A year ago, despite being a cost center, this Bangalore-based R&D center had been hit hard by the recession. Employees had serious issues with salary hikes, cuts in cost to company. And morale was low. A year later things have improved significantly. 
Overall satisfaction in the organization is up, driven by contentment with increased salary hikes, the appraisal system and company culture. Work related stress has gone down, employees are more at ease with their work life balance, and job security is less of an issue. A strong 85% of employees would recommend the company to a close friend and 87% feel pride in working for the organization. The company moved up the Preferred Employer ranking to #6 from #8 with 50% of its employees voting for it.
All of this has resulted in moving the employee rank from #8 to #6. Meanwhile, the company displayed much better HR hygiene factors for this year, with all HR parameters rankings higher than last year -- including average tenure, retention and average salary hike - pushing overall HR rank from #16 to #8. 

The major issue though remains unchanged from last year - people. In fact, employee discontent with immediate managers shot up from last year. Percentages of people strongly disagreeing to statements such as 'my managers are always available', 'my superiors give immediate recognition' and 'I get regular feedback from my managers' saw a steep rise. Peer relationships too have worsened from last year's low resulting in fewer employees feeling a sense of belonging in the company. Also, satisfaction with job content, which is the topmost reason for joining the company saw no improvement from last year. Both of these have resulted in an increase in the number of employees who said they would leave the company for a 20% hike in salary. 
Though the company has moved up the rankings, there is still a sense of uncertainty on some basic issues that fall at the base of the employee “needs” pyramid-clear definition of goals and timely and constructive feedback. Combined with a certain sense of unease with immediate managers, that will be the company's challenge.