New jobs: What Indian employees look for

For Indians, job security is more important than other factors such as salary and perks, says a new study.

According to the India findings of the 2012 Global Workforce Study by Towers Watson, Indian job seekers look for security while choosing a company for employment, followed by career advancement opportunities.

However, in terms of retention, salary is the most important to employees.

Ajith Nair, practice leader - organisational surveys and insights, Towers Watson, said: "The economic uncertainty around the world has affected Indian employees as well. Due to this, job security is on top of their mind, compared to countries like China where salary is the topmost factor, and Japan where challenging work is on top for employee attraction."

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In employee retention, apart from salary, career advancement opportunities including strategic roles offered and critical group control, retirement benefits, convenience of work, and location are also crucial, the study explained.

Nair said the trust factor associated with companies is also crucial for Indian employees. To attract talent, companies should create strong employee value propositions ( EVP) that leverage trustworthiness and credibility of the corporate brand, he added.

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"The overall global environment is gloomy. India is performing better than other poor performers in the world. This does not mean that the employers do not need to take any further steps for engaging employees and bringing down the level of disengaged employees," he said.

It showed that companies with high sustainable engagement have three times the operating margins than those with lower levels of engagement.

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They also have lower retention risk and fewer days are lost per year for employees with high engagement in these companies.

Nair explained that stress, balance and workload are the most important factors that influence sustainable engagement of employees in India.

About 50 per cent were bothered by excessive pressures at work and 57 per cent respondents have been working more than normal hours.

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The study advised employers to communicate the EVP clearly to employees, so that they could understand the employment deal and were fully aware if the tangible and non-tangible rewards that they get for their performance.

The India findings are based on a survey of 1,000 employees in India. From the total surveyed individuals, about 30 per cent belong to companies with employees of 10,000 and above.

About 30 per cent of companies fall in the 3,000 to 10, 000 employees basket, and the rest are small companies.