What Matters Most To India’s Workforce

The corporate workforce of India is young and is witnessing one of the greatest workplace transformations of all times. While businesses are adopting to the rapidly changing environment, it is important to check are organizations keeping up with the rapidly changing needs of the workforce?  

Does your organization make the employees feel energized each morning as they look forward to another productive day at work? Does your organization know what are the key asks of its existing, or potential employees?  

To help companies decode the deepest aspirations of India’s workforce, Taggd and Business Today surveyed 32,000 working professionals from 1000+ organizations spanning across 15 sectors on a number of aspects, such as their favorite work location, reasons to choose or leave a job and much more.  Here is what we discovered.

The first ask that came out loud and clear is that flexibility matters. Be it flexibility on the type of work, timings, quality, or the location. The young corporate workforce of India demands flexibility where nothing but outcomes and deliverables matter.  

According to the study, Indian workforce’s remains divided on the preferred mode of work as over one-third (36%) of working professionals favor the hybrid work paradigm, which involves working from the office on certain days and from their homes on others, while another 36% choose to work from home.  

When we double-clicked on these choices, it is interesting to see that a majority of male workforce voted for WFO as their preferred choice closely followed by Hybrid. However, nearly 80% of the female workforce stand divided almost equally between Remote and Hybrid way of working.    

Also, besides a flexible work model, the employees seek flexible work timings and an option to choose assignments. When the workforce was asked about the reasons they choose a new job over their current job,  

• Nearly 50% of the working professionals said that they would like to have the freedom to choose their work assignment  
• Freedom to select work timings also emerged as one of the top 4 reasons 

Moreover, with appropriate safeguards, flexible work schedules, updated leave rules, accessible digital tools, and a lot of passion, corporate India’s leaders are enabling a new way of working by leveraging methods of contact and engagement that drive action.  

(Also Read: How Leading Organizations Are Approaching Hybrid Work)  

If there is one thing that has been a common thread in the choices made by employees across sector – it is People care, especially since the COVID-19 outbreak. What it means is, whether it is the HR policies, well-being initiatives, growth and capability programs – an organization needs to design its programs keeping the people and their individual and collective needs at the center. For the last two years, employees have been vocal about the need for employee development and well-being programs. 

When asked about the top reasons of leaving a job, lack of growth opportunity emerged as the second most prominent reason that the workforce collectively highlighted irrespective of gender, and experience. The first reason, however, was low compensation.   

This year’s respondents have rightfully applauded the businesses that recognized the changing demands of the workforce and took proactive initiatives to meet those needs. Additionally, this demonstrates that the workforce’s need to be heard and taken seriously. 

If you wish to be among the best companies to work for, you need to understand your employees and offer them what they want.