Effects of Recession Salary Increment hit: 94.3% Reduction in Perks: 74.3% Increase in work Load: 65.7% Strengths High salaries, perks and benefits Low attrition rates Impressive ‘Dream Company’ rankings Weaknesses Low average tenure, overall satisfaction levels Comparatively low training focus Staff most satisfied with... Company Image and technology Training and development Staff least satisfied with... Overseas opportunity, co-workers Performance appraisal system, compensation

This was another big jump—from number 9 in the rankings last year to number 4 this time around. Bangalore-based SAP Labs was another one of those small companies—just 364 employees—that did very well on numerous counts this year. Average salary is among the highest—ranked 3rd (after Cadence and Sun Micro); it came next only to Adobe on perks and benefits; Attrition is down from 16.3% to 4.9%—the second-lowest in the industry; and it ranks 3rd on retention, with 94.3%.

However, overall satisfaction scores were not very high (rank 8th) and ‘Peer Satisfaction’ was only marginally better (rank 7th). Despite good attrition and retention figures, tenure was lower than the industry average at 2 years per employee. Some of this, though, will have to do with the fact that compared to most other companies in the survey, SAP Labs has been in India for a shorter while—since 1996.

The good news, though, was that despite its size and relatively-low decibel branding, the company performed well on both ‘Preferred Company’ and ‘Preferred Employer’ rankings. Of all IT employees surveyed, 5.4% voted for SAP (ranked 5th). Interestingly, this included a good 15.2% of Philips’ employees. Better still, SAP Labs was one of the few companies that got substantially more votes from its own employees this year than the last—94.3% (up from 58% the year before). Of the rest of SAP’s employees who didn’t vote for their own company, 2.9% voted for Microsoft.

Of the four major reasons for joining the company, employees were very satisfied with company image, somewhat satisfied with job content and job security, but not too happy with overseas opportunity. This is despite SAP Labs being one of the few companies with what is called the Global Mobility Program. The company, however, received the third-highest scores on facilities/resources and support from its employees.

Though training performance was not outstanding (rank 7th) SAP is known to have a strong Mentorship and Talent Management program. The challenge however will be to keep most of these numbers up if and when the company expands.