High attrition rate forces Infosys to increase promotions, double ESOP coverage

The alarming rise in the rates of attrition this year has become such a cause of major worry for the Indian IT majors that they have initiated a number of schemes – both monetary and non-monetary – in a bid to retain staff.

They have been doubling down on reskilling and retaining talent by measures like increasing number of promotions and introducing role rotation policy. High attrition rates have been a cause of worry for IT giants such as TCS, HCL, Infosys and Wipro.

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Infosys takes steps

Infosys, whose attrition rate stood at 28.4 per cent in the first quarter of FY 2022-23, has increased its internal promotions by 3.5 times compared to last year and doubled the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) coverage over the last two years to retain talent, as per a report by The Economic Times.

ESOP is an employee benefit plan that gives employees ownership of the company in the form of company stocks.

According to media reports, five years ago there were nearly 8,000-10,000 annual promotions in Infosys. In 2021-22, the IT major gave 40,000 promotions.

Focus on new career tracks

The Bengaluru-based company has also created dedicated programmes and introduced onsite role rotation policy to steer the employees’ shift onto new career tracks. Moreover, the IT giant is also focusing on early career growth of employees with incentives such as ‘early career rewards’ so that they are clear about their growth path within the organization.

For faster growth of techies, the Infosys has also introduced bridge programmes wherein employees can pick up alternative skills, which in turn brings higher compensation. The bridge programme has been in place for quite a while and the company has worked on adding new courses to the programme this year, as per the report.

Skilling programmes, new centres

Similarly in 2019, Infosys Ltd had introduced skilling programmes and compensation-based incentives to reduce high attrition levels.

The company is also opening offices in four tier-II locations – Coimbatore, Vizag, Kolkata and Noida – in a bid to be closer to the available talent pool and attract those employees who are leaving metro locations to stay closer to home, ET reported earlier this week.

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While India’s largest software services firm by revenue, TCS had reported an attrition rate of 17.4 per cent, for HCL it was 21.9 per cent and 23.8 per cent for Wipro in the January-March 2022 quarter, the report stated. Tech Mahindra’s numbers reportedly remained flat at 24 per cent.