As the tech and startup industry struggles with issues like delayed onboarding of freshers, lack of enough employees on bench, layoffs and massive churn at senior leadership levels, new HR heads have been appointed in companies like Tech Mahindra, Cognizant, Infosys, Mphasis, KPIT, Byju’s, Freshworks and others.
Last week, Tech Mahindra appointed former HR head and executive vice president of Infosys, Richard Lobo, as its chief people officer. He’s not alone. In the last 10 months, about five new HR heads have joined Indian firms.
Lobo resigned from Infosys in August last year. After putting in his papers, Lobo helped in overhauling Byju’s HR division and improving the company’s culture for a brief period, before joining Tech Mahindra.
Similarly, Freshworks saw its HR head Suman Gopalan resigning last year, who was immediately succeeded by Johanna Jackman. Another unicorn, Flipkart, saw its HR head resigning last year. Reports stated that the company will soon announce the successor.
Midcap IT services company Mphasis in October last year announced the appointment of Ayaskant Sarangi as its new global chief human resource officer. Before joining Mphasis, Sarangi served as CHRO at Wipro Enterprises, where he led human resources functions.
After Cognizant’s chief people officer Becky Schmitt resigned in April, the IT major appointed Kathryn Diaz as its CPO. Krishnamurthy Shankar, former group head – human resource, Infosys, retired from the company and Infosys made Shaji Mathew the group head of human resource development. Similarly, engineering services firm KPIT elevated Shashwat K Mitra to the position of global head of human resources in July last year.
Analysts say that the tech industry — both IT services companies and startups — has been seeing a major churn in the HR department. Whether its during massive boom or times of uncertainties like at present, the HR department has its task cut out.
While many IT companies have seen recent leadership changes and reduction in employee headcount, startup as a sector is witnessing major layoffs amid a funding winter.