In a move to launch more employee-friendly initiatives, India’s second largest IT exporter Infosys (formerly Infosys Technologies) has launched a social media platform for its employees.
Said to be an equivalent of Facebook, the social networking platform ‘Infosys Bubble’ allows an employee to share his/her views, pictures, moods and blogs among 1,33,560 fellow Infoscions.
“We understood the need of communication among Infosicons. Two years ago, during our strategy meeting, members of our Rs Voice of Youth’ team gave a proposal and our technology team designed it. It resulted in Infosys Bubble,” said Nandita Gurjar, Senior VP and Group head, HR of Infosys. According to the company, an employee can post general comments on the management using the platform, but have to maintain discipline.
They are not allowed to post personal comments on any individual or senior officials.
The social platform launched one-and-a-half months ago, has around 2,61,030 connections and has created around 74,376 profiles.
Infosys is also planning to launch its own radio station called ‘Infy radio’, exclusively for its employees. The radio station is expected to be launched in a couple of months. To enjoy Infy Radio, employees need to download an application on their iPod and other handheld devices and listen to music on demand, said Gurjar.
“The radio project will be like a normal radio station from where employees can tune in to music and request for their favourite songs. Through this radio station, we plan to bring more fun for employees. Here you can spoof even your leaders … as it’s just fun,” Nandita added.
The Bangalore-based IT services firm which saw a drop in its attrition rate in the quarter ended June 30 at 15.5 per cent, is also planning to start an MBA programme for employees. The company intends to start the programme in partnership with a management institute.
According to company data, around 7,182 people left the organisation during the April- June period. More than 30 per cent of them left to pursue higher studies. The company said 32 per cent of the employees leave every quarter due to personal reasons and 38 move to other companies.
Infosys is also creating a proposal to launch another ‘Green Channel’ initiative, to hire ex-Infoscion from various B-schools. The company believes that Green Channel hiring are faster than normal hiring. The company said it was planning to hire around 12,000 people in the second quarter of FY12 and had revised hiring guidance for the year 2012 to 45,000 from earlier 36,000.
