The recent surge in attrition levels in IT companies is gaining
some stability as companies engage in various programmes to keep
their employees far from the exit
door.
The attrition at IT bellwether Infosys is seeing a downward trend.
“In absolute numbers, it was about 4,200 employees in Q2 FY11
as against 5,400 in Q1 FY11 and it is expected to go down further
in Q3 FY11,” said an Infosys
spokesperson.
Wipro, the country’s third largest IT company, which reported
significantly high attrition in the last quarter, is also on steady
track now. “After the initial surge, we are seeing signs of
stabilization and we expect attrition rates will return to normal
levels over the next 6 months,” said Saurabh Govil, Senior
Vice President, HR, Wipro
Technologies.
With the market opening up, attrition was at an all-time high over
the first two quarters of this fiscal. According to India’s
largest headhunting firm Ma Foi Randstad, the attrition rate this
year is between 15 to 16 percent as compared to 10 to 12 percent
last year. As per the reported results of large IT players, there
seem to be increased attrition as compared to the same period last
year. Wipro reported a voluntary staff attrition of 23.5 percent
for Q2 (July-Sep) up from 10.5 percent during the same period last
year. The attrition rate of Infosys stood at 17.1 percent in Q2, as
against 10.9 percent a year ago. In TCS, attrition rate for Q2
increased to 14.1 percent as compared with 11.4 percent during the
same period in
2009.
Over the past few months, IT companies have stepped up various
measures to bring down attritions. “Certain IT majors have
increased the pay packages of the existing employees. Some
companies are exploring the possibilities of a second round
pay-hike and promotions. Another practice companies are adopting is
a 60 days’ notice period that discourages people from
leaving,” said E Balaji, Director and President, Ma Foi
Randstad.
In addition, Nasscom, the apex body of the Indian IT-BPO industry,
has introduced certain HR guidelines to cap attrition in the
industry. The Nasscom committee on ‘
Ethics and Corporate
Governance’ has recommended IT-BPO companies to ask for
relieving letters from new joinees as a mandatory HR best practice,
as the IT companies usually poach employees without checking their
experience for short-term projects.
Infosys has had 368 employee engagement events in Q2 FY11 alone.
“We have several initiatives where managers take their teams
for lunch and interact with them on a personal level and our senior
leadership also interacts with employees across the company through
various forums.
“We constantly track employee engagement and projected
attrition. We keep doing active interventions based on the inputs
that we receive. The inputs range from retention discussions,
changes in work profile or locations, or any other reason that
could be a trigger for exit. We attempt fair interventions within
scope of our policies and this has helped in retaining
employees,” said an Infosys spokesperson.
“We have stepped up employee engagement, and are working
towards making the working environment - in terms of
infrastructure, practices and policies - more employee friendly and
productivity enabling,” said Govil of Wipro
Technologies.
About Author
Ayushman Baruah is a Bangalore-based business and technology journalist with an insatiable appetite for news. He closely monitors and writes on emerging technologies such as cloud, mobility and social computing. Driven by his interest, he eagerly tracks the Indian IT-BPO sector keeping a close watch on the performance of the companies which thereby shape and shake market trends. During his career, he has covered tech events both at the national and international level and written several trend-setting news, features, and opinions.
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