Indian software companies need to stop sending people on H-1B visas and focus on local hiring in the US, Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy said amid rising concerns over Donald Trump administration's proposals to restrict inflow of foreign workers.

Stating that by and large Indian mindset is always to take the "soft option", Murthy -- one of the pioneers of India's IT outsourcing industry -- said becoming multi-cultural is not easy and is a "very, very hard option".

The board of Infosys Ltd has inducted director D.N. Prahlad into the nomination and remuneration committee (NRC) that oversees the nomination process and the incentives and pay offered to its senior-most executives, including the chief executive.

Prahlad, a relative of Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, will now be one of the five members of the current NRC, according to two executives familiar with the development; the decision may make it more difficult for the management to award higher salaries to its senior executives.

Stocks of largecap information technology (IT) companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro tanked up to 5% in intraday trade on reports that a legislation has been introduced in the US House of Representatives, which among other things, calls for more than doubling the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders to $130,000.

The move, experts say, will make it difficult for the software services firms to replace American employees with foreign workers, including from India.

BENGALURU: Infosys has "released" 8,000-9,000 employees in the past one year because of automation of lower-end jobs, the company's human resources head Krishnamurthy Shankar said. He said these employees are now working on more advanced projects.

"We have been releasing about 2,000 people every quarter and also training them in special courses that will help them in their new assignments," Shankar said on the sidelines of an event organised by the Bengaluru chapter of Global Shapers, a body backed by the World Economic Forum.

Infosys Ltd MD and CEO Vishal Sikka on Thursday said the increase in local hiring in the US may not necessarily hurt margins, following his assertion that the company is hiring more people in the US to engage better with clients and foster innovation on the ground.

“It is incorrect to assume that local hiring means change in margins,” Sikka said in an interview to ET Now, adding that at times people on visa from elsewhere may cost higher than local people on site.

Infosys, India’s second-largest software exporter, is planning to take its software platforms to a larger set of customers and earn 10 per cent of its revenues from them by 2020.

Infosys earns nearly 95 per cent of its revenues from traditional services and has been pushing software-led services to clients, using platforms such as the artificial intelligence tool Mana and cloud-based commerce platforms like Skava, Edge and Panaya.

Bengaluru-based proxy advisory firm Ingovern Research has asked shareholders of Infosys to seek more clarity on the terms of David Kennedy's severance from the company. Kennedy, was the company's general counsel and chief compliance officer.

On Sunday, Infosys told the exchanges that Kennedy had left the company after a mutual separation agreement it entered into with him. As a part of the separation as well as his employment agreements, Kennedy will receive severance payments of $868,250 plus reimbursements for COBRA (insurance) continuation coverage over a period of 12 months.

IT major Infosys’ Rs. 5.9 crore ($868,250) severance pay offer to outgoing General Counsel David D Kennedy is a move to play safe with Donald Trump administration in the US, say experts.

Even though Infosys cited "normal payroll practices" as a reason to this compensation to Kennedy, experts say technically none of the company’s employees are eligible for a severance pay, except for chief executive Vishal Sikka.

We believe better deal win rates have improved the outlook for banking & financial services (excluding RBS impact), telecom and utility verticals. However, H2FY17 outlook continues to be weaker than H1FY17, both in terms of revenue and margin. Nevertheless, we expect CY17 outlook to improve on better client satisfaction, strong deal wins and reduced geopolitical uncertainty. We continue to see guidance (both cc revenue and margin outlook) as conservative. Maintain Outperformer.

Information technology major Infosys is offering paid internships to campus hires before taking them on the payrolls in a move that that will affect new jobs across the sector. Already, hiring by technology companies is already at a 10-year low.

The Indian technology services sector is facing its worst growth in nearly a decade as clients reduce budgets on traditional outsourcing work, which is not being offset by growth in newer areas such as digital and cloud. In addition, routine maintenance work of customer applications or IT infrastructure, where freshers are normally deployed, have been taken over by automation or robots.

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