Indian IT services company Infosys has charted strategy for controlling attrition rate that was 18.7 percent in Q4 FY 2014.
Out of 18.7 percent, 1.2 percent was involuntary attrition.
In order to manage the alarming attrition levels, Infosys, which competes with Wipro, HCL, TCS, etc. has given two rounds of compensation increase 6 percent to 8 percent and 6 percent to 7 percent in the last six months.
In addition, Infosys restructured a variable compensation that is one of the big demands from its employees. Promotions were one of the tools.
The Bangalore-based Infosys has given a commitment to its employees that it will focus on promoting people inside rather than bringing people from the outside.
Infosys invested in training and academy programs which will allow people to move up. It also implemented a tech stream which will allow technology people to move up without moving into management.
“We have implemented a fast track program which will allow high performers to keep moving up. We are hoping that all of this will have an impact and attrition will start coming down,” said SD Shibulal, managing director and CEO of Infosys, during an analyst meet.
Infosys says the majority of the people that leave the IT services company are in the one to four year experience range.
The company has noticed three main reasons for exit of its resources.
First, people who are looking for additional education tend to move. This kind of exodus happens during the first 1-2 year of their job at Infosys.
Second, people with 3-5 year experience are leaving Infosys because they want to relocate after their marriage because their spouses are working in a different location where we do not have office presence.
Third, career opportunity and career progression is also impacting Infosys.
“An approach of providing our people the first opportunity to take up a new role or a new kind of an engagement before we open it for hiring something that we’re doing to address that population of people who have a desire and an ambition to grow fast and of course things like the fast track program that we just announced will help, but these are the top three reasons that we’re seeing from the exit interviews,” said Tan Moorthy, group head of Human Resources and SVP, Infosys.
Infosys is worried about the fact that LTM attrition increased to 18.7 percent in Q4 compared to 18.1 percent in Q3. Q4 attrition comprises of voluntary attrition of 17.5 percent and involuntary attrition of 1.2 percent.
Baburajan K
[email protected]
Infosys is quite misled in analyzing the key reasons for employee attrition. I would say that the third reason, i.e. career progression and promotion and desire to get a better role and fitting responsibilities and remuneration is by far the key reason for the highest attrition rate among peers.
At Infosys, internally, many of the folks are not getting a good profile and good projects. Bench tenures have increased and that affects people’s ratings and hike as well. Promotions have been rarer than before, at every level, they create a sublevel and progressions are nothing but a mere designation change, without any added responsibility or any hike. Company leaders quote high numbers citing promotions and progressions these days at the media, but the internal fact remains that progressions are just a bluff and does not involve any compensation benefit. Basically one-fourth of the figure that they quote is media are promotions, rest is just to fool the people.
I guess the HR folks take the survey considering the reasons cited by the employee while resignation, but that is mostly false. Even when I left Infosys, I cited higher education as the reason, but the actual reason was better role and prospect outside. Most of my friends also have cited relocation and marriage, while that was not at all a reason. Such reasons are cited just to make sure that there is a smooth release by the manager, and in most of the cases, people try to negotiate the three months notice period and hence cite family reasons so that the managers release them on emotional grounds. The HR should not be fooled by this, and leaders must consider the actual reason for attrition i.e. lack of career growth. The leaders must work towards that on priority.
However, the other factor also remains that Infosys do not have offices towards northern and eastern part of India. The only offices in Bhubaneswar and Chandigarh do not have many good projects, or career opportunities and many people remain in bench there. It is high time they should aim at big campuses with multiple clients and accounts in NCR and Kolkata.