Applying for the ‘best employer’ in the country is only meant for the ‘big boys’!

You are shooting yourself in the arm if you think this way. Every company should aspire to be the best employer.

Multiple institutes like Great Place to Work (GPTW), Aon Hewitt, Fortune and Dataquest conduct an annual study to find the ‘best employers’ in the country. Each institute has their own unique approach to evaluating companies, but they don’t limit the candidacy to the ‘big boys’. GPTW Institute for example allows companies with even 100 employees to apply. In fact, in their 2011 ranking, SAS Institute with just 106 employees was ranked at number 16.

(A quick note here, registration for the GPTW 2012 ranking closes on 30^th November.)

But the point that I wanted to stress upon is not whether you are eligible to apply, but why should you apply in the first place. Certainly the recognition of being one of the top employers in the country is good enough, but that’s not the end of it.

You will find that talent acquisition is not much of a concern anymore. Today’s well informed talent pool will automatically get attracted to you. Your campus recruitment team will hold an edge over the other companies present. Management too will see the business benefit of such recognition. Not to mention, your PR team will have their work cut-out.

But I feel that one of the biggest take-away is the learning that will come out of the application process itself. GPTW Institute, for example, uses the lenses of Trust and Culture, across employees and management, for their evaluation. This approach is generally lacking in most ESAT surveys. This will help the HR Manager get a deeper insight into the running of the company.

Similarly you can look at the approach various ranking institutes take, and pick the one that works best for you. Just make sure you don’t dismiss it as ‘yet another survey’ or feel that you are too small an organisation to even apply.

Suhail

:peoplehood