Wipro rolls out 5-year salary plans for campus recruits

“We communicated a very clear five-year plan from career and compensation perspective. In the communication in offer letters we said how their salary will progress over the next five years. There is a lot of surety given to them on what is going to happen including the deferred bonus over and above the hikes that will take place,” Saurabh Govil, chief human resources officer, Wipro, said in an interview.

Campus hires represent the largest group of new recruits for most IT firms. Wipro has hired about 15,000 during the first half of this financial year. About 85% of its employees received 100% of the variable pay component.

Wipro’s retention strategy was rolled out after a talent war broke out as companies went on a hiring frenzy to meet the demand for digitizing operations for firms across sectors. Wipro said it will honour all offers it made so far, but onboard candidates in phases.

Govil said the dip in attrition in the third quarter was due to changing macro environment. It estimates attrition to hover around 20% as the demand-supply gap for talent reduces. “The market also played a role The supply-demand gap of talent is plateauing. Candidates are not carrying six offers any more, or demanding an outrageous premium on their compensation. Startups are seeing less liquidity and they are not hiring in crazy numbers.“

Wipro recorded an attrition rate of 23% (LTM) a “moderation” of 30 basis points from April-June).

Tata Consultancy Services saw an increase in its attrition for the second quarter at 21.5% against 19.7% in Q1 and HCL’s remained flat at 23.8%.

Wipro is cracking the whip on moonlighters. “It is ongoing and we are taking action against them,” said Govil. The firm is using different tools to track them. “Lot of technology is available. There are startups that crawl employees and what they do.”