Infosys to connect more deeply with staff

One of the first things that Vishal Sikka did after taking over as CEO of Infosys was to set the company on a course to engage deeply with its employees and their families.

Infosys has set up a rapid action task force for speedy implementation of employee feedback on anything ranging from extending gym timings in the campus to inviting family members to visit the campus.

A ‘SWAT’ team of 12 employees headed by a business leader, with representation from functions such as HR, Finance, Information Systems and Infrastructure, has already taken action on 10 issues raised by employees in October and 11 in November.

“The SWAT team is a rapid reaction team that we have set up to continuously track employee feedback and work on it. For instance, we have extended gym timings on the campus by one hour on popular demand. We have made it easier for approvals on extension of maternity leave by one more month if the mother has a medical reason. And we have extended the benefits of the InfyGold+ programme, whereby Infoscions are offered discounts across retail, hotels, travel, electronics and other sectors, to members of their families too,” said Srikantan Moorthy, Executive Vice-President and Head, Human Resources, Infosys.

In consonance with the company’s mission to empower and engage employees across its offices around the world, Infosys had created a Global Diversity Council with representatives from all the geographies that it operates in to enhance gender, nationality and differently-abled diversity.

“About 32 per cent of our total employee base is women. We have employed 105 nationalities and also have a small percentage of differently-abled employees. The idea is to increase diversity and the Council will come up with recommendations on what we need to do to achieve this,” said Moorthy.

Unlike earlier, when promotions were awarded to employees twice a year, Infosys has decided to promote employees every quarter, starting this fiscal year. From April to September, it promoted 19,000 employees. And if all goes well with the company’s performance in the third quarter (October–December), employees can expect to receive a 100 per cent variable payout, just like in Q2.

Infosys has also partnered with The Stanford Graduate School of Business to put 200 Infoscions who are segment heads, department heads, function heads, senior development managers and senior delivery managers through a one-year, part time, leadership programme. They will participate in batches of 40 over the next three years.

“The programme begins in March 2015 and will be addressed by Stanford faculty in areas such as strategy and client value-addition,” said Moorthy.

According to a report by Angel Broking, one of the key levers for Infosys to return to industry-leading growth of around 15-18 per cent in the mid- to long-term with 25-28 per cent EBIT margins, as articulated by Narayana Murthy in June 2013, is employee productivity.

At 75.2 per cent employee utilisation as of the second quarter, there is scope for improvement for the company, which is looking to take it to 78 per cent.