Wipro staff unsure about 'pending' wage hike

BANGALORE, INDIA: At its fourth quarter results announcement on April 25 this year, Wipro Limited assured its employees of a wage hike roll-out by June.

Back then, chief executive officer and executive director, IT Business, T.K. Kurien, said, "We will give a compensation increase on June 1 (2012) and we continue to live by that date." Without quantifying the figure, he also said that it would be in line with their peers, who have offered a hike.

Industry peer Tata Consultancy Services had already offered a salary increment of 8 per cent for its employees by then, and it was expected that Wipro's figure would also be around that benchmark. In the range of 6-10 per cent, if not more.

It's mid-July now, as we are well aware of, and up to the knowledge of many employees of its IT division, the increment in compensation has either been put on hold or is being rolled out lately.

Merit Salary Increase (MSI) letters — salary hike communique in Wipro's parlance — were getting despatched from July 9, say some insiders. But their grouse is that the hike percentage is not what was promised, but starts from only 5 per cent.

Sample this: "Guys, Complete lie of atleast 8%.. MSI letters are out today (9 July 2012) and people have got hike of about 5% on CTC.. This is peanuts. I had joined Wipro in July 2011, and i have not yet got the MSI letter. I was told at time of joining that i would get a hike but have not got yet. Will i too get a hike?" (sic). It is a comment on CIOL's previous article on wage hike announcement by Wipro last quarter.

Read the report and the comments it has drawn here:

Wipro staff in for about 8 p.c. hike by June

At the same time, another reader gave a wider range, stating, "Wipro Salary MSI latter are out, employees are getting 3% to 14% hike depends on account and BU." (sic)

Many other comments from other self-declared 'Wiproites' are also along similar lines. "i joined by july 2010 but i am not reciving any hike, the reason told was i am billiable for long time.. being billiable or non billiable is not my mistake, if wipro doest have projects.. even as a shadow resource i worked for wipro not any other company.. i want Justice.." (sic) is one among the slew of complaints.

One CIOL reader, who has commented with the moniker Wipro Abhi, said on June 27 that he just heard that letters would be released by end of July.

Also read: Only 20,000 will get a hike now: Infosys CFO

When we did a reality check with our sources in the company, it was also met with mixed reactions. Some were either aware of or were informed about the hike through other co-workers, while the rest didn't get even a whiff of it. "I am not very sure of any people on my team or other colleagues I know of getting a hike recently. But there were some talks among some employees that it was around 3-5 per cent," said Nischal Bora*, a programmer analyst.

A project engineer, Geetha Shankar* from Bangalore, told us that some of her seniors did get a hike this month. "I heard from some of my team-mates that the MSI letters were sent out early this month, but am not sure about the figure."

On being contacted, a Wipro executive assured that the hike roll-out this year would be in line with that of last year, when MSI letters were despatched throughout July. The hikes would depend on employee skillsets, experience, performance, grade, vertical and BU, apart from the assessment by their L1 and L2 managers, and be effective June 1, 2012, he added.

The company is observing silent period ahead of its first quarter 2012 results announcement, presumably on July 24.

(Employee names have been changed on request)