Prioritizing a great workplace in 2020

The year 2020 has led us all to reexamine how people stay connected and work effectively. When a global event impacts a global workforce, provisions need to be made on the part of organizations and the people who staff them. We’re given an opportunity to look inward and prioritize what really matters.

This being the case, we were especially touched and honored to not only receive another Great Place to Work® (GPW) certification for TomTom in Pune this year, but to be recognized as one of the Top 25 places to work in India overall. We see it as a testament to our people’s resilience, dedication and collaborative spirit

TomTom’ers were asked to adapt to a rapidly evolving work situation and put their trust in our organization’s leaders. We’re proud of their creativity and adaptability and would like to share some of the steps we took to make this workplace so great.

Behind the Great Place to Work® certification

One major step we took this year – as we’ve done many years prior – was to apply for Great Place to Work® certification. Great Place to Work® is an international authority on building, recognizing and maintaining workplace trust, high-performance and culture – as such, they’ve identified many characteristics shared by great workplaces.

We use the certification, and the process it entails, to establish the level of trust between our people and the organization and attract and retain excellent talent. This year was an especially important year to submit.

We’re a Great Place to Work®

Annual certifications have helped us understand our culture and people in a holistic, data-driven way. This year, we received a Trust Index score of 84, with scores on Respect, Pride and Camaraderie equal to Great Place to Work’s best companies to work for.

We consider our people to be ambitious and interested in learning, reskilling and growing rapidly. At every opportunity, we try to create initiatives that build up our employee’s skillsets, confidence, knowledge and passion for the solutions we’re creating. As we’ve tried to maintain this during the pandemic, we’ve moved initiatives, including tech meetups, speaking engagements and other events, online so everyone can attend from home.

There’s also been considerable focus on more workplace diversity and equity. We’ve built a Women in Tech initiative to further our female-identifying technologists. We sponsored the Women in Data Science conference in Pune and set up a stand there, sponsored and brought representation to the Hopper virtual conferences career fair and hosted the Society of Women Engineers (Pune) meetup at our office.

How we got there

Great Place to Work® uses two key criteria to assess workplaces – the Trust Index and the Culture Audit. The Trust Index measures people’s trust in the organization and requires gathering input from employees, while the Culture Audit is an assessment of people practices.

To meet the Trust Index requirement, Great Place to Work® Institute sent anonymous surveys to 50% of our people in Pune. Out of everyone we canvassed, 96% of them filled in the survey, and 92% said TomTom was a great place to work.

Our Culture Report, a comprehensive and exhaustive document created for the Culture Audit, covered 15 individual people practices, including how we hire, develop, collaborate with and celebrate our people. For every people practice, site leaders, department leaders and HR teams identified local and global initiatives and practices and validated every assertion with qualitative and quantitative people stories.

On top of the main requirements for the Trust Index and Culture Audit, we shared details on how we’ve responded to the pandemic and plans for the unpredictable situation ahead. Overall, it was a months-long process but absolutely integral to showing what we do well and where we can improve.

Where do we go from here?

Every time we receive a GPW certification, we remember to ask ourselves what else we should be doing for our people. There’s no time more pressing to ask this question than right now.

Our people in Pune have expressed that we’re a Great Place to Work®, so the goal should be to hold ourselves accountable to the trust they’ve placed in us. We want the people behind our innovations to continue to feel trust in TomTom and pride in the work they produce.

Innovation and technical exploration are possible only in an environment that fosters collaboration, autonomy, inspiration and ongoing development. As one of our developers in Pune puts it, “Innovation is the strength and continuous improvement is the mantra.” Our aim is to do that mantra justice.

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Innovation is the strength and continuous improvement is the mantra.

Developer

TomTom office Pune, India