Poor economy not an excuse for layoffs: Murthy

Poor economy should not be an excuse for laying off people especially in recession when it becomes inevitable for the corporate world, Infosys mentor N R Narayana Murthy said here today.

"In today's economic downturn, the challenge lies in having the courage to set an example that responsible profitability is a realistic achievement, and by using data to demonstrate that it is possible to preserve jobs in economic downturn while innovating to increase profits, productivity and efficiency," Murthy told reporters here.

It is simply too risky to pour money into projects or assets that may or may not yield desired results. Therefore, from the perspective of resource management, there is a case to be made for creative thinking and innovation to create new productivity and efficiency solutions from existing resources, Murthy said.

"The other imperative of Indian companies is to improve the lives of the largest number of Indians because that is how you can make this a better society," he said.

"Indian companies must embrace fairness, transparency and accountability to their stakeholders-customers, employees, investors, vendor-partners, the government of the land and society," Murthy said.

Rather than relying on the standard solution of cutting jobs, which is at best a stop-gap measure to temporarily improve numbers, the Infosys Founder said, "we should encourage employees at every level to contribute their ideas to generate sustainable, genuine improvements in productivity efficiency and profits".