Infosys and Wipro, two major Indian IT companies, have announced a delay in their employee salary hikes. Infosys will implement the salary hikes starting from November 1, while Wipro will initiate them on December 1. These increments were confirmed during the companies’ recent second-quarter earnings calls. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest IT services provider, was the first to announce salary hikes for this fiscal year in July.
HCL Technologies, the third-largest IT services company in India, is also set to commence its salary hike process. The company, which typically conducts salary reviews in July, will now implement them from October. HCLTech plans to simplify and align its first-year compensation review cycle with the annual cycle for employees in three categories.
However, middle- and senior-level employees may be excluded from the current salary hike cycle at HCLTech. The company’s Chief People Officer, Ramachandran Surdararajan, stated in an email communication that they would proceed with compensation reviews for employees in the E0 to E3 bands. The effective date for increases will be retroactive to October 1, 2023, for E0 to E2 employees and effective from January 1, 2024, for E3 employees. E0 to E2 encompasses freshers to technical leaders, while E3 to E6 covers mid-level positions up to vice presidents. E7 and above represent senior-level employees. HCLTech decided to defer the wage hikes by a quarter, starting in October, and will initiate the appraisal cycle for FY24.
In the email, it was mentioned that the company would continue to skip the compensation review cycle for E4 and above band employees for this fiscal year. E4 includes middle-level employees, group project managers, and senior-level employees. The first-year compensation review will now be aligned with the annual compensation review cycle, taking effect in July for E0 to E2 employees, in October for E3 to E6 employees, and in January for E7 and above employees.
During the second-quarter earnings conference call on October 12, Ramachandran Surdararajan noted that the company had made two decisions in the previous quarter. First, middle managers and senior managers (E4 and above) would skip the pay revision cycle for the year, which remains unchanged. The second decision involved proceeding with the pay revision for the rest of their colleagues (E0 to E3), covering approximately 90% of their employees. He also mentioned that the quarterly variable pay constitutes only 3% of the individual’s annual compensation and confirmed that this quarter, all colleagues would receive their quarterly variable pay, with the majority of them expecting to receive over 85%.
