So, what makes employees tick? What ensures his or her "engagement" with the employer?

According to the findings of the WorkIndia survey, the country's first cross-industry study, Indians make more loyal employees than their counterparts elsewhere in the Asia Pacific region.

The study included a sample of more than 9,500 employees, representing a total employee base of 126,798 from 53 companies in nine industrial sectors. In India, as in other countries in the region, Watson Wyatt, the global consulting firm in human resource management, which conducted the survey, found that commitment is driven primarily by job satisfaction; further, commitment is related closely to the quality of leadership. Indians, however, report much higher levels of job satisfaction - at 20 points above the Asia Pacific norm.

For arriving at the identifiable levels of job satisfaction, the interviewers measured employees' satisfaction with their opportunities to utilise their skills, learn on the job and engage in what is perceived as meaningful work. This, the study found, together with faith in leadership, decides whether the job hunt would continue or loyalty to the existing employer wins over.

The good news for corporate India is that more than 70 per cent of employees agreed, in the interviews, that they receive the necessary resources and information sufficiently quickly to do their work effectively. Among the reasons cited for wanting to stay on with the company, 43 per cent referred to good career opportunities and 26 per cent to the closely related 'good prospects for the future', 31 per cent to opportunities to utilise skills, 22 per cent to the compensation package and 21 per cent to the company's good reputation.

The message to employers is clear -'provide the leadership that will allow us to work well, and you have our loyalty'!

Though compensation and benefits and communication rated as secondary drivers of commitment, the highest level of dissatisfaction for Indian employees is in this area. Similar to their Asia-Pacific counterparts, compensation and benefits were cited as problem issues, in terms of both external and internal equity.

Although a good compensation package was cited as the tenth most important reason to stay with an organisation, it was found to be the foremost reason why employees would like to change jobs within the next year. While 62 per cent of those interviewed said that this factor would drive them to look for another job within the next year, 17 per cent quoted the reason for such a move as being a desire for the closely related 'better benefits'. Better career prospects (60 per cent), opportunities to utilise skills better (30 per cent) and more meaningful work (13 per cent) were the other reasons cited as motivators for the hunt for alternative job opportunities.

The quality of supervision, training and development, leadership and management effectiveness was cited as the second most problematic area after compensation packages. Only 54 per cent of employees indicated they received regular feedback about their performance; in the case of some companies this was as low as 22 per cent.

While it is not surprising that compensation and benefits, and training and development were rated lower than the other categories - since this is typical of employee opinion surveys - it is, however, of concern that respondents were significantly dissatisfied with their companies' supervision and leadership.

Indian employers were rated lower than their counterparts in the Asia Pacific region when it came to providing training for employees to be productive in their current positions, with only 56 per cent of employees agreeing that they received such training. Also, 46 per cent of employees rated their organisations as 'average' when it came to sharing information and ideas across the organisation; in some companies only 12 per cent agreed there was sufficient sharing of information.

This has serious implications for the style of functioning and management, especially as companies grow. Also, there is a strong push in many industrial sectors in India to globalise and compete internationally, creating a significant increase in the interdependencies between different functions of the organisations and external agencies. Growth requires moving from functional silos, where departments focus their attention inward towards specific tasks, to operating as cross-functional teams to ensure customer satisfaction. Efficient information-sharing is a critical element in this evolution.

The study provides indicators to the broad areas of employee- employer relations -commitment, enablement (through training, sharing information and so on) and alignment (through a common understanding of shared and individual goals) - which have been found to be closely related to business performance.

The overall performance apart, Watson Wyatt studies have found more immediate implications for specific management actions … or inaction. Its Strategic Rewards Study in India, for example, revealed that the single-highest factor a top-performing employee looks for in a current or prospective employer is the 'opportunity to develop skills'. However, there is always a risk that trained employees are a 'poaching' target for other companies.

Therefore, not only do companies operating in India need to design training programmes that support business and individual capability development but also provide employees with opportunities to utilise their skills and training. As highlighted earlier, Indian employees clearly indicated that 'opportunity to utilise skills' was among the top five reasons for them to stay or join an organization.

*The author is country head for India of the human capital group of the global HR consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide.