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Infy boss: 3 Crore salary

By Ria Sharma

Over the last few months,  the Indian media has taken a more critical view of tech
giant Infosys (Infy) because of its sacking of staff during the recession, new HR
policies as well as the exit of senior leaders like Nandnan Nilekani.  This critical
appraisal was somewhat of a shock to Infosys management who were used to
media eating out of their hands.

Rightly or wrongly, Infosys HR bosses Mohandas Pai and Nandita Gurjar have
become the lightning rod for some employee’s anger. An article in Wall Street
Journal resulted in more than 1100 comments left by Infosys current and ex
workers.  Most of the comments were critical of the HR policies.

Now, the Hindu is reporting

“
Top officials of Infosys Ltd took home increased salary in 2009-10 despite the
company reporting lower profit of Rs 5,803 crore compared with Rs 5,819 crore in
the previous year.

Mr Ashok Vemuri, Senior Vice President – Banking and Capital Markets and
strategic global sourcing, was the company's highest paid executive with a total
remuneration of Rs 4.88 crore, according to the annual report.
“

If you look at the Hindu chart (published above), it shows that despite the lower
profits, the man looking after all HR, Mr. Pai, got a salary increase of more than
Rs. 50 Lakh.  His new salary is Rs. 3.13 crores.

Quite separately to the Hindu article, a tipster emailed in an interview that Mr.
Mohandas Pai gave to Rediff a few months ago.  Check out Mr. Pai’s views on IIT
and IIM graduates

“
Rediff: So, do you restrict your MBA-hiring to the IIMs alone?
Mr. Pai: No! Over the last 3-4 years, the main criteria for placements at IIMs were
salaries. They forgot that the most important test for an MBA is the value he adds
to the organisation and not the salary he earns. The huge salaries being offered
had nothing to do with the capabilities of their students or market demand. It was
a distortion created by the financial bubble. The bubble burst and they felt the
heat. This distortion forced companies like us to go beyond the six IIMs. We
visited the next 10 or 15 B-schools and found the quality of students to be just as
good. And they weren't arrogant.

This is exactly what happened at the IITs a few years ago. These IITians thought
they could dictate terms to us (like where they would work and what kind of
projects they would do) but we widened our net to the next 50 or 100 engineering
institutes and hired people who were just as good, but came with no baggage.
While we haven't stopped recruiting from IIMs and IITs, we don't blindly pick
people because they have the tag. If we don't find the profile we need, we prefer
to come back empty-handed rather than hire any riff-raff. 
“

As you can see he does not mince his words.  No wonder so many people inside
Infosys are scared of him.

(Techogss had published the following article on May 31, 2010)

Infy has 11,000 US Visas

By Ria Sharma

Over the last few months,  the Indian media has taken a more critical view of tech
giant Infosys (Infy) because of its sacking of staff during the recession, new HR
policies as well as the exit of senior leaders like Nandnan Nilekani.  This critical
appraisal was somewhat of a shock to Infosys management who were used to
media eating out of their hands.

Now an Infosys report lodged with SEC has revealed that it is using more than
11,000 American Visas to place staff with clients in USA, work at US-based
Infosys offices and train them on computer systems so they can manage them
from India.  The Infosys Form 20-F lodged with US Government’s SEC says

“
The vast majority of our employees are Indian nationals. Most of our projects
require a portion of the work to be completed at the client's location. The ability of
our technology professionals to work in the United States, Europe and in other
countries depends on the ability to obtain the necessary visas and work permits.
 
As of March 31, 2010, the majority of our technology professionals in the United
States held either H-1B visas (approximately 8,900 persons, not including Infosys
BPO employees or employees of our wholly owned subsidiaries), which allow the
employee to remain in the United States for up to six years during the term of the
work permit and work as long as he or she remains an employee of the
sponsoring firm, or L-1 visas (approximately 1,800 persons, not including Infosys
BPO employees or employees of our wholly owned subsidiaries), which allow the
employee to stay in the United States only temporarily. Although there is no limit
to new L-1 visas, there is a limit to the aggregate number of new H-1B visas that
the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or CIS, may approve in any
government fiscal year which is 65,000 annually. In November 2004, the United
States Congress passed a measure that increased the number of available H-1B
visas to 85,000 per year. The 20,000 additional visas are only available to skilled
workers who possess a Master's or higher degree from institutions of higher
education in the United States. Further, in response to the terrorist attacks in the
United States, the CIS has increased its level of scrutiny in granting new visas.
This may, in the future, also lead to limits on the number of L-1 visas granted. In
addition, the granting of L-1 visas precludes companies from obtaining such visas
for employees with specialized knowledge: (1) if such employees will be stationed
primarily at the worksite of another company in the U.S. and the employee will
not be controlled and supervised by his employer, or (2) if such offsite placement
is essentially an arrangement to provide labor for hire rather than in connection
with the employee's specialized knowledge. Immigration laws in the United States
may also require us to meet certain levels of compensation, and to comply with
other legal requirements, including labor certifications, as a condition to obtaining
or maintaining work visas for our technology professionals working in the United
States.
“
 
Quite separately to this Techgoss research, PTI has done the maths and found
that as many as 28 percent of Indians rejected job offers from Infosys last year. 
It seems the once golden brand is losing a little of its shine.

(Tipsters, Thank you for all your tips. If you need to speak to us in confidence,
email us attechgoss@hotmail.com. Anonymity guaranteed.)

(Techogss had published the following article on May 21, 2010)

How Infy managed 5000 resignations

By Onlooker

Indian tech major Infosys was started in 1981 by seven people with US $250. 
Today, Infosys (aka Infy) has grown into a US $4.8 billion company, with a large
team of around 114,000 employees as on March 31, 2010. During the downturn,
many companies faced the challenge of cost-cutting and so did Infosys. One of
the easiest ways to keep profits was layoffs and salary freeze.

As the recession subsided and the recovery started, Infosys was among the first
companies to pick the market trends and began recruitment. What is lesser
known is how Infosys maintained such impressive numbers in the results. Starting
last year, i.e. October 2009, Infosys announced salary hikes and also iRace. 
While the former was welcome news to the hard working Infosys employees,
iRace was not happily accepted, resulting in unprecedented attrition at Infosys.
The Infosys HR Department had launched iRace (Infosys Role and Career
Enhancement) as a cutting edge initiative to manage its employees, but it hasn’t
worked out too well.  When the Wall Street Journal recently published an article
on Infosys, current and ex employees logged in to leave more than 1100
comments – many bitterly criticizing the HR Department.

According to insiders, over this period of 5-6 months, from October 09 to April 10,
around 5000 employees had submitted their resignations. A small percentage of
these employees were retained by promising higher salaries and promotions. The
remaining employees that did not succumb to more money, promotions and perks
were given extended dates of resignation. These dates were extended by 3-4
months. With the help of this, the company managed to control its quarterly
attrition rate and also saved on the employee costs. These employees who were
leaving in a few months were not given any hikes.

Unlike America and Europe where most techies can leave with a months notice,
some Technology Managers in India ‘persuade’ their juniors to extend their
resignation period by a few more months.  Employees, wanting a good job
reference, play along.  Logically, most employees that want to leave any company
would prefer that it happened sooner rather than later.

The recent announcement of second pay hike effective from April 2010 will come
into play only by the month of June, 2010. And the employees who resigned after
April, but would be working for an extended period till June-July, would not
receive the hikes.

(Techogss had published the following article on May 11, 2010)

Commentators trash Infy

By Sandhya

By any parameters of a successful technology business, Infosys is one of our

leaders.  Its co-founder Mr. Murthy is widely accepted as a wise, ego free,
transformative figure.  Like all technology companies, not every employee is
happy.  And they let management know through leaking information to reporters
as well as leaving caustic comments at the end of news articles.

Please read previous Techgoss reports on how Infosys had suffered bad media in
the recent past. Rightly or wrongly, Infosys HR bosses Mohandas Pai and Nandita
Gurjar have becoming the lightning rod for some employee’s anger.

Now this bad press has percolated to international media.

Founded in 1889, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is the world's leading business
publication. Boasting more than two million subscribers, the Journal is the largest
newspaper by total paid circulation and has the largest individually paid circulation
of the top 25 U.S. newspapers. The Wall Street Journal franchise has a global
audience of 3.8 million.  A WSJ article titled ‘Can Infosys keep workers with hefty
raises’ has resulted in more than 960 comments most of which are critical of
some key players at the tech major.

Some of the commentators have even linked to evidence which shows that the
Infosys job contract for its workers in California may be breaking some local laws.
Some commentators have launched vicious personal attacks on key HR figures.

The highly skilled Infosys PR team had the media eating out of their hands till
early 2009.  How things have changed in the last year and half! Infosys is no
longer treated as a sacred cow by media houses.

(6/3/2010)

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