Infosys has appointed Krish Shankar, former Philips executive, as head of HR and plans to hire around 20,000 fresh engineers this year.
This plan is in line with what we have done last year and will be from various campuses, said UB Pravin Rao, COO, Infosys, on the sidelines of the second quarter results. “Glad to announce Krish Shankar as our new head of HR. He will be key to transforming out people strategy, which will be key in implementing our overall strategy,” said CEO and MD Vishal Sikka.
Further, the company said that it will increase the number of interns it hires every year and has increased their stipend to ₹10,000 from ₹4,000.
“We want to hire more people as interns and want them to continue to be part of us. We believe that the increase in stipend will also help them have a long-term career with us,” added Rao.
For the fresh campus hires, Infosys will provide training of 5-6 months, an annual salary package of ₹3.25 lakh and has made changes in the nature of the training, course curriculum, and methodology in line with its new strategy.
These initiatives are being taken to reduce the attrition rates, which has come down since Sikka took over the reigns. In the second quarter, Infosys reported an annualised standalone attrition rate of 14.1 per cent, down nearly 700 basis points from the year-ago period.
On an annualised consolidated basis, attrition came down from 24.8 per cent in the second quarter to 19.9 per cent when compared to the same period last year.