Infosys, India's second-largest IT outsourcing company, had announced raises for employees on Friday. Employees had expected more and were disappointed, reports said.
But recipients of the hikes announced today for top performers are not likely to complain. At 15-20 percent, the hike is Infosys' highest for this category in three years, and way higher than the 6.5 percent average raise. This will help control attrition, a problem that the company has been grappling with.
Employees who are a notch below than the best but better than average performers got a 9 percent hike. Onsite employees i.e. who are working with clients in foreign locations, will get a 2 percent hike.
"But from the company's perspective, the message is clear - those that are high performers worth retaining are definitely going to be given higher hikes. But they won't go out of their way to retain the rest," said Anshuman Das, cofounder and chief operating officer at CareerNet Consulting, a recruitment firm.
Infosys has forecast revenue growth of 7-9 percent for the year ending March 2015. Vishal Sikka, CEO, who took over from founder NR Narayana Murthy last year, has made retention of good performers a priority, and had announced a wave of promotions last year. About three thousand employees had also received the latest version of Apple's iPhone.