Infosys to induct junior level employees into consulting division

BANGALORE: India's second-ranked software exporter Infosys said it will begin inducting junior level employees into its consulting division by re-training them. Until now, only senior- and middle-level employees were hired for the vertical.

A junior employee at Infosys has about two-five years experience. Infosys has also decided to rope in those hired from business schools into this division, a high margin business -the recent acquisition of Europe-based consultancy Lodestone pushed revenues up 6.3% sequentially.

"Till now we used to have only middle and senior level employees in the consulting division but expect more projects coming in under consulting segment and have started training juniors in this vertical," said Nandita Gurjar, head of human relations at the Bangalore-based company.

Gurjar said the re-skilling had started two-three months ago and those on the company's bench will be trained for the same.

The firm will be muted in its new hiring till employee utilisation rates go up by another 7-8%, said CEO SD Shibulal. Utilisation rates for the firm in the December quarter hovered around 70.1%.

The human relations head also hinted at muted increments for the information technology industry in the new fiscal. "We have just rolled out a 6-8% raise for our employees and 2-3% for onsite ones in October. As far as industry is concerned, our studies show that their next increment may be half of what we have given," said Gurjar.

Infosys unlike its peers deferred its increments in March-April and announced them in October. Gurjar did not reveal if Infosys will announce another round of hikes in March-April. "We are yet to take a call on that."