Despite Covid-19 induced slowdown, Infosys to do campus hirings this fiscal

The IT firm will soon initiate discussions with colleges to start the process from September

Country’s second largest IT services firm Infosys says it will go to college campuses for hiring of freshers despite demand disruption due to Covid-19.  

Though the company did not reveal the number of freshers it will offer jobs this year, it is likely to be around the same of last financial year. The Bengaluru-headquartered IT firm had sent letters to 18,000 freshers last year.

“We will soon talk to colleges for freshers who will join next year. We have to talk to them when they will be ready (for the campus programme) and there will be newer processes like remote (onboarding),” said Krish Shankar, executive vice-president and the group head of human resource development at Infosys.

“We have onboarded most of the lateral hires to whom we have given offers remotely. On onboarding of freshers from campus (who were given job offers last year), we will honour all those offers and make the announcement in due course,” he said.

Indian IT services firms are adding more number of people on the junior level in order to maintain right employee pyramid structure. Most of them are also doing cost optimisation by reducing number of staffers in the mid-level.

However, the HR head of Infosys said the company was not following any cost optimisation moves. “There is no optimisation (in the mid-level). Last year, we hired a lot many people at the junior level. What we have also done is that we have not done promotion in the leadership level. So, there is no optimisation of workforce but there is of course focus on how we remain effective,” said Shankar.

While there is no focus on employee optimisation at offshore locations, Infosys will continue its localisation drive in the US and European geographies.

“Localisation will continue as there is a demand for resources from clients. Some of it may change due to remote working but it will continue. So, as long as demand is there, we need local talent with right skill,” Shankar said.

He said attrition of the company would come down further in the coming quarters owing to its employee engagement initiatives and the ongoing pandemic.

“Two years back, our attrition was more than 20 per cent, which has come down to around 15 per cent (organic) in Q4FY20. With Covid-19, it will come down further,” Shankar said.

According to the company, many employee engagement initiatives such as power programmes and bridge programmes for employees have helped the firm to reduce the attrition level.