Infosys employees will now have a lesser reason to cheer as some of the perks have been discontinued. With growth coming under increasing stress, Infosys BPO, the subsidiary of Infosys, has decided to do away with ‘team building expense,’ which is used by managers to take the team on team outings, according to a source working in Infosys. Every employee in Infosys BPO is entitled to Rs 50 every month, which is pooled together for team outings.

Q3 results on Jan 11

This decision to do away with this allowance was taken in the first quarter of fiscal 2013 and as on the third quarter ending on December, it has been completely done away, according to the source. Infosys has entered its silent period and did not comment on this development as it will announce its third quarter results on January 11.

Industry watchers feel that this is a way to cut costs within the company, which is reeling under growth pressures for the last seven quarters. A rough back of the envelope calculations peg a total savings of Rs 30 lakh in a single quarter and Rs 1.2 crore annually. Infosys BPO has around 21,000 employees.

Another source inside the company pointed out that this allocation has been pooled into the ‘spirit of ten programme,’ which is a celebration of ten years of Infosys BPO, external mentors programme and Infosys BPO Idol, which is similar to Indian Idol. Interestingly, Infosys BPO is seeing better times compared to its parent. It expects to grow in the range of 16-20 per cent in fiscal 2013 and has seen margins go up by 4 percentage points in the quarter ending September.

Employees are miffed that despite this growth, the company is doing away with these perks.

“Salaries have been lowered, promotions stopped and now we cannot take our teams out,” said a team lead in Infosys BPO.

Also, in fiscal 2013, Infosys distributed a special dividend of Rs 10 a share since the BPO arm completed ten years. The total outlay according to the annual report amounts to Rs 670 crore, including dividend distribution tax.

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