1. American Express India
Becoming
A Great Place to Work

2. Today’s Discussion
 Our Company
 The People Factor
 The Human Resources Context in India
 What We’ve Learned
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3. Our Vision: “To Become the World’s
Most Respected Service Brand”
 Leading global payments and travel company
 World’s largest issuer of charge and credit cards
 Operations in 175 countries, 2300 offices around the globe,
60k+ employees
 American Express India – largest employee base outside the US
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4. The People Factor
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5. The Human Resources Context in India
 Growing hiring needs
 Growing skill diversity
 Performance oriented culture
 Hot employment market
 Increasing Gen Y representation
 Low leadership tenure
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6. What We’ve Learned
 Recruit for success
 Build a differentiated workplace
 Measure ‘engagement,’ not ‘satisfaction’
 Make Diversity & Inclusion a key focus area
 Ensure leadership commitment
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7. Recruit for Success
 Involve your best performers in the hiring process – they will
select people like themselves
 Actively manage low performers to reduce variability
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8. Build a Differentiated Workplace
 Engage with families through relevant programs
 Promote preventive healthcare
 Enable work-life integration
 Build a culture of performance and recognition
 Focus on transformative engagement and build avenues to support
innovative thinking and risk taking among all employees
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9. Measure ‘Engagement,’ Not ‘Satisfaction’
 Satisfied employees don’t produce results, engaged employees do
Employee engagement that transforms: when employees are motivated and
empowered to think and act like business owners
Leaders should leverage employee pulse results
to drive engagement that transforms
Evolution of American Express’ Engagement Focus
Healthy employee Productivity & Employee-driven
environment customer satisfaction innovation & change
PAST FUTURE
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10. Make D&I a Key Focus Area
 Underrepresented talent groups (e.g., women and differently-abled people)
can open many new talent sources for organizations, especially in growth
economies with “talent wars”
 The employee base should reflect the changing face of the customer in order
to better understand and address diverse customer needs
 The new age customer is more aware, connected and demanding, and meeting
his or her needs requires innovative and differentiated thinking
 D&I drives financial performance
 Studies indicate that companies with the highest representation of women in top
management teams experience, on average, better financial performance than
companies with the lowest female representation!
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11. Ensure Leadership Commitment
Through tangible linkage to Leadership Goals
Through inclusion in Leadership Competencies
leading to…
Effective Leadership
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12. Thank You
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