Young Researcher of the Year Award 2011 - Preriit K. Souda

Preriit K. Souda

Preriit K. Souda

Age: 26
Company: TNS Global
Country: India

Topic chosen

The Future of Work

Title of submission

Six People, Six Live, One Hope

Abstract

This story revolves around a professor (fictitious) who attempts to solve everyday professional problems to improve job satisfaction thereby reducing future attrition (a key concern today). However job satisfaction as discovered, is also impacted by overall happiness in life; a large part of which is governed by several factors beyond the office cubicles. But this does not mean that Companies cannot influence this aspect; professional life and policies adopted by HR departments can impact some of these factors to improve overall happiness; thereby increasing both job satisfaction as well as employee retention.

Research was kick started with secondary data analysis on OECD data concerning happiness and several databases of TNS on job satisfaction. This exercise helped to understand job related issues in various parts of the world and generate hypothesis to be tested with primary research. A cross‐continental survey was launched in 6 languages targeting white collar workers in OECD countries, India and China. Snowballing, social networks, blog posts and professional forums were used to distribute the survey. 433 responses were collected in 144 hours.

Based on survey (& secondary analysis), employment came among top influencers of happiness. Inside the office, job satisfaction was driven most by pay, colleagues and career growth and these were also the aspects where dissatisfaction reigned. Various solutions are suggested to improve satisfaction on these and concepts like horizontal growth are explored for solving career growth problems. Ways for senior management to regain trust are explored. Colleague issues concerning age, nationality, qualification are studied while executive education is suggested for solving employee concerns on skill up gradation. Important finds on flexibility, travel, hiring, firing, temporary workers and discrimination are also elaborated.

In order to visualize the different issues faced across the globe, six pen portraits have been created and the paper hinges around how the professor, based on the results, recommends actions for organizations to tackle these issues. While there might be specific companies which already implement some of the recommendations, in the future it is envisaged that a majority of companies will have to implement the recommendations if they want to truly retain their employees.

About Preriit

Preriit K. Souda is a Consultant in the Marketing Science department at TNS Global’s Mumbai Office, India. He consults internal clients on analytical & design requirements on their projects, works on overseas and Indian client studies that deploy Pricing techniques, Driver Analysis, Segmentation, Product Testing, New Product Development and other advanced analytical techniques. His key role as a consultant is to interrogate the data through suitable techniques to extract actionable insights. Before joining TNS Global, Preriit was Research Assistant to Chair of Marketing Department at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, USA, where he assisted in research on Advertising Elasticity. Preriit has an engineering background (Sardar Patel University-India and University of California, Los Angeles- USA) with post graduate studies done in Management Sciences from Southern Methodist University, Texas, USA.

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