Infosys : Strategic Human

Resource Management

Presented by-
Rahul Sharma [H21099]
Tanya Gupta [H21119]
Shatrughna Ojha [H21109]
Siddharth Mawandia [H21114]
Sakshi Singh [H21104]
 In 1981, Narayan Murthy along with his 6 colleagues established Infosys with $250. They created the
company “of the professional, by the professional and for the professional” with a vision of creating
wealth legally and ethically.

SCENARIO Transition phase – soon it became the company which has a global reach rather than just a company
based in a city. The purpose was set to improve the brand equity. It became the first company to list
on the NASDAQ on March 11, 1999.

The idea of firm to be the Best Employer or Employer Choice prevailed even after the successive
growth of Infosys. It was ranked highly on the Best Employers list for two consecutive years, 2001
and 2002.

In the given time, Infosys became more process oriented and, similar and repetitive projects
increased causing dissatisfaction among the employees. Major changes in policy were done, and the
communication gap arose within the organization.

Result of internal employee satisfaction survey displayed discontentment. And it fell off the Best
Employers list in 2003.
 Current Situation
Infosys is no longer in the “Best
Employer List”
due to high employee dissatisfaction
Assumption

GAP The basic assumption that we are

working with is that the HR
policies of Infosys regarding
variable pay, promotion policy,
End Goal broad banding, and so on are
To ensure that Infosys is on top ten list of: appropriate given the firm’s
 Best Performing Companies current position
 Best Employer List
The Problem - 1
One of the major reasons for
growing employee dissatisfaction
and turnover is unrewarding,
uninteresting work, especially at
the lower levels of the organization
 This problem is
 Employees at the lower
levels complain that their
work has become
increasingly uninteresting
as Infosys has become
more and more process-
oriented.
 There is also an excessive
accentuated by a disparity
in expectations across
hierarchies - managers,
whose work has become
dynamic and interesting,
are out of touch with the
reality of their employees.
 There are not as many
opportunities for
professional growth as
employees are not given
the autonomy for
innovation
bench capacity -
employees who are not
currently working on any
projects and are sitting
idle, waiting to be
deployed.
 The Problem - 2
The organization is becoming increasingly impersonal day by day, leading to a lack of emotional bonding
between employees and organization.

There has been a significant
cultural change in Infosys
since 2001 due to its rapid
expansion. Work has
become process-oriented
and HR policies inflexible
and generalized as opposed
to flexible and
personalizable.
Infosys’ expanding portfolio
of subsidiaries has led to the
feeling that there are
disparities across
subsidiaries. Employees no
longer feel part of a close-
knit group and don’t feel
supported or listened to.
While Infosys has a strong
value-orientation, there is
difficulty in actually
implementing this. Further,
the value-orientation of
Infosys conflicts with the
imperative to increase hiring
for organizational growth.
 The Problem - 3
Misinterpretations and miscommunications
Miscommunication on intentions of
introducing variable pay components.
Company Intention: higher
compensations for better performing
employees. Employee interpretation:
company cutting compensation costs.
Miscommunication on Broad-Banding
and promotion policies. Created
confusion among employees and
managers. Led to rumors, discontent
and lack of trust.
Lack of hands-on management. There is
a lack of two-way information flow
between managers and employees
because of managers dealing with
expanding responsibilities and increased
workload.
A feeling that perks of initial years
are being revoked. This includes
change of ESOPs purchase price from
5% to 85% of fair market price as per
SEBI guidelines.
The Solution
Three criteria must be kept in mind while
designing a solution to Infosys' problem
Step 1 Communication

1. It must increase employee satisfaction

2. It must not compromise the financial
performance of the company Step 2 Hands-on management
3. It must be in line with Infosys'
organizational values.

We identify the following steps that

Step 3 Learning and Development

Infosys should take.

Step 4 Emotional Bonding

 Communication
Several problems in the organization may be resolved if there is
clear communication with employees.

Major policy changes should be announced by senior leadership like Mr.

Narayana Murthy, someone that the employees draw inspiration from. The
focus should be on what these policies mean for employees.

Re-emphasize employee-organization bond in initiatives like variable pay.

Communicate to employees that the organization and the employees will grow
together.

Conduct boot camps for clear communication and explanation of new HR policies
where employees can discuss concerns. Merge information sessions with bonding
exercises and social work to take a first step towards rebuilding the Infoscion.
 Hands-on management
In the long term, communication problems may be conclusively resolved through a more hands-on
approach to management. This would enable a constant flow of information from lower-level employees to
mid- and upper-level managers and enable better communication.

Human Resource Planning. Reinstate an open-door Make retention metrics

Increase hiring at the
managerial level to meet
organizational needs. While
this would involve some
investment, the costs of
high attrition may prove to
cripple Infosys growth in the
long run.
management policy.
Encourage employees to
air and discuss their
grievances and make
management accessible to
employees again.
part of the performance
appraisal of managers.
This would incentivize
managers to listen to
employees and take
steps to address
problems with work etc.
Learning and
Development
Adding value to the employees to add
value to the company. This achieves
two objectives:
Infosys develops its human
capital to achieve its
organizational objectives
The employees can develop
their skills and add value to
themselves as professionals
 Infosys should create a program where
both working and benched employees
can work on mini-projects and seek
feedback from mentors.
 Use these projects as metrics for
promotion purposes and involvement in
sought-after projects.
 Provide additional incentives for
innovative solutions to the company's
problems.
 Rotate employees between projects,
giving top performers the chance to
choose a project of their liking.
 Rebranding the work
Infosys should attempt to guide employee empowerment by rebranding the work that they perform.
There are two aspects to this:

Impact and purpose Communication

Encourage managers to show
employees how their work
enables Infosys to deliver
world-class solutions to clients.
Each employee must be shown
the impact they create for the
organization, and how their role
fits into the bigger picture.
Communicate the job
requirements and expectations
upfront to engage in
expectation management and
give employees the autonomy
to choose where and how they
want to work.
 Emotional Bonding
The management should focus with renewed vigor on rebuilding the emotional
connect between employees and Infosys.

Build on Infosys’ strong base of trust- Build employee-organization trust through

building activities. Make these more initiatives like financial literacy workshops
accessible to employees and encourage and centers which offer investment and
employees and their managers to tax-saving advice to employees.
participate together.

Conduct bonding exercises across Conduct value-based induction programs

subsidiaries and functional units.
Empower employees across Infosys to
see themselves as ‘Infoscions’.
for experienced employees as well as
freshers. This enables Infosys to relax
culture-fit criteria to some extent while
ensuring that employees are in
congruence with its values.
 Outcomes
The most important outcome here is the establishment of good communication
between management and employees. This is the first step towards reestablishing
trust and information flow in the organization.

By retaining Infosys’ HR changes and focusing on trust-building, this plan of action

remains practical in the new context of organizational expansion. This keeps the
plan financially viable. In the mid to longer term, these initiatives will higher
productivity and lower attrition rates, contributing to Infosys’ growth.

This would further enable Infosys to stay true to its objective of adding value to its
employees – professionally, personally, emotionally.
Thank You