This story is from November 27, 2018

Infosys helps employees upskill, doubles salary

Infosys is doubling pay packages for employees who successfully complete its new bridge programmes. The company expects this initiative will also reduce attrition at junior levels — the rate has been high in recent times at over 20% — and give young employees more growth options.
Infosys helps employees upskill, doubles salary
Key Highlights
  • Infosys has developed more than half-a-dozen bridge programmes.
  • Bridge programmes help staff to shift from their existing job to one that demands higher skills.
  • The company expects this initiative will also reduce attrition at junior levels.
  • TCS and Wipro are also coming up with novel methods to skill employees.
BENGALURU: Infosys is doubling pay packages for employees who successfully complete its new bridge programmes. These are programmes that help staff to shift from their existing job to one that demands higher skills.
The company expects this initiative will also reduce attrition at junior levels — the rate has been high in recent times at over 20% — and give young employees more growth options.
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Indian IT firms, including TCS and Wipro, are coming up with novel methods to skill employees in fields like consulting, automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, and to make them stay for longer durations.

Infosys has developed more than half-a-dozen bridge programmes.
400 undergo Infosys’ bridge programmes
The bridge-to-consulting programme, started this year, targets young employees who on average have spent three years with the company. That’s the time period after which many look for jobs in rival companies for a promotion and a fatter salary, or pursue higher studies, preferably an MBA. The programme, aimed to move employees to the consulting side of the business, includes a test and a three-month curriculum. Post that, the employee has to spend six months interning in a consulting project, and upon completion, the role changes and the new salary structure kicks in.

“We are focused on creating a flexible internal market place for our talent to grow, instead of them leaving to join, say, an MBA course. These programmes provide people with alternative career growth opportunities,” Krish Shankar, head of human resources at Infosys, told TOI.
Infosys said that employees who go through the programmes have seen their salary rise by 80-120%. Some 400 people have been trained in these programmes till date.
The company declined to disclose the base salary on which the increases have been provided. But considering that a fresh engineering graduate starts at about Rs 3.5 lakh per annum and assuming an average hike of 10% for three consecutive years, a bridge programme could take the salary close to Rs 9 lakh, similar to what an MBA graduate may receive.
Other bridge programmes include a bridge to power programming, for those who want to do high-level programming, a bridge to design, to full-stack development, and to tech architecture. Power programmers have to take a test and crack a hackathon. For design, the company used to hire people from the National Institute of Design (NID), but now is looking to upskill its own employees as the field is set to grow exponentially with digital technologies. “The demand for these skills will rise as we scale, and these programmes give us flexibility,” said Shankar. The bridge to consulting programme is also part of the company’s effort to focus more on consulting as it looks to ramp up a segment that is dominated by the likes of IBM, Capgemini, Accenture, and Deloitte. Clients are today looking to IT vendors for advice on digital transformation and not just have them manage their backend operations.
Asked if Indian companies were late to map careers for their employees, Shankar said firms were doing it. “As the industry changes, demand for people with specific skills is growing. Earlier, consulting was seen more as an MBA profile,” he said.
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