Rating of Factors, Rating of own companies, Ranking of companies – within sector and across sectors

 

 

A Business Today - Indicus Survey

 

 

Rating of Factors

Rating of own companies

Ranking of companies – within sector and across sectors

Survey methodology and respondents’ profile

Internet was chosen as the media for the survey. This was for many reasons 

(a) To get the highest bang for the buck – deeper reach at comparable costs. 

(b) Online research is known to get more honest opinions, as the employee reveals his views without the company ‘watching over his/her shoulder’

(c) All companies can therefore be rated, not only those who agree to cooperate with the surveying and rating entity.

(d) The employee reveals preferences about the work environment in his own company, and also of other companies that he knows about, either from past experience, or from the experiences of his colleagues. 

But the limitation is that the questionnaire needs to be short and easy to understand. An open online research is also not very efficient since it becomes difficult to target. Indicus and its associates have developed an online survey panel of over 100,000 individuals (and growing) with complete demographic data already stored. This permits us to target a survey to the relevant audience. 

In addition tie-ups with online survey agencies, as well as other online entities such as Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter were utilized for ensuring a wide coverage.

Data authenticity is ensured in three  ways – 

a) The questionnaire design itself has built in verifications which reject responses with contradictory information and 

b) A verification back check of about 30% of the accepted responses. 

c) Authenticity of company rankings were cross-checked by respondents by comparing the responses of those within the company with those not in the company but in the same industry. One case was found where employees colluded to give higher rankings. 

Responses that did not pass the above criteria were rejected.  The overall rejection was under 5%, which is in line with our previous experiences of over 2 years of online surveys.

The respondents (over 8,500) were spread over the length and breadth of the country - spread over 800 cities. Of these 13 cities (including the Gaziabad, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Noida and Delhi counted as one city cluster) accounted for 60% of the respondents. There were 34 cities with 20 respondents or more. South accounted for 41%, The East for only 8.2%. 44% were from smaller cities. In as many as 9 industry segments significant sample sizes of greater than 300 respondents were achieved.

There were 26 companies/ organizations which had 20 or more respondents participating in the survey. 

About 26% of the respondents did not specify the names of their organizations but mentioned their sector. 

What information was sought?

There were three key components to the exercise

• What makes an organization a great place to work in

o Importance rating of 6 key factors developed jointly by the BT-Indicus team

o Ranking of 9 identified factors that attract a person towards an organization

o Ranking of 9 identified factors that might cause discontent and make a person seek alternatives

o Would people recommend their organizations to people who trust them for advice

• Rating of own organizations on 6 main and 18 supplementary factors

• Ranking of organizations – overall and within industries

The three dimensions examined give an all round view of people’s perception of what makes a company attractive as a place to work in, what key factors if unaddressed cause discontent, how people rate their own companies and which companies are considered to be great places to work in.

Verification

There were two levels of verification. At the questionnaire level itself several inter connected questions were incorporated, and contradictions were identified. Such responses were rejected. The second level of verification was by calling up respondents (30%) and re-administering part of the questionnaires. Additionally, on analyzing the data, cases of collusion (respondents of a single organization attempting to get their organizations up on rankings) were identified based on comparable responses by persons working in the same industry, and rejected if highly divergent opinions were received.

Analysis

Only those dimensions are being reported for which sample sizes were significant (at least 150). The survey questionnaire had two parts, the main survey and the demographic data. Using the two in conjunction various slices of specific segments were constructed. Standard accepted statistical analysis tools were used for analysis. 

In two of the analysis (rating of own company) scores were converted into linear scales ranging from very low to very high.

In case of ranking of companies, a single company was to be nominated by a respondent and percentage nominations within a segment was the basis for ranking.

In case of factors that attract and factors that cause dissatisfaction, respondents were asked rank the top 3. The overall ranking was computed by assigning higher weights to higher ranks.

The analysis was sliced for various segments of respondents – age, experience, geography, gender, functional area, size of company worked for, type of company worked for, industry sectors, salary levels, etc., a total of nearly 80 segments with significant samples.

---

---