MUMBAI: Not a single media company - listed or private limited - company has featured in the first of its kind Business World magazine-Grow Talent Great Place to Work survey that was released on 25 August 2003.

The editorial team of Business World and Grow Talent officials confirmed that media companies had been shortlisted; but none of them featured in the Top 25 list. They also refused to divulge details of the shortlisted media companies.

An attempt to probe the reasons for TV/media companies not doing well in HR surveys indicates that there is a lot of insecurity amongst the employees of companies belonging to the industry.

Around 120 companies participated in the five month long survey conducted by Delhi-based Grow Talent company - a division of the US-based Great Place to Work Institute Inc. The company has created rigorous survey formats to identify quality workplaces.

The Top 25 list features Texas Instruments, FedEX, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lily, Philips Software, Godrej Consumer Products, WiproSpectramind, Nokia, Birla Sun Life Insurance, Cadbury, Aviva, Tata Teleservices, NIIT, E&Y SSL, Marico, AV Birla group, BPCL, Hughes Software Systems, Infosys, Max New York Life, Dr Reddy's, Wipro, TNPL, Anand group and JISCO.

The participating companies had to go through the same rigorous methodology followed in the rest of the world. Grow Talent first administered the Great Place To Work(c) Culture Audit. The firms had to answer searching questions on what they had done to create a climate of "trust", "pride" and "camaraderie" - the three cornerstones of great workplaces. A team of evaluators from Grow Talent, led by Tushar Makkar, head of brand management, then reviewed these responses.

Simultaneously, a randomly selected sample of employees responded to the Great Places to Work(c) Trust Index questionnaire. It comprises a battery of 58 statements on a 5-point scale. Respondents were also asked to give qualitative feedback on why they considered their organisation a great workplace and what would help it to get better. The scores and the qualitative comments were then evaluated by the Grow Talent team.

Robert Livering, the founder of the Great Place to Work Institute Inc, has been quoted as saying: "The most important issue in a great workplace is the quality of the relationship between the employees and the management."

Unlike other HR surveys that tend to consider benefits and facilities mostly from an employer's standpoint, the Great Place to Work(r) model lays more emphasis on what employees have to say about their workplaces. In the end, employee satisfaction flows from a simple precept: If you trust the people you work with, have pride in what you do and like the people you work with, you will find your organisation a Great Place to Work(r). In a way, that's the essence of the Great Places to Work survey.

So can employees of companies belonging to the television industry ever feature prominently in HR surveys. Highly unlikely say a cross-section of industry executives on condition of anonymity. Stress, pressure and insecurity are just some of the problems.

Since the beginning of the year, an issue that has had many worried is the implementation of CAS. The fear is that once CAS comes in it would lead to retrenchments.

An executive who works in a production house says: "Broadcasters must take lessons from insurance companies that feature in the survey. These service-oriented top companies treat their full time employees and insurance agents on an equal footing whereas the broadcaster team always wants to dominate us. There is no 'mentor-mentee' equation and the communication flow is one-sided!" he says.

Another oft-voiced complaint is about delays in payments, especially among production houses.

The current system certainly needs to change for the better. But, who will bell the cat?