After TCS, Infosys reportedly plans to double salaries for 'coding experts'

• Infosys looks to double the number of campus recruits from top engineering colleges — including IITs and NITs — to create a digitally skilled talent pool.
  
• These freshers will be hired as ‘power programmers’ and offered twice the salary extended to other campus hires.
  
• The tech major will also shortlist existing employees with an internal coding test or hackathons.
• Also, the ‘Digital Tag’ initiative will incentivise employees that are proficient in any of the 32 skills identified by the company.

Freshers who are expert at coding have a lot to gain as the technology major Infosys looks to double the number of campus recruits from top engineering colleges — including IITs and NITs — to create a digitally skilled talent pool.

These freshers will be hired as ‘power programmers’ and offered twice the salary extended to other campus hires. Last year, the company hired nearly 500 freshers from campuses.

The idea is to identify the top performers right after the training period to materialise on their digital skills. Under the initiative, the company will identify the top 5% of the employees after training — which will be given preference over other hired candidates at the time of promotions and incentives.

Existing employees too can also benefit from the ‘power programmer’ initiative. The tech major will shortlist these employees with an internal coding test or hackathons. “Once they become power programmers, their salary gets doubled. And we are seeing it double every year,” Krish Shankar, executive vice-president and head of HR at Infosys told Business Standard.

‘Digital tag’

The software giant is banking on its young employees for digital readiness. The ‘Digital Tag’ initiative will incentivise employees who are proficient in any of the 32 skills identified by the company — including four niche skills. The company offers special quarterly bonuses to 2,000 skilled employees, Shankar said.

“Over the past 2-3 years, we have reimagined many of our internal processes. New technologies are now coming in. Hence, the process of managing and training talent is also changing,” he added.

On similar lines, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) also launched its National Qualifier Test for freshers and experienced employees to achieve higher pay packages. The company said that the salary of freshers will be double the slated entry level compensation, if they get through the test.

See also:
Benching, firing and re-deploying — the story of 20,000 employees at tech majors

TCS fresh hires can double their salary if they pass an internal test