HCL Technologies, with around 85,000 employees, is in no hurry to reach the one-lakh-employee milestone anytime soon, according to Mr Vineet Nayar, Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
While HCL Tech is the fourth largest information technology company in terms of revenues, it has a much smaller employee base compared to other players. The third largest IT firm Wipro had 1,38,500 employees as on June 30 and Tata Consultancy Services 2,38,583 people. The second largest player Infosys has 1,51,151 employees according to its balance sheets as of June 30.
HCL Tech as of June 30 had 84,319 employees. It had a net addition of 2,201 people during the April-June quarter.
Asked when the company would get to one lakh employees, Mr Nayar told
He said there is no reason to celebrate the day the company reaches the one-lakh-employee mark; rather, it’s the day all the existing (84,319) employees come to work that will be a high point.
“Number of employees is not a milestone. The number of happy employees is a milestone, which makes me happy,” said Mr Nayar, who believes in “employee first and customer second”.
But, does that mean the company is not hiring anymore? Declining to comment, Mr Nayar only said the company has promised to create 10,000 jobs in the US and Europe by 2015 as announced earlier.
“The customers and the administration are looking at HCL in a positive light because we are part of a job-creation industry,” he said.
Some analysts say HCL Tech may not be aggressively hiring right now as it probably wants to go clean and lean. Also, as of now, the company is utilising only 74 per cent of the total employees. “HCL Tech has been growing inorganically. It may hire more to bring in efficiency in future, as it has done it in the past,” Mr Rikesh Parikh, Vice-President - Markets Strategy and Equities, Motilal Oswal Securities, said.
Meanwhile, HCL Tech has brought in some change in its leadership. Mr Anant Gupta has been promoted as President and Chief Operating Officer (COO); he was earlier President - Infrastructure Management Services. The company also brought in two new directors on its board – Mr Srikant M. Datar and Mr S. Shankar Sastry, a move the Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer, Mr Shiv Nadar, says “will provide further thrust to our agenda of industrialisation and profitable growth.”