Pay increases for junior staff were partially implemented by HCLTech during the October–December quarter. According to people who spoke to Moneycontrol, top performers received raises of roughly 3–4%, while many of them received increments of only 1-2 percent.
This contradicts the management’s statement that top performers will receive salary increases of 12–15 percent annually, with an average increase of 7 per cent.
With the exception of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the majority of leading IT companies postponed their usual wage raise cycles in FY25.
Sources claim that HCLTech began offering raises to its E0, E1, and E2 level employees—most of them are junior workers with up to ten years of experience.
Mid- to senior-level personnel in the E3 band and higher have not yet received raises. Moneycontrol was informed by two E3 level employees that they have not received any raises for at least the last two fiscal years.
The management of HCLTech also stated in FY24 that it did not conduct annual pay evaluations for senior to management level staff.
According to an employee source whose identity cannot be disclosed “E0-E2 got their letters in December last week. They got only about 1-2 percent hikes and even top performers got maximum 3-4 percent hikes. Employees in the E3 band and above are still awaiting appraisals, many of them didn’t get hikes for the last two years at least, and even three years for E4 levels.”
Responding to Moneycontrol’s queries, HCLTech didn’t share updates but reiterated its commentary from Q2 earnings conference, saying, “Typically, every year when you look at the review cycle, given the fact that we have a higher proportion of people who come in laterally into our system, who will become eligible for increases at the point of completing a year, the number of individuals eligible for increases during a given cycle. It is a function of that, plus the performance.”
“If I look at the average for all our colleagues in India, it will be in the range of about 7 percent. But, as is always the case, increases are linked to performance, and top performers will continue to see double-digit increases in the range of 12-15 percent. So, that’s the way we have planned our increases. It will all take effect from this month onwards. We have our own comp review cycles, which we follow every year,” the company’s chief people officer Ramachandran Sundararajan had said.
