Post by Sandeep Rath...Logica

Competition has always been a boon for the end users. In the employment sector, the employees can be compared to the end-users, benefiting from the competition among multitudinous employers. It has become imperative on the part of organizations to go that extra mile, not only to attract but also to retain talent. And companies have now begun differentiating themselves with their exclusive offers for their employees.
These benefits need not be in the form of cash bonuses. Organizations are maturing into a level, where employee care has become one of the high priorities. HCL Technologies is a company that has been globally applauded for its "Employee First" policy, whereas most IT organizations still follow the age-old policy of "Customer First".
I have been working in Logica for more than 2 years now. One of the most distinguishing factors about Logica would probably be its "very informal" atmosphere. One need not wear a tie on Mondays and Tuesdays, knowing well the sultry weather conditions of India – It isn't really snowing out there, is it? However, great care is taken to educate employees on their dressing sense. One can wear casuals, as long as it doesn't become objectionable. During client visits or formal meetings, formal dinners, the dress code is officially announced for all employees to follow.
Moreover, Logica has a very employee-friendly work-from-home policy. This policy is a great boon for people like me, who lose their patience while navigating the snail-slow traffic of Bangalore. I have realized, I am twice as productive working from home as it I am when working at my office. It saves me a great deal of time and energy to work from home. At times, it also turns out helpful, if I need to step out for an hour or half. In fact, most of the MNCs in Bangalore have started adopting work-from-home policy.
Thirdly, a great incentive to employees is the financial structure of our salaries. A significant portion of our salary becomes non-taxable for us. At the end of the day, that helps us take back more money home than we would have otherwise had!
Finally, Logica, like most other IT organizations of our age, has an all-employee club that keeps entertaining employees over a myriad of options.
Leaving aside the IT sector experience, one can draw a lot of employee-care experience from the TATA Group. It is a well known fact that Tata, other than its IT arm – TCS of course, has one of the lowest attrition rates in all industries. Is it because of non-availability of options to those employees? Not really. In a globalised work environment, employees are option spoilt for choice. Tata manages to retain its employees over long periods primarily because it employs exceptionally employee-friendly policies. Countless benefits and perks are offered to their employees – what better than a heavily discounted stay at the Taj group of hotels!
Thus to conclude, in today's work environment, employers have to buy to sets of people – one, their customers, and second, their employees. The way, customers have plenty of alternate options, employees too have various alternatives today. In such a scene, it is not an option anymore for employers to define employee-friendly policies. That's the best way they can attract and retain scarce talent in the market.

Sandeep Rath
Global Marketing Consultant – Group Marketing
Strategic Business Development Group
Logica - Releasing your potential