HCLTech to roll out employee pay hikes from October amid strong growth

The IT firm will integrate quarterly variable pay with fixed pay from October, mainly benefiting junior staff, while attrition falls and fresher hiring gains pace

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HCLTech said it will roll out increments for its employees from October, following the steps of larger rival Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), which did so from last month, helped by strong revenue growth, better visibility into deals and significant revenue from artificial intelligence (AI).

 

HCLTech did not disclose details of the percentage hike it will give to its employee base of 226,640. The company, however, said it will follow a similar process adopted last year.

 

In a significant move, HCL has decided to merge the quarterly variable pay with fixed pay for all its employees which it says will benefit the junior employees.

 

“For a vast majority, the variable pay was linked to project-level performance. We are merging it with fixed pay so that it gets paid monthly. Quarterly performance-level pay was largely linked to junior employees and they will be the beneficiaries,” said Ram Sundararajan, chief people officer.

 

HCL clarified that annual performance bonus, which links pay to performance, will continue for senior and mid-level employees.

 

The company added 3,489 people in the second quarter ended September 30 and recruited 5,196 fresh engineering graduates during the same period. With that, HCL added about 7,180 freshers in the first half of the financial year.

 

In April, Sundararajan had said that the company will hire significantly more freshers in FY26 compared to FY25. Voluntary attrition for HCL fell 30 basis points to 12.6 per cent in FY26.