Appraisal At Cognizant Dampens Spirit Of IT Employees; CEO Gets 3% Pay Hike!

US-Based IT major Cognizant has revealed their yearly appraisal rates for India, and the entire Indian IT industry has gone into deep shock.

When the CEO receives just 3% appraisal, then what employees can expect?

But, as we will prove later in the post, things aren’t meant to be that depressing for Indian IT industry in 2018.

Will the sentiments rise?

Dismal Appraisal At Cognizant in 2017!

As per numbers available now, Cognizant’s Chief Executive Officer: Francisco D’Souza received an appraisal of just 3% last year.

As per Cognizant, this was done as per the market conditions of 2017.

In fact, the top three executives of Cognizant: CEO, D’Souza, President Rajeev Mehta, Financial Officer Karen McLoughlin received pay hike between 3% to 8% last year.

And, this minor appraisal was not entirely cash-based, direct take home.

The 3% appraisal which Francisco D’Souza received was actually linked with target-based direct compensation and equity.

As per Cognizant, the appraisals and pay hike of key executives was purely based on the performance and market conditions.

Does this mean that IT industry is going down right now?

2018’s Appraisal Levels: Things Are Not That Bad!

If we leave aside Cognizant’s dismal appraisal records for 2017, then 2018 promises to be an exciting year for the industry.

As per Aon Hewitt survey, Indian companies, especially IT firms are expected to offer appraisals of 9.4% as a median count, with some companies can go up to 15.4%, in some regions.

This annual survey of Aon Hewitt was conducted across 1000 companies, spread over 20 industries.

As per the survey results, Indians companies are expected to provide better increments, compared to other Asian countries.

Here are the expected salary increase of Asian employees:

• China: 6.7%
• Philippines: 5.8%,
• Malaysia: 5.1%
• Singapore: 4%
• Australia: 3.2%
• Japan: 2.5%

This encouraging news of salary increase is supported by other HR Consultancy firms as well.

Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder of employment services provider Teamlease Services said last year:

“2018 is set to swing the pendulum further into the job growth zone. Businesses in almost all sectors — notably, financial services, retail and e-commerce and media and entertainment — are looking to hire talent at an even faster pace,”

But Cognizant’s appraisal rates have certainly created a doubt; more so because of increasing news of job loss due to automation prevalent in the industry.

We will keep you updated, as we receive more news related to salary increments in the IT industry.