two-way bridges built by the company. In passive mode the idea is to inform and/or provide a platform to employees to share. Whereas in active mode the company wants to hear from employees, explore their potential and tap in to the same.

The ‘Passive External’is the next phase that basically sees a company reaching out to the willing social media contributors in the eco-space and networking with them, often involving them through discussion groups, followership etc. The idea is to create brand advocacy groups and get connected with the cast willing talent base outside the institutional employees. For example about 5 months back the Asst.Vice President and Head of Training & Development Division at Sharjah Islamic Bank, United Arab Emirates started a discussion on one of the groups in Linkedin – ‘’Another name for "Training Department". Hundreds of suggestions have poured-in and more than anything its has given an opportunity for the bank to connect to many training professionals and organizations, that it can possibly tap into more actively later.

Finally the ‘Active External’ happens through the much talked about social media recruitment, back-channel referencing and talent poaching. Under the title ‘By Graduates for Graduates’, Unilever’s Future Leaders Programme sees current graduates helping to recruit the next graduate intake by managing the social networks sites.

In these two cases, the passive and active interpretations are slightly different. The passive efforts with the external resource essentially lets company network with millions of talent outside the boundaries of the company ho are willing to contribute and the company can tap into their potential by c0nnecting with them, using heir ideas and inputs and by creating a greater brand-affinity amongst this talent base. Whereas, the active mode, sees the company trying to use social media to build more efficiencies into its HR system.

The Ides of August

“…At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom…” who can forget these famous speech! These lines resounded literally in my ears last night as I could not sleep since the power supply was disrupted and not restored till morning. But I am not losing hope, I am hopeful that at least by today evening before the independence day celebrations are over, we shall again have electricity. And, we should be thankful that we do not have to burn paraffin wax more than one or two nights in a row for light. We have a power connection!!! And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

Anyways, my day started and since I had to go for celebrations somewhere, I decided to have a quick bath. The tap in the bathroom started spewing muddy water as soon as I turned it on. The water seemed unfit even for irrigation. Hence I paused my bath and thought of enquiring the reason for the brownish black water in the bathroom. Our building association secretary told me that the rain gods have to be blamed for the same. I was puzzled, but she quickly explained that since this year it has rained less, hence the borewell is spewing mud with water. She was helpless and asked me to wait for the rains. I did not know that while living in this IT city, I was sharing destiny with the farmers in Vidharbha who wait for the rain clouds to be pleased for the farms to be irrigated. I never got this great feeling of brotherhood. And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

After somehow managing to make myself presentable, I caught-up with the morning newspaper to glance through the headlines. A shocker awaited me as the day’s headlines screamed about a ghastly incident about a couple who had become victims of honour killing in the hands of their own blood relatives. The couple’s intercaste marriage against the will of their familes was their only fault. They leave behind an 8 month old daughter. Caste is above human feelings and human life and even above an orphan infant’s helpless wails? 65 years have not changed certain things it seems – perhaps this is what is called rooted to tradition. And they say…we must feel proud!!! And indeed they are all honourable men.

Time to go! So without wasting any more time, I took-out my car on the road. Like every day, the road felt a little bumpier. The little rain that we had this year has been enough to leave its marks on the road in form of potholes. The ones formed yesterday have grown bigger today and the one forming today shall definitely grow deadlier tomorrow. I recalled that the road had been laid only last year. Wow! The road has lasted full one year! And think of it after these rain (or no rains) we have hopes for an all-new road once again! That’s too good…besides the new tarred surface that we shall get, it shall provide economic advantage to few. What if it that advantage is skewed in the favour of some? One of the PWD minister of a northern state has been reportedly quoted telling to the PWD employees that ‘if you work hard, you can steal a little’. New road…the thought of it sends me in a frenzy… And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

Still in my thoughts, I was driving my car and was yet to hit the main road. Just then I saw a group 5-6 kids playing on the road, enjoying their freedom. Since the kids were encroaching the road, I had to stop my car. What surprised me though was that adults accompanying the kids were standing on the roadside and happily chatting. When I asked the kids to move, the adults on the roadside glanced at me and again went back to their chat. I could overhear them talking about a biker who must have passed that place a while ago and they were cursing him – ‘what can’t he see the kids play, he should have not sped in that way…’Hmm! So it is the biker’s fault, after all kids would play on roads and he should have been more careful, right? Everyone here treats the road in front of his house or apartment as his own playing ground. What a great feeling of one community… And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

After negotiating the community lanes, I hit the main road and within seconds I found myself drowned in the sea of maddening traffic. But you know what, on our roads you can just overtake from any side you like, change lanes at you will, honk as much as you want, stop whenever and wherever you like to, turn your vehicle wherever the thought hit you of doing so, not get surprised if a cow or buffalo is in your company and so on. In truest sense, if you want to experience freedom, come and drive on our roads. Where else would you find a road that lets you do whatever you want… And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

The route that I took was to pass by a railway station. As my car reached near the station, there was a huge traffic jam. A multitude of people were scrambling to enter the premises of the railway station with their belongings. I was amazed at the huge unusual rush. I asked one person that had railways started some special train or given some independence day special offer that they were all mobbing the place. Instead, I was told that that there had been some threats of attacks that have been given to people from a particular north-eastern state, in light of the recent riots in that state and violence in another city. Fearing the attacks thousands of innocent civilians were forced to flee the city that they had chosen for their livelihood. I wondered whether it is the great migration post-independence that we were witnessing! Those who had issued the threat are among those people who never fail to ensure that we get to witness history even if we have missed creation of the same before, time and again. And they say…we must feel proud!!! And they are all honourable men.

I thought it best to turn my car back and return to the safe environs of my home. I was so happy to see my family again. Rest of the day I spent just enjoying the celebration on display in the ‘idiot box’. As I write these lines, I do not know who is preparing to take the capital on seize for their political gains as millions struggle to go to work or return back to homes, how many more girls are being killed in womb or how many brides are being burnt alive for money, how many girls are being harassed by the moral police brigade for teaching them a lesson… Surprisingly when I share this with people many of them tell me to be more positive and feel proud of our country’s rich heritage and history. And if they say…we must feel proud!!! After all they are all honourable men.

'Undo' Death, 'Redo' Life!!!

Microsoft Office gave man a unique option, amidst other array of choices, the ‘undo’ command. With this command we may undo any previous text or formatting and if ‘undo’ has to undone then there is a ‘redo’ command as well that restores the earlier text or formatting.


Many times I have wished that if we could have the same buttons in our life as well…’undo’ the mistakes that I made, and ‘redo’ the same if the latter was a mistake in the first place. I don’t know how the world would turn-out to be if such buttons actually existed…may be a better place or may be even more chaotic. But the matter of fact remains that we are not lucky to have such buttons.

One reality that stares at everyone’s face at some point of time is death, although we do not like to think about it, especially when it comes to our loved ones. God forbid if it happens to one who is close to us, this is perhaps one thing we wish we could ‘undo’… and ‘redo’ or restore life & vitality in them.

Death strikes hard when it occurs at a young age and even worse if it hits the earning member of a family. The entire family, especially the kids, face a crisis that affects their whole life. I am sure the young kids and family of the GM(HR) killed in the Maruti Suzuki’s Mansesar plant’s madness would wish so much if they could ‘undo’ his death. Most companies have some form of one time compensation that they pay to the next of kin of the deceased employee. However there is one company which has taken such support extended to the family of the deceased employee to an altogether next level.

Google anticipates major life events of employees as soon as they join the company. Death is an eventuality, but Google not only very realistically anticipates the same for its employees but also secures their families in the event of such an eventuality, in a way that they would never monetarily miss their mom or dad who was once a member of the Google team. According to the report, under the perks scheme, along with 50 per cent of their partner's salary for a decade, surviving spouses will also have access to their partner's shares in the company. It also claimed that ‘benefits’ extend to all employees and do not require any tenure or accruement, and if a couple has children, they will receive 1000 dollars a month until the age of 19, or 23 if the child is a full-time student.

I do not know how Goggle employees would be reacting to this benefit but the move is tremendous, undoubtedly!!! We, in our lifetime earn to not only make our present better, but also consciously & at times sub-consciously try to secure the future of our families. A company that promises to look after your family & kids till they can self-sustain themselves in this material world could be the ultimate reassurance that an employee may ever want.

And we are not even taking of the innumerable benefits that Google’s offers to its employees in their life, but it seems to Google & its employees ‘even death cannot do them apart’. Perhaps the ‘undo’ command is a little less missed by the Google employees!

Secret to Safe Stock Investments

A class 8th teen girl who became a mother after being raped by a neighbour was issued a transfer certificate by a school in Bangalore. Threats from the rapist kept her silent and she went through medical complications before giving birth to a child. The school obviously thought that keeping the girl in the school would dent their reputation and wanted to throw the girl out of the school. In such situations the victim is generally abandoned and is left hapless on her fate. However in this girl’s case two unexpected support – one from her parents who have stood by her and filed a petition in the court against the school’s decision; and second the Karnataka High Court that has ruled in favour of the girl and instructed the school to take her back in the school. But for the girls and family any respite seems to be still a distant dream. As per reports the family continues to be harassed and boycotted by the locals.


According to yet another khap panchyat like ruling, a group in Ranchi, the state capital of Jharkhand has warned girls against wearing jeans and tops and have threatened them with dire consequences should they dare to do so!

From Ranchi to Bangalore, our society has treated girls and women like doormat, loading their dirt on them and then throwing them away for being subject to that mess.

In giving their due to girls and women the society shall do no favour to the former. In fact they shall be doing favour to themselves.

Take for example, the latest research report by the Credit Suisse research institute, created in the year 2008 to study the trends to affect global markets. According the report, companies with women on their boards performed better in challenging markets than those with all-male members in their boards. The research, which includes data from 2,360 companies, shows a greater correlation between stock performance and the presence of women on the board after the financial crisis started four years ago. Some of the important findings published in the report are:

1. Shares of companies with a market capitalization of more than $10 billion and with women board members outperformed comparable businesses with all-male boards by 26 percent worldwide over a period of six years.

2. Stocks of companies with women on boards tend to be a little more risk averse and have on average a little less debt, which seems to be one of the key reasons why they've outperformed so strongly in this particular period.

3. Net income growth for companies with women on their boards has averaged 14 percent over the past six years, compared with 10 percent for those with no female director.

4. The net-debt-to-equity ratio at companies with at least one female director was 48 percent, compared with 50 percent at all-male boards

5. Still there are many industries, worldwide, that do not promote women to their boards.

So finally the secret to making right investments in stocks is out! The next time you think of investing in stocks, look at the baord profile of the company. If you don't find any women, better play safe.

Anyways, I have said this before, I shall this again – a society that treats its girls and women with respect, does good to itself and its future. When a man gets educated, he runs a family, but when a girl or a women gets educated she transform the entire family and many a times the next few generations to come.

Those people harassing the teen victim or the group dictating women on what they should wear are cursed and are digging their own graves and may be for their future generations.

The Bull(ish) Pull - Employee Word-of-Mouth

In marketing it is said that ‘there is no better publicity than word-of-mouth’. When a marketer talks about his product/service you tend to believe some and discount some, but when your customers start talking good about your product/service it becomes much more believable. In technical terms the latter, where the customer publicizes the product, is known as ‘below the line’ or ‘pull marketing’.

‘The founder of Red Bull used pull marketing to promote his original product in the 1980s. He hired a Red Bull Wings Team to go out and talk to people one-to-one about the product. This helped to create consumer interest in the product. As people experienced the drink and appreciate its qualities, they became advocates for the brand. They shared their opinions with other consumers when they talked with friends. The promotion therefore created a ripple effect.’

Similarly the best publicity for a company’s employer brand is the voice of the employee. Puneet Bajwa, my ex-student and now a proud HR generalist at Tata Consultancy Services showed-up the other day partly by coincidence, partly by design, at my office. A customary question whenever we meet any of our past students is how are they doing? This question of mine was met with a very enthusiastic response from Puneet. She was gung-ho about her workplace and her manager. Her excitement about her organization made me to probe deeper into her experiences that ‘engage’ her so highly to her organization. My curiosity was even more since I had done a case on how TCS engages employees through a performance driven culture in my 2011 book ‘Employee Engagement’.

Puneet’s feeling about her company are so genuine and brimming-over that I just had to sit back and listen. Talking to Puneet was discovering even newer perspectives about the way TCS engages it’s employees. TCS comes-out as a very employee-friendly organization, and even more than that, a very female employee-friendly organization. Besides the usual stuff that companies generally do to engage women employees, TCS does something wonderful. It educates young mothers, amongst its set of employee, on the challenges of the early growing years of their child and the importance of spending more time with their child. The company even offers less demanding roles to such women, should they chose that way, so that they can attend to the needs of their infant child. These women employees are can later choose more demanding roles, once they feel that they can give more attention to their work.

As a HR generalist she manages the entire lifecycle of employees, her other counterparts. She was equally appreciative of her present and past managers. The support and the kind of opportunities that she received from her managers was ‘simply fabulous’, according to her. Her manager was responsible for letting her take early responsibilities in her career, that helped her to make her mark and create a space for her in the organization. Such support from managers (also read supervisors in PMS context) is not very common if research statistics are to be believed. Considering such facts, Puneet’s excitement is understandable.

I asked Puneet what are the top 5 things that she liked about her organization. She took 5 seconds to tell me these 5 points –

1. Great Manager (supervisor).

2. Autonomy at work.

3. Her role.

4. Compensation *

5. An Empathetic organization.

In my mind I thought that what better promotion of TCS’s employer brand can happen than an employee doing a voluntary publicity.

An engaged employee is not only the best brand ambassador that a company can have, through him/her it can perhaps garner the best zero cost, high impact publicity. And with social media around, the word-of-mouth may reach millions in seconds. Need I emphasize more…!!!

Return of Dark Ages

Half of India sunk into darkness as three grids in the North, East and North Eastern part of the country tripped. An estimated 600 million were plunged into darkness for more than 24 hours in what has infamously been now recorded in India’s name as the world’s biggest power blackout. Trains were jammed, traffic lights disrupted, factories stopped, and whole life came to a standstill for more than half of the nation. But most of the cricket crazy nation complained that this power disruption should not have happened atleast on the day when India very rarely registered an away-series win at Sri Lanka!

Maruti Suzuki’s violence and the stories emanating from the incident are most unfortunate and equally dark. The repercussions and far greater than estimated and may indicate a wider labour crisis in India that may hamper it’s image in the global market.

On one hand the statement of the S. Raju HR head at Maruti’s Manesar plant is heart-rending and send chill down one’s spine. The kind of riot & arson that happened in the those few hours on the fateful Thursday is horrifying tale of madness and labour extremism. The fact that this incident could have been prevented and the GM (HR) could have been alive but for the lack of agility of the police is shocking and numbing.

On the other hand, other stories that are emanating from the worker’s side show a huge disengagement amongst workers arising out of long brewing discontent. I quote from a recently published article:

"Mukesh Kumar Yadav says he’s struggling with medical bills after he lost two toes in an accident this month at a Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL) plant. He’s a contract worker who earns a fraction of a permanent employee and isn’t entitled to on-the-job injury compensation.

“We do not matter to them and they have no duty toward us,” said Yadav, who takes home about 7,000 rupees ($126) a month as a forklift driver at Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar plant. “Maruti just gets us to work and gives us money.”

Prior to the violence erupting July 18, the Manesar plant had already seen three production stoppages in the past year, as workers went on strike demanding the right to form a union, higher pay and better working conditions.

While Yadav didn’t take part in the July 18 riot that shuttered the plant and led to the death of a manager, his story helps show why discontent was brewing among workers. Other carmakers should take note of worker complaints in the run-up to the violence at India’s largest carmaker because wage disparity is prevalent across the auto industry, said Ammar Master, an analyst at LMC Automotive.

“This combination of lower economic benefits and perceived inequality is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode at the slightest altercation,” said Master, who’s based in Bangkok. “This is going to be a problem for everybody unless they address the issues. If these labor issues are not addressed, it’s going to take away investors from India.”

India’s series win at the next door neighbour’s place and one bronze medal in London Olympics so far (with an average of 1 in a billion) may give us the illusion of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. And we may again say … Jai Ho…