Despite Earning Rs 6000 crore in 90 Days, Infosys Deducts 40% Incentives, Bonuses For Lakhs Of Employees

Infosys has cut the variable pay for select employees to 60 per cent for the second quarter of the ongoing financial year.

Who are affected?

An internal communication circulated among employees states that the average variable payout to employees in the J4, J5, and J6 bands (team lead and managerial levels) is 60 per cent.

Further, it read that the performance pay depends on the company’s performance in the quarter.

“Please note that the actual payout percentage is based on your differentiated performance level and recommendations made by the Senior Management from your business unit/function as per the guidelines recommended by the organization,” the email to employees reads.

“On the basis of the company’s performance in the Q2 FY’23, the board has approved performance bonus payouts as mentioned below JL 4- 60%, JL 5 – 60%, JL 6 – 60%.”, as the email explained.

Season of growth

The IT giant declared a net profit of Rs 6,021 crore for the September 2022 quarter.

This is a growth of 11.1 per cent as compared with Rs 5,421 crore in the September 2021 quarter.

Its continued growth is added by its revenue which has spiked 23.4 per cent to Rs 36,538 crore, as compared to Rs 29,602 crore in the year-ago quarter.

CEO Salil Parekh said, “With regard to variable pay, we don’t share that number externally.”

Employee unions naturally did not take the variable pay cut news well. 

IT Employees union issue statement

Harpreet Singh Saluja, President of Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES), said,

“Infosys has once again reduced the variable pay of employees by 40%. 

Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate NITES has been raising the concerns of unethical pay cuts of employees. 

The company at their will is reducing the variable pay component of employees without giving any reasonable cause. 

On one side the employees are struggling with inflation and on the other side Infosys is increasing deductions in variable pay. 

The company last month reported an 11.10 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 6,021 crore in September quarter compared with Rs 5,421 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. 

Large deal wins for the last quarter were robust at $2.7 billion, highest in the last seven quarters. 

Hence it is completely unethical and unacceptable from the employees perspective who are the backbone of the organization.”

Nothing new

It’s worth recalling that the company slashed the variable payout to its employees by 30 per cent in the previous quarter due to margin pressures.

The company’s email then also used the same statement to justify the move that one’s final variable payout will depend on their unit or department’s guidelines, and varies for different pay grades and departments.