The New Year surely brings with it some hope when it comes to hiring in the IT industry. With most industry leaders saying that the worst of the recession is over, Pratik Kumar, executive vice-president ? human resources? Wipro Limited, gives an insight on the change in the hiring environment and the rising bar in employee assessments, in an interview with FE?s Ayushman Baruah. Excerpts:
The buzz in the industry seems to be that the worst of the recession is behind us. How has the hiring environment changed?
The buzz is for real. The worst is certainly behind us and that is evident in the numbers of the larger companies and the results which have come out. We can clearly see that it is a much improved scenario and there is a sense of comfort, which is also reflected in the hiring numbers. If we look at our numbers in the last eight quarters, I think in Q3, we have had the highest net positive addition, which amounts to 4,855 employees.
In a challenging macro environment, it is crucial for any IT firm to retain high performers. How do you plan to achieve this?
We would like to do what gets done normally. There is no magic mantra to it. We need to differentiate our top performers significantly in terms of opportunities, rewards and recognition. But it?s not just about top performers. We have a lot of talented performers with us, so any exit is a loss to us. We have to ensure that all our employees? efforts are recognised be it in terms of training, learning or simply fair compensation. We have elaborate internal processes to gauge the potential of our employees.
When will you go for campus hiring this year? What are the numbers you are looking at?
We have already started visiting campuses but we can?t give a specific guidance on the numbers.
How competent are the new recruits with the required industry skills? How much does Wipro spend annually on training its workforce?
Potentially, they are smart. I don?t blame the students for not having the required skills because the industry requirements keep shifting. So, the organisations have to do their own bit to ensure they are competent. Obviously, there is a gap and till that gap remains, we have to keep investing in training them. I also feel that in India the entire training process is overdone and stretched. In a sense, we are either over doing it or doing it inefficiently. So, here we have an opportunity and challenge to correct ourselves. Wipro has about 10 weeks of training and annually we spend about 2% of our revenue in training alone (includes only the operating expense).
We hear that, over the past one year, many large IT companies, including Wipro, have been conducting more frequent and rigorous employee assessments which has led to a lot of attrition. Is it true?
The bar has certainly been raised and so have been the expectations of our customers. So, it is natural that organisations will also redefine their expectations from their employees. But this has nothing to do with the slowdown. Now, there is no slowdown but the assessments continue to be there. People must realise that proficiencies, capabilities and competencies are the ones which will make them grow. It?s easy for people to ride the tide when the going is good but the challenge lies when the going is tough.
Some of the freshers say that their salaries have been slashed from Rs 24,000 to Rs 6,000 and will only increase depending on whether they will have projects in hand or not. Is it true?
We are very open with this. We have told those students that we are bringing them in and post training they will be deployed in projects. For some reason, if they don?t have projects, then we would offer them a stipend of Rs 6000 and then, it is not necessary for them to come to office. We have done so because we realise that there is nothing more frustrating than a youngster who has just passed out to stay at home. We were open to those students in clarifying that our capacity or appetite to take them in is still not there.