During a time when most of the Indian IT companies are forcing employees to work from the office, HCL Technologies (HCLTech) has chosen not to implement similar policies like its peers.
Going Against The Trend
Going against the running trends in IT companies, HCLTech presently has no intention of connecting variable compensation with employees’ physical presence in the office, said CEO C Vijayakumar, in a recent interview.
Further adding, “Return to office continues to increase, and it varies from business line to business line. Some business lines, we’re able to comfortably work remotely. And for some business lines, we think getting people back to work is the right strategy. We don’t have any such plans to link variable compensation with bringing people to office.”
The variable pay constitutes a minimal cost for the IT firm, according to Ramachandran Sundararajan, the HCLTech’s chief people officer, mentioned during the company’s Q1 earnings conference on July 12.
“The quarterly variable pay is only applicable for the junior level employees and not the mid and senior levels. And there is no significant shift in that decision; it’s the same quarter on quarter,” Sundararajan said.
Insourcing Impacting the Market Share
Interestingly, earlier he brushed aside concerns about technology insourcing impacting the market share of Indian software exporters.
The technology insourcing is primarily confined to large captive players and a few conglomerates, Vijajkumar clarified.
“I don’t believe it’s widespread. There are ongoing opportunities to establish India centers for global clients. It’s mainly very large institutions, particularly major banks, that have the capability to significantly increase their operations in India and may choose to insource to a greater extent” he said.
He confidently said that the company’s slowdown in growth in engineering, research and development (ER&D), as well as in financial services, will recover starting from the third quarter.
Further acknowledging that the following three quarters of the fiscal year ending March 2025 are expected to remain subdued, similar to FY24.
