Infosys to reward staff moving to small towns

In a move to decongest its Tier-1 development centres (DC), including Bengaluru, Infosys, among India’s largest software companies, is providing additional rewards to employees who are willing to move to smaller towns.

According to employees, the HR department of Infosys has put out flex-banners in cafeteria zone of the Bangalore centre to encourage employees to make the move. This advertisement is in addition to an official communication sent to employees regarding guidelines on DC transfer allowance during the end of March.

Some employees who spoke to The Hindu in terms of anonymity said, “The company offers an incentive in the range of Rs 3 lakh and Rs 5 lakh for people in job-levels 5 and 6, who are willing to move to development centres in Mysuru, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru, Bhubaneshwar and Jaipur. Other employees may also get incentives for shifting from Tier 1 centres as per limits in the policy.”

A mail sent to Infosys seeking more details on the new DC transfer guidelines for senior and junior employees went unanswered.

However, in an official communication to employees, a copy of which has been accessed by The Hindu , Infosys has said, “The new guidelines aims at rewarding employees to encourage them to undergo permanent transfers to certain Tier-2 development centres to meet staffing needs, infrastructure availability with help of internal resources.”

This move is also seen as its strategy to strengthen presence in small towns and also ramp up hiring in these regions.

Infosys has development centres in 11 cities including major cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR and smaller towns like Mysuru, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh and Jaipur, among others. As on March 31, 2016 the company had a headcount of 176,187.

At present, Infosys has an infrastructure with seating capacity of 196,848 of which 38,121 seats are in Bangalore.

The company is also in the process of building a facility with capacity of 25,377 of which 19,387 are in DCs at Mysuru, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangaluru and Bhubaneshwar.

“Infosys is expanding in smaller towns and they are looking to hire more people in these towns. As the hiring grows, the need for managing people will also grow and in smaller towns it is difficult to find experienced people,” said Kris Lakshmikanth, Managing Director at The Head Hunters India.

Infosys, in its employee communication, also said the new rewards would be paid as one-time allowance over and above the entitlements which already exist under its India transfer policy.

Further, the policy guidelines state that the transferred employees should work for at least 24 months in the Tier-2 development centre, to be eligible for the benefit.

Recently, Infosys had rolled out many employee schemes such as gifting iPhone 6s to 3,000 employees, providing work from home for 9 days in a month, withdrawing dress code for employees, among others.