Bonus for top performer & change in compensation structure by Infosys
BENGALURU: India’s second-largest software exporter Infosys has started handing out special bonuses and incentives to top-performing employees and sales executives — on top of their regular salaries and incentives — and plans to hire about 20,000 engineering graduates from campuses in financial year 2016-17, roughly similar to the number of campus offers it has made this year, a top company executive said.
“What we are trying to experiment with is — we have a regular compensation structure which is base plus bonus. And bonus component depends on how the company and individual has performed. So, that structure will continue — in addition, every quarter based on what we think is imperative, we’re experimenting (with something new) and this changes every quarter. So suppose, this quarter there is an important metric, we are announcing a (separate) incentive,” said Infosys chief operating officer UB Pravin Rao in an interview on Thursday.
Rao said this special incentive structure has been put in place this financial year to help the company meet its short-term quarterly targets more effectively. This quarter, for instance, Infosys is incentivising its sales organisation on how well they manage to sell the company’s newly-launched Aikido line of services.
“We’re saying, if you meet X million of revenue, then we’ll clear this kitty and over and above the net, we’ll give them this much. So those are incremental bonuses or incentive schemes that we’ve come up with, just to make sure that there is more alignment to some of the short-term things we’re trying to do, in addition to regular bonuses which is based on overall performance,” Rao told ET.
“This half, the focus is more on selling our new Aikido services. So, we’re trying to incentivise people on that. So whoever does X million of revenue, over the next 6 months, there is a separate kitty that is given out to them,” he added.
Infosys is also in early discussions internally to potentially revamp its current startup incubator program and potentially launch an accelerator-like program within the company for startups, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said, requesting anonymity. Rao, however, said that these talks were at a “very early stage” and the company has not yet figured out what shape and form it will take finally. “On the accelerator thing, it’s still early days. It has not reached a stage where we can conclude on anything. We’re in very early stages of conversations — nothing more to add at this stage.
