Infosys wants to source half its workforce from countries where it operates

In a bid to leverage global talents, Infosys Ltd, India’s second largest software exporter, has set a goal of meeting at least 50 per cent of its staffing requirement in countries it operates by recruiting local employees. The company has launched aggressive recruitment programmes overseas, a top official said.

“We want to make sure that we are able to leverage best talents from different geographies. We have a goal — at least 50 per cent of our employee requirements outside India must be met by recruiting locally,”

S Gopalakrishnan, executive co-chairman of Infosys, told Business Standard.

“In certain countries such as China, Poland, Czech Republic, Mexico and Brazil, where we have development centres, we already have 90-95 per cent local employees,” he added.

Gopalakrishnan, however, acknowledged the lack of visibility of Indian information technology services companies as recruitment brands in countries other than the US could be a deterrent on the path of local hiring. To address that, Infosys has already launched various employee engagement programmes partnering with local governments. Recently, it had started a programme in Detroit, the US, to make the non-computer science graduates employable in the software industry. As a part of the programme, Infosys had trained about 100 non-computer science graduates from Detroit to its Mysore training facility. After completion of the training programme, about 27 of them have been given empl-oyment in the company.

Similarly, Infosys has also launched an apprenticeship programme in the UK in partnership with the National Apprenticeship Scheme. As a part of the programme, the company aims to train around 100 students over the next five years.

“We are starting to get well-known in the US, but when you go to countries like Germany and France, we are not that well-known. So, it’s a challenge to recruit and get the best people from colleges there and it will take some time,” Gopalakrishnan added.

As on June 30, Infosys employs 151,151 people belo-nging to 85 nationalities, of which 31,200 are located outside of India. The company is present in 30 countries, including the US, and around 6.5 per cent of its total employees are non-Indians.

With prolonging global economic recovery, most of the countries especially in North America and Europe are going through high unemployment rates. This is forcing the governments in those countries to create largescale job opportunities. This has also put a lot of pressure on Indian IT services companies to increasingly hire local employees in countries they operate.

In July, HCL Technologies Ltd announced it would hire 10,000 people in the US and Europe by 2015. Earlier this year, the Azim Premji-led Wipro Ltd had announced it would have 50 per cent of its onsite employees in various countries as local recruits.

Green efforts
As a part of sustainable practice, Infosys has set a target of meeting 100 per cent of its energy requirements from renewable sources by 2017-18.

Presently, 20 per cent of its energy requirements are coming from renewable sources, according to Gopalakrishnan.

He said as a part of its efforts to minimise the impact on environment, the company has also reduced the per capita power consumption by about 20 per cent in the last 18-20 months.

“It has saved us hard cash of $7 million which we would have paid towards electricity charges. Our new buildings are 50 per cent more energy efficient than our old buildings and now we are retrofitting our old buildings,” he added.