With nearly 8,000 employees leaving Infosys Technologies in the quarter under review, the company's attrition has almost touched 16 per cent, the highest in four quarters.
Attrition for the fourth quarter ended March 31 was 13.4 per cent; it was 11.1 per cent for the quarter ended June 30, 2009. The gross hiring number for Infosys in the quarter under review was 8,859 but its net hiring was a mere 1,026.
"We had over 900 employees leaving us as they chose to go higher studies. Most of the courses start only in the July month. But this also shows that growth is back in the industry, from a time when there was absolutely no movement," said S D Shibulal, COO and Director, Infosys Technologies.
However, even as it is working to address this, Infosys is raising its annual hiring forecast to 36,000 from the 30,000 outlined in April. The company had hired 27,639 people last year. The increase in the full-year hiring target is largely the result of the company's plans to provision for capacity addition in new locations in India, as well as future growth in new markets, according to board member and Head - HR, education & research, Mohandas Pai.
It is targeting recruitment of 14,000 people in the second quarter (July-September), of which, the BPO arm, Infosys BPO, will absorb 9,000 people. As on June 30, Infosys and its subsidiaries have a total of 114,822.
Expansion
Capacity addition is currently on at the company's development centres in Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Bangalore and Thiruvanathapuram, about 23,000 seats. A new campus is coming up on 300 acres in Bangalore. Besides, the company is proactively investing in Brazil, Mexico and China.
Chief executive officer and managing director Kris Gopalakrishnan said: "What is different in the previous quarter is that we have increased our investments in visas for our employees, in keeping with organic growth. We are investing in anticipation of future growth, for a change."
Infosys is also investing in getting more visas this financial year. "The company has invested around $16 million (around Rs 75 crore) this quarter for visa and we will invest another $7-8 million (around Rs 32-37 crore) in the second quarter of FY11," he said.
That said, Infosys and its peers, TCS, Wipro and HCL Technologies, have been launching an all-out campaign to retain key talent. Infosys has seen over 2,000 former employees -- from a database of 85,000 former employees maintained on its systems since 1994 -- applying to return to the company.
At Infosys BPO, attrition among women in the April-June quarter was higher than among men, and the primary reason given by them was marriage, according to Pai. Over 4,500 employees left the BPO arm during the first quarter, while over 3,800 left the services arm, he added.
Pre-emption
As a precautionary measure and an attempt to retain employees, the company had given a 13-17 per cent hike to all its employees in the January-April quarter. A round of promotions is planned in October. While the hike for senior people was around 10 per cent, middle to lower-rung people received hikes of 14-17 per cent. Infosys, TCS and Wipro have raised salaries by 10-20 per cent on an average to keep staff from being poached by global rivals IBM, HP and Accenture in India's $60-billion domestic IT market, which is increasingly competitive.
The company also had 2,942 lateral hires (experienced hands) this quarter, again one of the highest for the company over the last four quarters. In FY2010, Infosys hired 4,895 lateral employees. Having added only 390 lateral hires in the first quarter of FY2010, it expects its lateral hiring to increase.
(Additional reporting by Shivani Shinde in Mumbai)
