Infosys has doubled the number of employees eligible for its stock options programme to around 8,000.

The IT major’s Executive Vice-President and the Group Head of Human Resource Development, Krish Shankar, told BusinessLine that the ESOP pool has been expanded in order to recognise high performers among the employees. The company has also spread the net wider by including employees about four, five levels down from the top leadership. “We have gone deeper (in terms of grades) than any other company in India,” Shankar said.

The entire ESOP scheme has been relaunched based on the performance of the company. The ESOPs are linked to the total shareholder return and are market benchmarked. Infosys has also converted the options to restricted stock units which are given at face value and are linked to the market price.

“A significant portion of the share plan is linked to the performance and has a larger pool of employees,” he said. He also pointed out that this scheme has lowered the attrition level.

Digital skills

Krish Shankar said the company has identified 36 digital skills. Employees can take up these courses and get certified and are given a skilled tag and a skill bonus. This has created an ecosystem that offers employees several options to reskill themselves.

About 80 per cent of the talent gets generated through this initiative and during the last two years, most of the employees who work on the digital business are from this pool. Infosys’ digital business has grown by 40 per cent and at present, 50 per cent of its revenues comes from digital.

Hybrid work model

The HR head said the company’s hybrid model of work has been evolving over a period of time. He said there are a large number of employees who have returned to their hometowns and are working from there. There is another set of employees who are willing to work from offices. Keeping in mind the preference of the clients, the company has put together a hybrid model based on their expectations, he said.

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