Best companies to work for 2012: How NTPC takes care of its employees with people-friendly policies

At the end of every day that you spend at NTPC, you have this immense sense of satisfaction from adding another megawatt of power to the country," says Pallavi Chelluri, a 24-year-old engineer with NTPC. Pallavi works with the project engineering (mechanical) department of NTPC and joined the organisation in October 2009 after completing her engineering studies.

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She is very new compared to those who have spent almost three decades in the organisation. "Being new, I did not anticipate that I'd be able to interact with various stakeholders, including foreign players and get this sort of exposure," she says.

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The power behemoth, which has 26,000 employees across 44 locations in the country, has launched a number of initiatives in the last one year, which focus on making the organisation more employee-friendly. For example, NTPC has tied up with International Management Institute and IIT-Delhi to provide full-time executive MBA and MTech programmes to its staff.

The company has about 3,000 executives at its mid-level management. The collaboration with IMI will ensure that these managers get to learn managerial skills, while the IIT programme hones their technical skills.

Interestingly, the MBA programme initiative came from one of the System Review Groups within NTPC. These groups have been created to review the HR systems and processes and suggest changes for improvement. Each System Group comprises of 3-4 HR executives who pick up a system, find out its effectiveness through discussions with HR and other employees, study practices of other organisations wherever required and suggest changes based on the data and their own creative thinking. They make presentations before HR group heads and once the idea is approved, it becomes a policy.


Outside the work domain too, there are interesting initiatives such as the marriage portal for employees and their wards, launched this January. Every year NTPC takes 400-500 executive trainees who are posted in various locations across the country. The idea is to help these youngsters in searching for their life partners. More than 800 employees have posted profiles on the website so far. NTPC also has a free counseling and support programme called Snehal.

Considering the fact that NTPC employees are often spread across remote areas and locations, the organisation recently came out with the concept of PUPs (Providing Urban Facilities at Projects and Stations) for employees and their family members. The initiative aims to improve the quality of work life for both employees and their families.

The moment an executive reaches the location, NTPC welcomes him with a 'First Day First Show' movie screening. Hi-tech wireless communication is also provided to make sure the executive is connected with his family and friends despite being in a remote location. S P Singh, director (HR), NTPC says the company intends to keep pace with the aspirations of its people and provide the best facilities, wherever possible.