Reduction in salary increments: 45.6% Change in variable-fixed composition: 45.6% Cut in cost to the company: 36.8% Job security: 33.8%

Stable and low attrition and retention rates. Despite the recession, it ranks very high on a feeling of job security amongst its employees

For a company that comes in at #2 overall, employee satisfaction rankings are relatively low at #13. May need to guard against the factory approach

I am very stressed at work: 34% I get a great sense of personal and professional satisfaction from the work I do here: 74%

I would definitely recommend this company to a close friend of mine: 78% I have exciting growth opportunities here: 65%

After three years this IT services giant finally made it to the Top 5. What will be a particularly sweet victory for TCS is that it finally overtakes its close rival Infosys. This significantly better performance happened on the strength of a very high ranking on HR parameters (#2) that include hygiene statistics like attrition, retention etc, as also the fact that its employee parameter rank improved from #17 to #6.

Employee side gains, however, were not so much because the company did outstandingly well on any particular parameter—but because it managed to remain somewhere in the middle most of the time. The company’s close competitors and the three other IT services majors in this survey—Infosys, Wipro and HCL Technologies—have been hit on most of the parameters related to employee satisfaction. In comparison, overall satisfaction rankings at TCS improved from #18 to #13 as did satisfaction levels on company culture, job content and career growth.

There is a reason—while the other IT services majors were in a major hiring mode during the year, adding upwards of 40% to their total HR strength, TCS was extremely conservative—adding only 16% more to its employee count. While this does not automatically make employees happier, it does mean that the TCS was less distracted by growing employee numbers than other companies were. As a result, this was one of the few companies where preferred employer percentages did not drop drastically—51.5% of its own employees voted it their dream company compared to 59% the year before. Only 10% named Infosys.

That said, however, the company also saw slightly more exacerbated effects of the recession this year than last. Nearly half the population polled said it had increased the variable component of salary to reduce overall cost to company and 23.5% said morale was down this year, compared to just 9.3% the year before.

Overall, though hanging in there in the middle on most parameters might be a long-term issue. In sheer numbers of people, TCS is the largest company in the industry. At that size, there is a certain element of the factory approach that tends to creep in. Its challenge—to improve employee satisfaction despite the size.