Infosys confident of taming high attrition rate with skilling, other incentives

Bengaluru: Infosys Ltd, India’s second-largest software exporter by revenue, aims to reduce its high attrition levels with skilling programmes and other compensation-based incentives.

The attrition rate at Infosys was at 23.4% in April-June, up 3% from 20.4% in the previous quarter ended March. This was also much higher than competitor Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd.'s attrition rate of 11.5% in the quarter ended June.

According to a 29 August report by brokerage firm Sharekhan, the attrition rate at Infosys increased in the quarter ended June despite multiple interventions like variable compensation, higher promotions, overseas posting and retention bonuses, "and is beyond the comfort range for the company".

High attrition has negative impact like higher recruitment costs, dissatisfaction among the employees, lower client satisfaction, and lower utilization, the report said.

In an interview, Krishnamurthy Shankar, EVP and Group Head of Human Resource at Infosys, pointed out that the company's attrition rate has been the highest among employees with 3-5 years experience, adding that "the Bengaluru numbers are even higher".

To address the rising attrition levels, Infosys has made various interventions in terms of skilling its workforce. “We are very confident attrition will come down. A lot of emphasis is put on training," Shankar said.

Infosys has created something called digital tags, which are essentially digital skillsets that you can learn and tag yourself to. “We have identified a set of 32 skillsets in areas like cloud architecture, internet of things, etc. wherein we have created specific learning pathways for each of these skills sets…they get a certification and a skill tag…we also incentivise them by a skill bonus," he said.

Shankar added that Infosys was also focusing on early career growth of employees with incentives like “early career rewards" so that they are clear about their growth path within the organization in the first few years itself.

Infosys has launched what it calls “Bridge Programs" which enables employees to pick up alternate skills which further leads them to get higher compensation. The program is expected to help in up-skilling to meet the demands of the future as well as open up more career options, especially for its young employees.

A recent trend is employees quitting their jobs to pursue entrepreneurship. While Infosys specifically doesn’t have any intrapreneurship programmes to fuel the entrepreneurial dreams of the employees, “we have something called the Infosys Innovation Lab and hackathons where we help create proof-of-concepts," Shankar said.

The company’s ‘Be the Navigator’ programme helps in "continuous improvement for the client." According to Infosys, the objective of the programme is that clients should look upon Infosys business process management (BPM) as business partners who own their end-to-end process and drive their business outcomes.

The company’s ‘Be the Navigator’ programme helps in "continuous improvement for the client." According to Infosys, the objective of the programme is that clients should look upon Infosys business process management (BPM) as business partners who own their end-to-end process and drive their business outcomes.