Following the liberalization policy (1990-91) adopted by the Government of India, the service sector has emerged as an important field of activity. It is the present day engine of economic growth story of India. The service sector is performing far better than agriculture, manufacturing and mining sectors. Within the service sector, Information Technology (IT) and Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) have achieved a steep growth in the recent decade. The contribution of IT industry to GDP has seen an increase from 1.2 percent in 1998/99 to 5.2 percent in 2007/08. The important component of both these sectors is `employees', that is the human capital. This issue brings out some of the major HR issues related to employees, such as satisfaction, motivation, attrition, work environment, and other contemporary factors.

Organizational culture is a framework of practices, which are designed to meet the objectives of the organization, customers, employees and other stakeholders within the ethical code acceptable to the society at large. M Sakthivel Murugan, in the paper, "A Study on Organizational Culture and Its Impact on the Performance of IT Employees in Chennai", brings to light, how organizational culture plays a vital role on the performance of employees in the IT industry, which is considered to be the golden goose of the Indian service outsourcing sector. The author also discusses the importance of culture being used as a weapon for poaching talent among competitors by paying more and acquiring the skilled workforce to intensify the demand for talent in the market. The study considers some variables of performance, such as career advancement avenues, recruitment and selection process, performance appraisal process, human relation, welfare, social security, grievances handling procedure, recognition of merit, wages and allowances, training and development, and promotion transfer policy. The author finds that these factors influence the employees, and he opines that, organizational culture, in general, should be framed across such factors, in order to build a conducive environment for employees to realize organizational and personal goals.

Job Satisfaction is a level of state, where employee feels his expectations are being meet in comparison with his contribution to the organization. Meenakshi Gupta and Parul Sharma, in the paper, "Job Satisfaction Level Among Employees: A Case Study of Jammu Region, J&K", probes various factors influencing employee satisfaction. The study identifies two categories of factors which influence employee satisfaction: Environmental factors and physical factors. Working in the same organization for more than 20 years leads the employee to detach with his workplaces. The study suggests the creation of opportunities to interact and enhance mutual interests in improvement of working conditions, so that employees feel comfortable and can work conveniently which, in turn, will improve their job satisfaction level.

Motivation is an ideal tool in the hands of organizations to revitalize the employee energies to work towards the organizational goals. S C Poornima, in the paper, "Motivating Through Satisfaction: An Ongoing Effort of HR in Organizations", brings out how HR influences an employee satisfaction in the IT and ITES sector. This research is centered around eight components of employee satisfaction, such as compensation design, pay other than allowances, allowances, incentives and perks, the job, organizational climate, career prospects and social environment. It is observed that there is a gap between the expectation and fulfillment level, which leaves the organization to rethink on the employee satisfaction issue. The author suggests the organizations to design employee-centric policies and practices to leverage better productivity from the workforce.

In the recent decade. attrition has been a major problem for IT and ITES industries; majority of the companies in these industries are losing talent pool and experience curve. Recruiting new blood into the organization had escalated the cost of operations and also, it hinders the work process. Atanu Adhikari, in the paper, "Factors Affecting Employee Attrition: A Multiple Regression Approach", has studied the factors which are affecting the IT and ITES industries in India. The factor probed in this study are, the work-related issues that the employees face at job site, employer-related issues, component of compensation and the skill sets of the employees. The study results suggest that work-related issues, employer-related issues and skill of employees have almost the same effect. Interestingly, the compensation has the lowest effect on attrition. This brings out that employees give more importance to the quality of job.

Organizations, which aim at strengthening internal environment, focus on core values like customer, organizational pride, mutual respect and trust, initiative and speed, and total quality. Some of the public sector undertakings have initiated developing core values in order to be competitive in the post-liberalization period to successfully face the challenge from multinational organizations. Nivedita Debnath and Koustab Ghosh, in the paper, "Core Value Actualization: A Study of an Indian Public Sector Enterprise", presents how one of the Indian public sector organizations has strengthened the internal environment by developing core values and has prepared itself to face the multinational competition successfully.

-- K Rajanath
Consulting Editor