In what is viewed as an effort to increase staff morale, Infosys, India's second largest software company, has implemented a cash award scheme for senior workers who help with lateral hiring.
An employee will receive 700 points (Rs 700) per interview. Employees can claim the incentive for interviews conducted within the last five months, as the programme is retroactively effective beginning January 1.
According to a senior employee who spoke to The Times of India, this is the first time Infosys has implemented such an incentive-based scheme. The Bengaluru-based Information Technology (IT) giant's strategy, however, limits the cash incentive for recruitments within India.
This is an indication of employee support for the interview process since the IT sector prioritises lateral recruitment over delayed campus hiring.
Infosys' reward programme comes at a time when the software services sector is facing a scarcity of experienced workers with specialist capabilities, particularly in Artificial Intelligence (AI), due to slowing global demand and trade wars in its main growth areas.
The senior employee further told The Times of India, the strategy was designed to placate staff who were dissatisfied with the 5-8 per cent salary increases for FY24 and the accompanying smaller performance bonus distribution for the March quarter.
While few companies have such a policy, a few large and mid-sized technology companies, such as Honeywell, Accenture, and Sonata Software, are known to provide both cash and non-cash incentives to encourage employees to participate in interview panels and invest in attracting the best talent from the pool of available candidates in the industry.
