Bengaluru: Infosys NSE 1.31 % has kicked off a talent plan that offers incentives and wage hikes to more than 25,000 midlevel executives — slightly more than a tenth of its workforce — who gain skills in newer digital areas, as the software exporter looks to harness their domain expertise in legacy businesses to quicken growth in digital.
Infosys and other IT services firms have been struggling with flat or declining business in traditional services, which contribute nearly two-thirds to their revenue. The legacy business also has more expensive employees. The software services companies are training these employees in newer digital businesses, which is growing in the higher double digits.
“We have created comprehensive learning pathways for the mid-level managers. We have created something called digital tags and have linked incentives with them. While there are quarterly skill incentives, there is another pay growth on better billing (once they become experts in digital technology),” Krishnamurthy Shankar, group head of HR at Infosys, told ET.
In the newer digital and agile projects, mid-level managers need to work together with clients to solve a business decision, as opposed to traditional services where they largely coordinated with clients and programmers. “When we looked at it (upskilling the mid-level employees), we came up with four things that are areas where we will ensure there is investment in them. So, specialization in digital is the first area and we have identified 36 skills,” said Shankar.
The second important area for upskilling is expertise in process areas such as becoming an agile coach, while the third is becoming a specialist in their own service lines. The fourth core part is becoming a consultant, Shankar said.
Analysts said the upskilling of midlevel managers is becoming more relevant because companies such as Infosys are forced to take a consultative approach.
“Companies need to have a model wherein there is multi-level of speciality built into a single resource. This is about two things: being future ready and commercial viability of that resource,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, CEO of Greyhound Research.
Refer SkillReporter (www.SkillReporter.com) for skill development and The Edupress (www.TheEduPress.com ) for education related important News, Tenders, RFP, Jobs, EOI, Events, Announcements, Circulars, Notices and other useful updates. Content also shared on Facebook Twitter Linkedin
