HCL beats peers in utilisation rate of employees

The Noida-headquartered software-services company posted 81.9% utilisation rate during the quarter, edging past India’s largest software-services company TCS, which recorded 81.7%. However, TCS with an employee base of 2.63 lakh, is three times the size of HCL Technologies.

In comparison, the Bangalore-based IT company, Infosys, had an utilisation rate of 73.2% during the same period. Wipro’s utilisation rate for the quarter stood at 74.8%.

Prithvi Shergill, chief human resources officer, HCL Technologies, told FE that the company’s utilisation rate is ‘very healthy’.

“We continue to look to improve it maybe a little further. Those are levers that we will continuously look at. We are at a healthy number right now, if we can make further improvement that will be good. However, we don’t have a specific number that we are targeting,” Shergill said.

With foggy visibility on future business volumes, country’s IT companies have been struggling with rising non-billable employees warming their seats. Despite the rising concern about increasing bench strength in the IT sector, HCL Technologies has managed to keep its utilisation level, including trainees, at 75.6%, ahead of TCS, which had 72.1% during the quarter. For Infosys, utilisation including trainees stood at 70.1%.

“Bench is important when you are a growing organisation. You need to have a right composition of the bench to be able to support growth. Organisation needs to manage

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