As part of its recognition lists announcement, Great Place To Work India has recently announced India’s best workplaces in manufacturing 2023 as their 6th edition. The global authority on workplace culture, Great Place To Work, assesses various organizations as a part of their research, based on which the companies get identified as Best Workplaces, every year. This year, employees at Best Workplaces have reported an increased positive experience compared to last year, with 7% higher sentiment than the industry average. Even as the pandemic disrupted the manufacturing and production (M&P) sector, employee engagement scores grew by 10% bps in the last four years. There was, however, a 2% industry drop in engagement levels resulting in an increased gap closer to pre-pandemic levels (5% in 2023) between employees and their employers.
This underlines why workplaces should place greater importance on adopting the practices of Best Workplaces. The key factors that determine a Best Workplace includes a better employee perception for leadership, governed by management credibility and respect. Both blue-collar and white-collar workers have unique needs, and these workplaces have been successful in acknowledging and addressing them. On all aspects, the M&P industry has an average of 3% difference to cover when compared to other industries. Employee perception on fairness and key leadership behaviors score the lowest for the manufacturing sector. Fairness is a three-pronged approach, and organizations that focus on this approach, along with effective leadership development, observe a significant rise in the overall workplace sentiment of employees.
Yeshasvini Ramaswamy, Serial Entrepreneur & CEO, Great Place To Work India said, “Over the years our manufacturing industry has been one of the main pillars for the growing GDP of our country with huge expectations of it being able to be designed to serve almost 25% of India’s GDP in the coming years. With the increasing population of India, and the subsequent effect it has on the demand and supply balance, the manufacturing industry is gearing up to navigate rapid changes on many fronts, be it global economic uncertainties, changing customer demands, need for e/intrapreneurial talent, etc.
India is now envisioning a complete transformation of this sector into a $300 billion dollar electronics manufacturing hub by 2026. India’s manufacturing sector has the greatest potential to propel economic growth and employment creation in this decade. In other words, the new vision is to transform this traditional industry into a sustainable domain. India has a huge capacity to participate in global markets because of elements like electricity expansion, long-term employment possibilities, and skill upgradation for millions of its people. With the growing need for green technologies and sustainability both in India and global markets, there is a huge growth potential for ICT enabled sustainable manufacturing domain in the coming years. It is already attracting a lot of demand for young and innovative talents who have combinational skillset of both industrial engineering and the new green industrial smart information and communication (ICT) technologies.
Interestingly, our insights and numerous studies of workplace culture tells us that nurturing and sustaining an innovative work culture is still an area that really needs strong anchoring and creative thinking for this industry especially with the hybrid environments that we find ourselves surrounded with. Although the manufacturing and production industry was among the worst-hit sectors due to the pandemic, there has been a significant 10% growth in the employee engagement bps scores in the last 4 years. This is a great testament to leadership commitment and efficacy to cater to employee welfare needs. There is a growing acceptance within its leadership that there is still a lot to be done, which is a very encouraging view of a growth mindset.
Congratulations to all our winners on achieving this great accomplishment. I have faith that the industry and its leadership will continue to establish international standards for workplace culture. India has a lot to offer to the world,” Ramaswamy said.