Infosys attrition – 4,000 employees leaving in the month of Feb ?
SOURCE: EconomicTimes
DATE: March 10th, 2010
A recent report by EconomicTimes mentions that brokerage firm CLSA suggest that close to 4,000 people may have left Infosys in the month of Februrary.
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Infosys Attrition Going Higher
Though the Infosys head of HR, Nandita Gurjar seems to have denied the high number of people indicated in the report , but confirms the fact that attrition is rising in the firm. She confirmed that the attrition is rising but not even close to the half way mark. Typically in these larger firms the number of people leaving are close to 1500 a month.
In an earlier post I had talked about attrition rates going up in Indian firms and the potential impact of that and how if your organization is with offshore vendors you need to re visit your planning and risk management plans to try to mitigate the risks. There is a serious time and cost impact if this issue is not managed correctly.
The number does appear to be on the higher side and folks we have spoken with have seen a spike in the attrition rate but not as high as the 4,000 number. Quarterly earning for this quarter by Infosys will be closely watched to get the real details around attrition in larger firms.
Firms like Infosys, TCS which have good training programs and spent the lean time last year taking people through more training courses, specially the ones who were not on projects are good hunting grounds for firms looking for qualified employees. Some of these people who have been on bench also have been there too long and are looking at opportunities where they feel more secure if they are working on actual client engagements vs internal projects.
Is bench strength the answer
Picture: NY Times
Bench strength , which some of the larger firms have more of than the smaller and mid size firms may be a tool , the vendors use to manage attrition but for their clients it is still a challenge. Resources , specially trained resources are harder to replace. One of our clients which is working with a large offshore vendor continues to see challenges in staffing and replacing outgoing team member in the vendor staff despite a large bench strength available. You just cannot replace a vendor staff by pulling someone from the bench, specially if the process, technology you are offshoring is complex. For lower end process it is a positive, not for complex, long ramp up learning time processes, technologies. There could be a fairly high cost impact if not managed correctly. One of the issues we try to address with our clients as they plan their transition projects is around knowledge transfer – during transitions and on going.
Here are some attrition numbers for some of the vendors as per their last quarterly report ( End of Dec 2009).
1) Infosys:
Attrition at 11.6%,
Total Employee Strength 109,882,
Net Addition this quarter 44,29 (Additional Details)
2) TCS:
Attrition Rate – 11.5% ( IT Services – 10.8%, BPO – 18.3%)
Total Employee Strength 143,761
Net Addition 7,692 (Additional Details)
3) Wipro:
Attrition Rate – IT services – 14.3%, BPO – 15%)
Total Employee Strength 102,746
Net Addition 4,855
4) Cognizant:
Attrition Rate: 11.2%
Total Employee Strength: 73,400
Net Addition : 10,300 ( includes UBS acquisition) (Additional Details)
5) Genpact:
Attrition Rate: 23% ( Pure play BPO firms have higher attrition)
Total Employee Strength: 38,600
Net Addition : 2,400 (Additional Details)
6) WNS:
Attrition Rate: 31% ( Pure play BPO firms have higher attrition)
Total Employee Strength: 21,392
Net Addition : 149 (Additional Details)
7) Syntel:
Attrition Rate: 11.2%
Total Employee Strength: 12,567
Net Addition : 1,080
iGate:
Attrition Rate:
Total Employee Strength: 6,910
Net Addition : 530
9) HCL Technologies:
Attrition Rate: IT Services – 12.8%, BPO Services – 21%
Total Employee Strength: 55,688
Net Addition : 1,691
10) EXL Services:
Attrition Rate: 22.6% ( billable)
Total Employee Strength: 10,736
Net Addition : 243
Mohit Sharma is the CEO of Corrystone Global Partners. Corrystone is a specialized globalization firm providing advisory, education and staffing services to firms in US and India. We work with firms in the US which are exploring low cost options for IT, Business Process work and looking at ways to further optimize cost and manage operational risk. For firms based in India we help with marketing presence , M&A & client management services in the US. Contact us at info@corrystone.com to learn more about how we could help you.
