Infosys relaunches employee stock option plan to control rising attrition rate

Infosys, the Indian multinational corporation, has brought back its employee stock option plan (ESOP) for junior to middle level management staff, in a bid to control the rising attrition in the company.

As per reports, the attrition rate stood at 21% in the first quarter of 2016. However, the company is not "unduly concerned" about this rising rate, which was 17.3% in the last quarter, prior to which it was 19.2%.

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"Today, we relaunched our ESOP programme after a gap of 10-years plus, after about 13 years. We are rewarding about 7,500 of our employees from junior to middle level management with restricted stock options and we will extend it to middle management to senior leaders and title holders subsequently," Infosys COO UB Pravin Rao said.

He continued while saying that Infosys would maintain its focus on revamping the skills of its employees, while also revamping its leadership development programmes for their benefit.

As per Infosys tradition, ESOPs allow its employees to own equity in the company, providing a boost to their morale.

Infosys, which employed 1,97,050 people by the end of June 2016, has added 13,268 (gross) and 3,006 (net) people in the 2016 Q1.

However, he added that even though the attrition levels have gone up, Infosys has not let go of its "high performers".

Also read: After stock options, Infosys to offer incentives to attract and retain valued employees

"We are really encouraged, we also track high performers' attrition, which has come down. Earlier last quarter, it was 13.4% and this quarter, it has come down to 11.2%, so we are encouraged by that," he said.

Rao added that even though Infosys will "watch out" for the rising rates, it is "not unduly concerned", since it lays its focus on employee experience and engagement.

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