BANGALORE, INDIA: With its huge investment in the training and facilities Infosys Technologies, might have earned fame among the freshers, but the company seems to be loosing sheen among the existing employees. They are seen becoming active on the social media, expressing their grievance over the new HR policies.

Some of the major concerns are new roles introduced in the hierarchy, extended work timings and lower salaries than industry standards. The employees are also upset about the compulsory certification being introduced by the company for each level of the role and leadership, and the improper management of acknowledging the promotions.

While all of them agree with the world-class training and the brand image that one gets as a fresher along with the on campus facilities like that of Development Center (DC) at Mysore, they say these brand value and the motivation come down with time, as the new policies that were introduced as a result of the downturn and cost cutting are disappointing and lack practicability.

A Hyderabad-based Technology Analyst, who is currently on roll at Infosys said in a review posted at Glassdoor website (http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/infosys-reviews-SRCH_KE0,7.htm) that it is a crime to stay in the company for more than two years. Highlighting his personal experience, he said, “With iRACE and the new CRR policies, career will stagnate after two years of serving this organization. Hikes come in a trickle. The top performers are expected to work 12 - 15 hours a day and still get peanuts in return. Motivation levels of a majority of employees are on an all time low.”

iRACE stands for Infosys Role and Career Enhancement, it was introduced in May, and was revised in the October. When asked about these grievances, T V Mohandas Pai, Member of the Board and Director-Human Resources, Education and Research and Administration, said that the new policies are reaping seeds and these metrics help assure that the right person is awarded with the right role.

He said, “The employees who are promoted, or are at various roles must posses certain role maturity and show consistency in performance. We recently promoted about 23,000 employees. And if any employee feels injustice, can directly reach to the top management through emails. The rules of mandatory attendance of 9.15 working hours has been around since 1994, and not as a response to the cost-cutting measure, so there shall not be any changes in these timings.”

This, interestingly, contradicts the information shared by the employees. As told to CIOL, by a Bangalore-based employee, who has been with the company for more than three years, the mandatory timings were 8.8 hrs until March 2008. He also said about another employee who sends letter of complaint to top management and has to face the ire of his superiors, who get offended by the negative words in the letters.

One of the new policies introduced is the a new role of Technology Analyst. When asked, Nandita Mohan Gurjar SVP and Group Head, HRD, Infosys Technologies Limited, said, “We observed that employees were interested in working on technology for longer period. We had introduced this new role of Technology Analyst in order to help them stay with technology and understand the upcoming role more closely. The role of Technology Analysts that comes after Senior Software Engineer and the next movement in the role hierarchy (Program Analyst) comes after two years of working as a Technology Analyst.

According to the employees, this increases the years taken to become a Program Manager (PM). A software engineer, who earlier required 8-10 years to become a PM now, spends two-three years more to reach that level. Moreover, we learned about a common line that goes for the company: 'Infosys looks after its garden and buildings more than its employees'.

According to a survey on India’s Best Companies to Work For’ - 2009, produced by Great Place to Work Institute, India as a special supplement in The Economic Times, Infosys was ranked at 32 among top 50 companies, behind lesser known companies like Mando India Ltd, Acclaris Business Solutions Pvt Ltd and Hardcastle Restaurants Pvt. Ltd.

Though the attrition rate, as compared to last quarter (ended Sept 30 2009) was higher by 0.7 per cent only. The actual number show that number of employees that left within this quarter is around 12746, while in last quarter it was around 11494. This means around 1252 employees have left the company in span of three months (October, November and December).

The company announced to hire 24,000 professionals, which would include laterals as well. But the employees feel that given the huge capacity of bench (with no active project/client to work on), the company should focus on utilizing the present resource. As per the information gathered, around 1000 employees in Pune DC were on bench for almost a year. To this, Gurjar added that proper employee assessment takes place and it is looked at that the existing bench is utilized in three months.

According to the company, the attrition rate is very marginal and not a matter of concern, however, since the job market is opening up, more employees might look at bidding adieu to the company.