India continues to strengthen its position as the global hub for Global Capability Centres (GCCs), hosting 53 per cent of the world’s GCCs and employing more than 1.9 million professionals. GCCs are in-house global centres set up by multinational organisations to drive strategic, operational, and innovation-led work.
Study at Great Place To Work India examines how GCCs are evolving as employers in an increasingly competitive talent landscape. The research reveals that 85 per cent of employees working in GCCs report a positive workplace experience, placing the sector close to the broader India Inc. benchmark and underscoring the growing importance of workplace culture as GCCs scale in size and complexity.
India’s GCC ecosystem remains highly concentrated, with 94 per cent of centres located across six key cities – Bengaluru, Hyderabad, NCR, Mumbai, Pune, and Chennai. The number of operational GCCs is expected to cross 2,100 by 2028, growing at an estimated compound annual growth rate of 8 per cent through FY 2028. GCCs are also projected to account for nearly 35 to 40 per cent of India’s total office space demand this year, reflecting their expanding economic and employment footprint.
“India’s GCCs have evolved from being identified as mere back offices to becoming innovation hubs, centres of excellence, and strategic business partners on the global stage. GCCs are no more IT support centers, but global hubs delivering high-value work across industries. GCCs have been creating an equitable workplace compared to the rest of India Inc., but the next steps are to bring them to the forefront of trust, growth, and recognition through decisive, time-bound action. As GCCs scale, recruiting high-quality talent and upskilling employees will increasingly go hand in hand with setting up the right culture and a compelling Employee Value Proposition. The GCCs that integrate innovation, strategic thinking, and great people experience will thrive by building a credible path forward.” – Balbir Singh, CEO, Great Place To Work India
The Great Place To Work study highlights how GCCs are performing across cultural dimensions. Trust levels within GCCs currently stand at 82 per cent, broadly aligned with the Information Technology sector, while trailing industries such as retail, healthcare, and manufacturing. This indicates a stable foundation of trust, alongside a clear opportunity for GCCs to further enhance credibility, fairness, and leadership effectiveness to meet and exceed broader industry benchmarks.
GCCs demonstrate high levels of camaraderie, reflecting healthy peer collaboration; however, employee sentiment in 2025 showed a decline across specific areas, such as perceptions of fair pay and profit-sharing, management reliability and approachability, clarity of organisational vision, involvement in decision-making, job security, recognition, and overall fun at work. These findings point to the need for more deliberate investments in leadership capability, communication, and recognition as organisations grow in scale.
At the same time, GCCs continue to outperform much of India Inc. on several critical aspects of the employee experience. Employees consistently cite world-class infrastructure, access to advanced technologies, and flexible work models that support work-life balance as key strengths. GCCs also demonstrate a stronger inclusion profile, with women comprising one in three employees, compared to the national average of 26% per cent. The workforce remains predominantly young, with 93 per cent of employees belonging to Gen Z and millennial cohorts, intensifying the war for talent and reinforcing the importance of strong workplace culture in attracting and retaining future-ready skills.
The study further finds that organisations recognised as Great Place To Work Certified™ report five per cent fewer employees considering leaving, nine per cent fewer employees experiencing burnout, and eleven per cent more employees feeling confident about their executive leadership’s judgment. These organisations also demonstrate higher productivity, stronger employee advocacy, improved retention, better customer service outcomes, and greater organisational agility.
As AI and hybrid work models continue to reshape GCC operations, the study underscores that workplace culture will be a critical differentiator for sustainable growth. Beyond technology and scale, GCCs that intentionally build trust, invest in leadership development, and embed learning, recognition, and purpose into everyday work will be better positioned to compete for talent. Great Place To Work continues to partner with GCCs across India to help them leverage culture as a strategic advantage in an increasingly dynamic global talent market.
