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With the creation of a talent fulfillment function, Infosys, India’s second largest information technology (IT) services company, is looking at plugging the holes in its people management process, one of the biggest concerns in the sector.
IT services companies hire in large numbers. Once training is over, the charge of deploying people in projects moves to the delivery teams. Many a time, even after a project is over or is approaching completion, delivery teams do not release employees. At the same time, delivery teams in other projects while looking for people place requests for more employees even though there are many without work. Based on that, IT companies devise their hiring plans for the year.
“I think this is a very god move by Infosys and more and more IT companies are expected to follow the model,” said Kris Lakshmikanth, founder-chief of executive search firm Headhunters India.
For example, Infosys’s utilisation rate at present stands at 74 per cent. Even a two per cent improvement in that would mean the company getting 3,200 people more without any extra investment.
“The whole idea of having a global head for talent fulfillment is to have a person who can see everything transparently. This is part of the broader game plan Infosys has put in place to improve utilisation,” added Lakshmikanth.
Infosys on Friday announced the creation of the role of head of talent fulfillment and appointed company veteran H R Binod.
Binod, a senior vice-president also in charge of the company’s global delivery model programme from the chairman’s office, will now be responsible for the whole process of recruitment that was earlier part of the human resources department. Besides, education & research, global immigration & talent planning and deployment will also be part of his responsibility. The heads of all these functions would report to Binod.
“So the entire chain, starting from recruitment, enablement and fulfillment (including training) and mobility — the ability of the people to move across the globe — are being consolidated under one single function. The sole purpose is to create agility and increase pace of execution,” said S D Shibulal, chief executive and managing director of Infosys. In the quarter ended December, Infosys’ utilisation rate (including of trainees) rose 40 basis points to 74.1 per cent, while at the same time the company saw an overall reduction in its headcount by 1,823 to 158,404. The company also saw one of the highest attrition rates in the quarter at 18.1 per cent.
Said Binod: “Talent management is an important function that was always attached to delivery. So, as soon as recruitment is done, people come to training and after training move to delivery. Now, we have integrated this, so that decision-making is quick.”
