Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Dell on Top 10 Attractive Employers Brand, Google in Hall of Fame

Amazon India, the e-commerce giant is India’s most ‘attractive employer brand’, reveals the findings of Randstad Employer Brand Research (REBR) 2019, the most comprehensive, independent and in-depth employer brand research in the world, conducted by Randstad, the global leader in the HR services industry. This recognition for Amazon is a first for the brand in the history of REBR in India, spanning 9 years, and the company scored high on financial health, utilization of latest technologies and a strong reputation. Microsoft India, another US-headquartered company has come up as the runner-up, followed by Sony India.

The Indian arm of another American company Google India has been inducted into the Hall of Fame category last year, for winning the coveted title for three consecutive years. This is quite in line with the REBR philosophy.

The Randstad Employer Brand Research, covering 75 percent of the global economy with 32 participating countries this year and more than 2,00,000 respondents worldwide, clearly reveals that in 2019 too, salary and employee benefits continue to be the top driver while choosing an employer for the Indian workforce, followed by work-life balance and job security. These are also the areas where there is a significant gap between what employees want and what employers offer in India. While gender differences between men and women on the top three aspects were minimal, women, however, attributed more importance to salary and benefits (49 percent) and work-life balance (47 percent) compared to their male counterparts who ranked these as the top aspects at 46 percent and 46 percent respectively.

It is interesting to note the importance accorded to work-life balance as a key factor considered while choosing an employer - this has increased even further (46 percent) compared to the last two years and the emergence of the fact that employees in India are willing to place a premium on job security. The number of employees in India indicating that they would be agreeable to security versus compensation trade-off is 23 percent; higher than the broader APAC average. 52 percent of the survey respondents said that they were willing to forfeit more than 10 percent of their salary for job security.

Paul Dupuis, MD & CEO Randstad India said that industry 4.0 has transformed the landscape for enterprises and skills - companies are being forced to digitalize operations, while employees are up-skilling to continue being relevant in a dynamic marketplace. Interestingly, employer branding has turned out to be a crucial positioning tool—not only for companies seeking talent with 'must have’ skills, but also for candidates seeking organizations that can support their aspirations of realizing a meaningful career.

The results from this year's REBR reflect the same. The emergence of career progression as a key ‘stay or leave’ attribute is a testament to the fact that even in a digital-first world, employees would prefer to work for a company that offers a clear pathway of growth. Add to this mix, ‘purpose’ and the employer branding proposition becomes an unmatched one”, he said.

Top 10 most attractive employer brands in India for 2019, according to REBR are:

1.     Amazon

2.     Microsoft

3.     Sony

4.     Mercedes-Benz

5.     IBM

6.     Larsen & Toubro

7.     Nestle

8.     Infosys

9.     Samsung

10.   Dell

Other key findings from the Randstad Employer Brand Research 2019

Top reasons Indian employees stay or leave:

Job security (45 percent) emerged as the top factor for an employee to stay with the current employer. For organizations, offering greater career growth opportunities could be a great technique to attract at least 43 percent of the workforce, who said they had left their employers for this reason only.

Switchers and Intenders in focus:

29 percent of the survey respondents from India mentioned that they changed their employer in the past year and 45 percent indicated that they plan to change their employer within the next year.

How do Indians look for and find employers?

64 percent of the workforce indicated that they used job boards to look out for prospective employers, followed by LinkedIn (59 percent) and Google (54 percent). 44 percent mentioned that they found another employer using job boards, while Google helped 42 percent find another job.

MNC vs Start-Ups – what does talent prefer?

According to this year’s survey results, a vast majority (55 percent) of Indians prefer to work for a large multi-national corporation, while a negligible 9 percent preferred start-ups. And this overwhelmingly stronger preference of talents for MNCs can be attributed to job security, financial health and career progression opportunities that these organizations promise to offer their employees.

Top 3 sectors in India by awareness and attractiveness:

Going by the findings of the survey, Indian workforce prefers to work for companies operating in sectors like IT, ITeS and Telecom (67 percent), Retail, FMCG and E-commerce (67 percent), followed by Automotive (66 percent) and BFSI (65 percent).