Infosys HR to introduce new career path

BANGALORE, INDIA: Starting coming quarter (Q4 2010-2011), Infosys Technologies is commencing a management course for its engineers, clearing which would make them eligible for business administration responsibility. The IT bellwether is in talks with B-schools for setting the curriculum and faculty for the students.

This four- month course will be conducted in Infy's Mysore Development Center. Said Mohandas Pai,  member of the Board and director-Human Resources, Education and Research and Administration, Infosys, “This is a huge step for the engineers. A lot of our employees would have the options for switching gears and move up the career path. We are talking to B-schools for the setting the platform, curriculum etc.”

The company aims at bringing down the proportion of engineers against those in the consulting and administration. Pai said, “We are a technology company, hence our focus will be towards building technology domain experts. We aim to make Infosys a company that marries both domain expertise with technology. At present the company has around 80 per cent of core engineers, we aim to bring that proportion to 60 per cent, while the remaining strength would consist of engineers with business administration capability.”

Apart from training the employees from within the company, Infosys is actively hiring laterals and B-school graduates. It aims at hiring around 1000 lateral in next 2-3 years. Last quarter it hired around 100 B-school graduates.

“Engineers can voluntarily apply for the course but the admission to the course would be determined through a test. This would be a Common Aptitude Test (CAT)-like test,” said, Nandita Gurjar, senior VP and global HR head, Infosys.

She added that on completion of this rigorous course, an engineer could move up to the consulting, solutions and many more streams. Though these certifications are acclaimed by Infosys, she believes that the responsibilities and the projects taken up by the respective candidate would qualify him for similar roles across the industry.