Facades of Attractive Employer in Indian IT Industry: Existing Employee Perspective

Introduction

Indian Information Technology (IT) and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) industry has recorded tremendous growth and is regarded by developing countries the world over as a model for how they can leapfrog stages of industrial development. Being knowledge based industry-the human capital and intellectual assets make a difference to the competitive advantage of the firm. In the quest for manpower companies are cajoling talent around the world. Global expansion in market opportunities in the IT sector, the shortage in manpower in both numbers and skills has resulted in a seller’s market. So human resource teams are pressurized to devise, optimize compensation packages, and provide opportunities for growth, learning and development and to make employee value proposition lucrative. The internal marketing concept argues that the organisation’s personnel are the first market of any company (George & Gronroos, 1989; George, 1990); the underlying principle is that jobs are internal products and employees are the internal customers. Job products must not only attract, develop and motivate employees, but also satisfy the needs and wants of internal customers in addition to catering to the overall objectives of the organization (Berry & Parasuraman, 1991). Technological advances and global competition are creating the contest among employers to attract and retain talented workers resulting in widespread change in employment patterns (Osborn-Jones, 2001).

Thus, employer branding is likely to assume greater substance in India in the years to come as it is one of the available panacea. It helps build a brand recall and quick identification of the company in the minds of its target audience. For an Employer brand to be successful it is essential to know the factors that contribute to employer attractiveness. It comprises an imperative idea in information intensive contexts where attracting employees with superior skills and knowledge tunes the competitive edge of a company. In India, getting the right people to work has always been a challenge and employer branding and marketing will play the key differentiating factor. Some apt examples would be Accenture, HCL and Indian Army SSC. Accenture had relatively been an obscure brand in India; Accenture with Tiger Woods has been a winning combination portraying Accenture as a great place to work. In the case of HCL, it was lost among the IT biggies of India such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro. Its TV commercials were well crafted to showcase the HCL brand as an employer to the target audience.

The article is structured as follows: This paper begins by giving an overview of IT industry in India. The next section presents the literature review; we then introduce and define the concept of employer attractiveness and the methodology used is elaborated. Implications of the approach are then considered, limitations noted and future research direction outlined and closes with a conclusion.