The best companies to work for.

There is a qualitative difference between Fortune's list of the Best Companies to Work for in the US and similar lists that are focused on India.

The big difference is in the type of organizations that feature on the lists. In the case of the US, the list is dominated by small and medium sized companies, whereas most of the companies in the Indian list are large organizations like Genpact and Infosys. I haven't heard of most of the companies, as far as brand awareness goes. The highest ranked company which I had heard was BCG which ranked at No. 11.

Unlike India, there are hardly any IT companies on this list. Cisco is there at number 25 and Microsoft is there at no. 42, but no Google?

I am sure that the differences are because of the nature of the economies and also based on the methodology of the study.

The other point that struck me is that the best practices are really quite different. For example one company does away with job titles altogether. And as Jenna says : Timberland gives all employees $3,000 to buy a hybrid car? (Wow, I would love that!). As for some of the other perks - like the $14 onsite haircuts being offered by Worthington Industries.

Sure these companies might not be the sort of places that everyone might like to join. I guess the future trends for organizations is that instead of trying to be all things for all employees they will try to do specific things for selected employees.