To Amit Saberwal, Employee 62 at MakeMyTrip, India, the biggest achievement of the company is not the successful NASDAQ listing in 2010 but that it’s been consistently rated among the best places to work in India and its talent management practices are recognized by peers.
For three years in a row, it’s been adjudged a Great Place to Work by the Great Place to Work® Institute. In 2009, it was rated #1 in the Professional Services category. In 2010 it ranked #2 in the overall company list, and the following year, #3 as well as #1 in the Professional Services category.
It also received the award for The Best Company in Employee Involvement and Collaboration & The Best Company in Celebrating and Creating Fun At Work.
Said Saberwal, “We are the only one true Indian company in the top three – the other two are Google and Intel. It’s easier for them to rank high because they earn in US dollars whereas we deal in rupees only so we cannot be ostentatious and have to be mindful of the bottomline.”
So if pay is not the differentiator, then what makes MMT stand out? For Saberwal, who’s worked his way up through the company – he joined the hotel team as employee #62 and was transferred last year to Singapore to look after international markets and was recently promoted to Chief Business Officer – it’s the fact that “people like to work with a company whose core decision making is in India”.
“This means you’re not far away from decision making, and you are in the heart of the action. Smart people like to be in the driver’s seat. We have a senate of 52 members, and a leadership team of 10 people. People are allowed to cut their own deals, we are highly empowered.
“We’ve learnt the art of letting go,” he said. 
A strong set of 10 core values also guides the company and forms the culture. They are excellence, innovation, teamwork, passion for winning, empowerment, fun at work, integrity, respect for people, accountability and customer centricity. Together, they make the FIT recipe.
“We are very mindful that we live in an age of high stress and we want to make it a fun place to work,” said Saberwal. “We strive to keep the same culture today as when we were a company of 50 people – can-do, execution-led, speed over perfection.”
It’s a challenge though, he concedes, trying to retain a start-up culture as the company has grown to more than 2,000 employees and is publicly-listed on NASDAQ.
“It starts with the people at the top – if they don’t become bureaucrats. It’s what we are mindful about. Everyone is a stakeholder in the business and there is no place in management for anyone who wants to fit into a nice little corner.”
As it expands outside India, Saberwal, who is responsible for building up the team, admits it’s been a challenge recruiting the right kind of staff plus the brand is not as well known outside its home country.
“We want to build up a company that works as well in India as the rest of Asia. The MakeMyTrip story is a blend of new and old. We blend online and offline and we want to blend tech-savvy people with travel experts from the brick and mortar world to build up a new kind of travel company.”
Note: Amit Saberwal and Tarika Chopra, Head, Employee Engagement & Communication, will be speaking at the WITNext Summercamp on ‘Creating The Next Gen Workplace for A New Gen ” on June 21-22.
