Happy employees & successful companies

” Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees they will take care of the clients” –  Richard Branson

This quote is oft-repeated by every Tom, Dick & Harry to ensure or at least give the impression that their organisation is all for their employees who are their biggest assets. Mind you, it is not only the HR Managers but also CEOs swear by this quote. After all, Branson is a big name, founder of Virgin Atlantic, so he must be right after all. If Richard Branson had spoken from experience or practiced what he preached you should not be surprised if Virgin Atlantic is among the most preferred airlines in the world. Curiously enough, this is not so. In the World Airline Awards for 2019, Virgin Atlantic was nowhere in the Top 10. Ok, one may think since the emphasis was on ’employees who would take care of clients”, maybe Virgin was the winner in the Best Cabin Staff category. Again the answer is negative, Virgin Atlantic was not in the Top 10 airlines.

Closer home, in India the following Tables bring out the Top 10 companies on the basis of market capitalisation, Profit After Tax & Net Sales.

Top Indian companies by market-cap ( INR crs)
Rank	Name	Market-cap in INR crs.
1	TCS	839,784
2	Reliance Inds	807,593
3	HDFC Bank	679,814
4	HDFC	391,118
5	HUL	386,882
6	ITC	336,622
7	SBI	323,606
8	Infosys	321,176
9	ICICI Bank	282,058
10	Kotak Mahindra Bank	280,956

Top Indian companies by PAT ( INR crs)
Rank	Name	PAT in INR crs.
1	Reliance inds	35,163
2	TCS	30,065
3	ONGC	26,716
4	HDFC Bank	21,078
5	Indian Oil Corpn	16,894
6	Infosys	14,702
7	ITC	12,464
8	NTPC	11,750
9	Tata Steel	10,533
10	Powergrid Corpn	9,938

Top Indian companies by Net Sales ( INR crs)
Rank	Name	Sales in INR crs.
1	Indian Oil Corpn	527,692
2	Reliance Inds	371,019
3	BPCL	297,275
4	HPCL	275,197
5	SBI	242,868
6	TCS	123,170
7	ONGC	109,654
8	HDFC Bank	98,972
9	NTPC	90,307
10	Larsen & Toubro	86,987

All three Tables comprise of the usual suspects, with their positions changing across them. These are giant companies who have consistently over the years grown their top-lines & bottom-lines and what’s more important, the stock markets have recognised and rewarded them with high valuation leading to their high market capitalisation. What has contributed to their success? One of the key factors is obviously the quality, commitment & performance of their employees. Little doubt that the employees would have been duly taken care of, be it in the form of salaries, bonuses, perquisites, international trainings. conferences & what not. From their side, the employees too would be proud at having built such a robust organisation which is a Top 10 performer on different parameters in the whole of India.

Wonders never cease! When the recent results for the ET Best companies to work for were released, none of the above toppers figure in the list.

Best companies to work for
Rank	Name of Company
1	SAP Labs India
2	Intuit India
3	DHL Express (India)
4	Tata Power Delhi Distribution
5	Music Broadcast
6	Ujjivan Small Finance Bank
7	Adobe Inc.
8	Mahindra Finance
9	Indus Towers
10	BMC Software India

The list includes 5 multinationals with headquarters in other countries. Of the five Indian companies in the list, two are not listed entities. The following conclusions can possibly drawn from this attempt to merge performance of companies under different financial parameters to being best places to work:

1. Happy employees of a company do not necessarily give off their best in creating an organisation which is a topper in any of the cited financial parameters.
2. At the same time, the successful companies as listed in the first 3 Tables cannot be said to have dissatisfied employees or a workforce lacking in motivation.
3. Possibly the parameters on which a ‘ Best company to work for” is decided are not scientific enough (OR) perhaps the right sample has not been chosen for such surveys in terms of employee vintage, age, gender,etc.(OR) the really successful companies do not participate in these surveys.
4. With five multinationals in the list of best companies to work for, maybe the style of working well suited to the western world, appeals more to the youngsters of today, which may or may not suit the Indian business landscape. The leading companies on financial parameters are perhaps looked upon as boring, staid, formal whereas the best companies to work are more vibrant,youthful & more informal.

The challenge then for any CEO, it would appear is to strike a balance between a happy workforce without losing sight of organisation’s financial objectives. Whatever one might say, every company is in business to make more and more money. Period!

Still the question remains unanswered — Was Richard Branson right in his statement?