Human Resource Community

Many firms see a spike in the attrition rates with a big shift towards digital services. The Indian IT sector is witnessing a multiyear growth phase due to the accelerated adoption of digital technologies for various digital services. During Covid-19. Because of this upsurge, a demand and supply mismatch can be seen in the digital skill with demand far outstripping the available pool of talent. Due to this the attrition rate at Wipro currently has increased to 15.5 percent from 11 percent., whereas in Infosys it is up to 13.9 percent from 7.8 percent and at the L&T Infotech it increased to 15.2 percent from 13.5 percent, on the other hand, TCS has managed to bring the attrition rate marginally to 8.6 percent from 8.9 percent. Sanjay Jalona, CEO & M, LTI said, “The market is extremely hot opportunities, attrition tare of everyone in the industry is high”. Source: thehindubusinessline.com

In a recent verdict the Madras High Court has stated that personal misunderstanding arising between a male and a female co-worker at the workplace cannot be deemed as sexual harassment. In a recent case, the Tamil Nadu Women’s Commission directed the Loyola College to pay a compensation of Rs 60 lakh to a woman employee of the college who was terminated in 2014. At the time it was established that the petitioner had been made to suffer at the College, for which she was to be compensated. The woman, Mary Rajasekaran, had filed a petition two years later, seeking permission from the College to take her back as a staff member. When all the records were re-examined, it was found that the first complaint filed by the petitioner, did not really indicate any allegations of sexual harassment leading to her termination. As per law, only unwelcome sexual behaviour in the form of physical contact and advances, or demand for sexual favours, making sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography or any other unwelcome physical, verbal or non-verbal conduct of sexual nature tantamount to sexual harassment. It was found that Rajasekaran’s position was merely changed to some other post on consolidate pay, after there was some personal feud between her and her superior, who was a principal and a priest. Nothing in her initial complaint indicated she had been sexually harassed. It was only later, when some criminal investigation began against her son that she raised an allegation of sexual harassment, which seemed like an after-thought. Therefore, the HC ruled that the order directing the college to heavy damages is definitely “liable to be interfered and not maintainable” and against the very statue under which the Commission was constituted. Source: The news has been published by HR Katha with a few edits from the ArdorComm News Network team.

The portal aims at keeping a record of all unorganized workers in its database toregister them for social-security benefits. India is a country where poverty runs rampant. The pandemic was a recent eye-opener to recognize thevoice of the people working in the unorganized sector in the country. The migrant crisis compelled usto think of the state of the unorganized workers.According to Financial Express, around 80% of our country’s population is employed in the informalsector. Of the 80% of people working in the unorganized sector, 40% work in agriculture. To keep a track of the unorganized workers in India, the government launched the e-Shram portal onAugust 26, 2021. Around 38 crore Indian unorganized workers will be registered in the portal includingthose working as labourers, street vendors, migrant workers, and domestic workers.A toll-free number- ‘14434’ was also launched by the government to address the issues related tounorganized workers or their queries. The portal will register all unorganized workers to provide themsocial-security benefits as per government guidelines.Workers can register themselves using their Aadhar and bank account numbers to register themselveson the portal. Once the registration process is complete, they will receive a unique e-Shram card witha 12-digit number. This card will help them avail various government policies and benefits.The details of all unorganized workers will be shared by all departments of respective states in thecountry.

In the surge of the upcoming hybrid workplace, employees’ benefits are again put behind filters.  A lot of company’s current benefits might not be as beneficial as it was before the pandemic. With this change, many employees are putting a lot of expectations from benefits proposition. As stated by Lauren Mason, a principal at Mercer, amanagement consulting firm. “Employees values have shifted quite significantly because of the stressors of pandemic and around child care and other concerns, as well just re-evaluating life circumstances”. This way a lot of new factors will get into consideration while calculating employees’ benefits. A lot of new factors are needed to be taken into consideration. As after facing off the pandemic and surviving it through various means. What we look at around us is a hybrid workforce altogether. Source: Wallstreetjournal

Now employers will be able to claim their tax credit based on the wages of employees, who are taking off to assist their family and household members, or even to people who look to the employees for caregiving help, to get vaccinated for COVID-19.This announcement was made by the treasury department and IRS for eligible employees to take paid leave tax credits under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). So that leaves can be provided to each employee getting the vaccineand also for the time required to recover from that vaccine, through September 30, 2021. Under this, the eligible employers generally will have less than 500 employees. The employers who were voluntarily giving sick leave or family leave will be able to claim tax credits equal to the wages paid for providing paid time off. Along with that, the employers are also allowed to claim tax credits for other wage-relatedexpenses, such as health plan expenses. This credit facility was created under the Families first Coronavirus Response Actand amended and extended by COVID-19 related tax relief act of 2020, which was then further extended underARPA till September 30.  Source: shrm.org

Employees and pensioners of Bihar government will now receive 28 per cent dearness allowance (DA) instead of 17 per cent. This hike will come into effect from July 1. The announcement about the increment in DA was made by chief minister Nitish Kumar on the occasion of Independence Day. Another announcement that brought much cheer to the women of the State is that the Bihar government’s incentive programme for examinees belonging to other backward classes (OBC) and economically backward classes (EBC), for the Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) and Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exams, will now be offered to all girls, regardless of the section of the society they come from. The scheme provides candidates who clear the preliminary exams of BPSC Rs 50,000 each and those who clear the UPSC prelims Rs one lakh each. Additionally, the income limit for students to avail the post-matric scholarship has also been increased from Rs 2.5 lakh per family per year, to Rs 3 lakhs per family per year. This benefit is extended to students from scheduled castes (SC), scheduled tribes (ST), other backward classes (OBC) and economically backward classes (EBC). This year, in April, the Government of Bihar had announced a month’s salary as bonus for all its frontline healthcare workers. This was granted to them in appreciation of their efforts in helping fight the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Source: HR Katha

Rob Enslin, president- cloud sales, Google has announced the beginning of the Autism Career Programme which aims to develop a system that provides a fair selection process for candidates with autism who wish to apply for a job position.  To ease the process they will work with experts from the Stanford Neurodiversity Project which is a part of Stanford School of Medicine to make this project worthy. People with autism applying for jobs often have to go through certain difficulties in the selection process for example having face to face interviews and needing more time during them but Google Cloud has provided them with an option to extend the duration of face to face interviews or to give them via Google docs to make the process easier. 500 Managers working in Google cloud who will conduct these processes will be helped by Stanford in handling people with autism and will help in facilitating people’s interaction with their employees and new managers. Autism is still sometimes considered a myth and autistic people often become victims of bullying and many meaningless stereotypes. This is a very healthy and equitable process to provide equal and fair treatment and represented these communities.

Hiring activities showed record-breaking growth in July. A sequential increase of 11 percent for overall hiring was seen in July. This shows a strong recovery in economic growth and business after the covid-19 impact. As per the report by Naukri.com, there were a total of 2,625 job postings, as the hiring trend grew to 11 percent in July, in comparison to 2,359 postings in June. Which is the highest ever increase seen in the job hiring.  The Naukri JobSpeak is a monthly index that calculates and records hiring activities, which is done based on per month job listings on the Naukri.com website. According to its report, businesses have continued to do well. Sectors of digitization, the IT software or software services sector have noticed its growth momentum with an 18 percent increase in July compared to June. Positive growth is seen in almost all the sectors. This has brought a wave of hope for job seekers, as per the report. Source: economictimes.com