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Business

Do Asian companies make good employers?

weekly roundup Fancy working in an office where you get to go to swimming pools and zoos, and your bosses write letters to your family, complimenting you on a job well done? If you think that sounds like a non-Asian multinational company, you're wrong.
Written by Eileen Yu, Senior Contributing Editor

weekly roundup Fancy working in an office where you get to go to swimming pools and zoos, and your bosses write letters to your family, complimenting you on a job well done? If you think that sounds like a non-Asian multinational company, you're wrong.

Companies in India are apparently resorting to out-of-this-world perks in a desperate bid to retain their best staff.

Indian IT services company Satyam allows its employees first refusal on new projects and pens letters to inform families of its staff that the employee "made a significant difference to the company".

The news comes as a pleasant surprise because Asian companies--much less Asian IT shops--aren't usually perceived to be model employers. Even the organizations named in Hewitt's list of Best Employers in Asia were mostly the regional offices of non-Asian multinationals, including Four Seasons Hotel Singapore, Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong and Procter & Gamble Asia.

We've heard it often enough: People are a company's best asset. But exactly how far are Asian employers willing to go to retain their best staff?

Fortune Magazine's No. 1 best company to work for in the U.S. went tosearch giant Google, which adopts this belief: "We love our employees and we want them to know it."

Employees at Google, or Gogglers as they're called, not only enjoy free car wash and dry-cleaning facilities at their workplace, their lunch and dinner--gourmet meals that include yogurt, fresh fruit and cappuccino--are also provided for free. Fathers, as well as mothers, get days off when they welcome a new member to the family and these employees get up to US$500 for take-out meals so they can stay home to care for their newborn. Even pet owners are free to bring their beloved housemates to work--dogs are regular features at the Google workplace.

Happy employees make loyal employees. Offering perks and incentives like those at Google can help create a better environment for employees--and one that they'll find hard to leave.

I would love to have a daycare center at the office for my Jack Russell terrier. What perks do you want at the office?

In other news this week, students and staff at Taiwan's Tamkang University have more reasons to go mobile. Also, visitors to some Web sites in the Philippines get more than they bargain for, while India and China continue to dominate the outsourcing market.

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