CALL CENTRE outsourcing organisation SalesForce has taken out the top honour in this year’s Hewitt Associates Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand 2004 research. Highly commended awards went to Bain International, Cisco Systems, Flight Centre and Seek.
CALL CENTRE outsourcing organisation SalesForce has taken out the top honour in this year’s Hewitt Associates Best Employers in Australia and New Zealand 2004 research. Highly commended awards went to Bain International, Cisco Systems, Flight Centre and Seek.
In total there were 18 ‘Best Employers’ named (see table on page 6) out of a field of 139 organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Included in this field were nine of Australia’s top 20 companies, both publicly listed and privately held businesses from a wide range of industries and, as in previous years, a small sample of public sector organisations. In total, these organisations employ more than 250,000 employees and submitted more than 40,000 employee surveys as a part of the 2004 study.
The fourth year that the study has been conducted, this year was the first time that the study was expanded to include employees in New Zealand.
The study consists of three survey instruments developed by Hewitt:
1. An employee engagement survey, which measures how emotionally and intellectually connected employees are to the organisation. Data was collected from a statistically valid, random sample of employees in each organisation.
2. A CEO questionnaire, which gathers information on the philosophies of the CEOs of the participating organisations and their approach to managing people, as well as the alignment of people practices to the organisation’s strategy.
3. The People Practices Inventory, a detailed inventory of each organisation’s people practices and policies.
Hewitt collects and analyses the data, which is then considered by a judging panel to determine the list of the Best Employers in ANZ. The judging panel was again chaired by Professor Roger Collins, Professor of Management at the Australian Graduate School of Management. The panel considers all of the organisation data ‘blind’ so that they are unaware of the organisation names before them, until after their decision is made. The judges consider a wealth of data in their deliberations but, essentially, are looking for those organisations that are able to demonstrate both high levels of engagement (passion, commitment and drive for results) among their employees and strong alignment of their people practices with organisation strategy and brand. Approximately 10 per cent of organisations are audited to assure appropriate random samples are selected and accurate data is provided.
SalesForce, which has twice before been named on the Best Employers list, was described by the judges as having “a great sense of fun. Each floor is decorated with a theme, pictures on the walls are of employees just being themselves and every now and then you might even see a senior manager in a red nightie throwing a frozen turkey at the local park.
“But having fun at SalesForce is not just about being silly. It’s about combining fun, focus and fulfilment. SalesForce believes that fun without focus can be dangerous, so staff need to focus on the success of the business. Then, when you have fun and focus, you create fulfilment – the ability to be yourself and to achieve.”
