Human Resource Community

At this week’s Wings India airshow, Airbus, the European aircraft maker, is expected to announce job openings for high-end engineering and IT talent from India. It will be searching for people to fill positions in the areas of avionics software, aviation system simulation, and airframe. Cybersecurity, API development, full-stack development, big data, cloud and DevOps, and IoT all offer numerous opportunities. “India’s strength resides in its talent, ability to grow volume, and presence of possibly the greatest engineering and IT technology partner ecosystems in the world,” says Suraj Chettri, regional director – human resources, Airbus India & South Asia. Chettri said that the company will use Indian talent for its global programmes. Airbus now employs 7,000 people in India, with plans to hire 2,000 more engineers and IT professionals by the end of 2022. Airbus said in January that it would hire 6,000 people worldwide in the first quarter of 2022 throughout the entire Group, as well as conduct a mid-year appraisal to modify needs accordingly. A quarter of the recruiting will be devoted to finding employees with the capabilities needed to work on decarbonisation, digital transformation, and cyber technology. A third of the positions will be filled by recent graduates. Thierry Baril, Airbus’ chief human resources and workplace officer, stated that the company had stayed resilient throughout the Covid issue and that it plans to hire new talent in a variety of fields to help the company expand its operations as it emerges from the crisis.

Bharti Airtel (‘Airtel’) has improved its parental policy perks for employees as part of its effort to create a diverse and inclusive workplace. In addition to 26 weeks of maternity leave, the Indian communications solutions firm is also paying its returning female employees a special childcare payment of Rs 7,000 per month. This childcare allowance will be provided to them until the child reaches the age of 18 months. It will be granted even if the child is adopted. “We did so with the goal of developing a more diverse and inclusive workplace.” “We hope that this would encourage more women to continue working at Airtel as they progress through crucial life phases,” says Amrita Padda, Bharti Airtel’s chief people officer. New mothers can work for up to 24 weeks after maternity leave and return to active work at their own pace. This helps them to spend more time with the new born. But that’s not all. New mothers can also take two additional paid leave days for daycare per quarter. New fathers who are primary caregivers can take up to eight weeks of paternity leave under the enhanced parental policy. Airtel is proud of “making meaningful innovations that make a mark,” according to Padda. We need to stay ahead of the curve and examine our policies in order to further reinforce our workplace and work practices.”

Capgemini, a French technology company, has announced that by 2022, it’ll have hired 60,000 new employees in India. According to Ashwin Yardi, CEO, the recruitment drive was made possible by the growing need for digital-led solutions. Freshers and lateral talent will make up the new hires, with an emphasis on upcoming technologies like 5G and quantum. Capgemini employs 3,55,000 people, half of whom are based in India and work there. In partnership with Ericsson, Capgemini launched a 5G lab in India in 2021. In the last few months, this lab has gained a lot of traction. Aiman Ezzat, Capgemini’s group CEO, indicated last month that India will have a bigger role in overseeing the company’s operations in the coming months. He also stated that the company would focus on producing leaders in India, who would eventually be able to lead teams across the globe. The firm employs 100 account executives, all of whom are working toward becoming global account executives. It has also ordered the construction of new centres of excellence in India this year. The three technologies that will be major growth drivers for the Company in the future are quantum, 5G, and Metaverse. Capgemini is establishing labs to develop solutions for these technologies for its global customers. Source: Economic Times

Citi Commercial Bank (CCB), which serves mid-sized businesses in more than 60 countries, has announced plans to add 900 workers over the next three years, including over 400 commercial bankers. According to a press release from the company, the commercial bank would attain growth by hiring more people in developed and major emerging markets and using existing institutional infrastructure. “Citi Commercial Bank anticipates that the financial needs of this critical client segment will evolve, requiring the sophisticated banking solutions…” says the release. As a result, the bank is substantially investing in this sector, with the majority of new hiring centred in places where commercial activity is expected to go up, such as the United States, China, Brazil, India, and Western European countries. “In today’s interconnected world, mid-sized companies quickly outgrow the capabilities of a local or even a regional bank. They are going global faster and reaching scale sooner than ever before,” comments Tasnim Ghiawadwala, Global Head, Citi Commercial Bank. The commercial bank is focusing on deepening penetration in developing, high-growth disruptor sectors by recruiting industry specialist senior bankers and improving training and development for existing bankers, in addition to entering new markets and expanding its digital capabilities. “CCB will focus on deepening client relationships through investment in our bankers and digital channels and by providing multiple client touchpoints into the rest of Citi. My priority is to unleash the power of Citi to this client set with market share gains to follow,” Ghiawadwala mentioned.    

Google has relaxed a number of its COVID-19 measures and protocols associated with vaccination, testing and social distancing for its US employees. in a mail written to San Francisco Bay Area employees, David Radcliffe, VP, Google land and Workplace Services said that the corporate has decided to relax a number of the testing and vaccination policies introduced during the pandemic. Now Google doesn’t require vaccination for employment in the company for US workers. In January, Google said that each employee had to go through regular testing, even the vaccinated ones. However, now this rule has been relaxed. Furthermore, some of the social-distancing norms like wearing a mask at the workplace also are relaxed for the US employees. Employees working in cities where the caseload is high should require to wear masks, but this protocol may soon be lifted. some of the workplace perks also will return with this reversal in policy. Certain fun areas and informal gathering places at the workplace will now be open to be used Fitness centres, massage rooms, breakfast and lunch areas, lounges, game rooms, music rooms and massage chairs will now be available to be used. Full shuttle service also will resume for US employees, reveals Radcliffe’s mail. Unvaccinated employees at Google will, however, still be required to follow social distancing and regular testing protocols. The mail also states that the company will start its 30-day transition to a hybrid workplace model, where employees are required to return to the office for 3 days in a week. Google has still not selected a date to resume offices for employees. Source: CNBC

The Karnataka legislative assembly on February 22 passed bills hiking salaries and allowances of the chief minister, ministers as well as the legislators. this will mean a further recurring yearly expenditure of about Rs 92.4 crore. These bills have been pending for a long time and were proposed on the premise of increasing cost of living. The bill sought to increase the Chief Minister’s salary from Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000 per month. It seeks to hike the salary of ministers from Rs 40,000 to Rs 60,000 per month. The sumptuary allowance for both are going to be hiked from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4.50 lakh a year. The house rent allowance of ministers is to go up from Rs 80,000 per month to Rs 1.20 lakh per month, while the allowance to take care of these houses and premises has also been hiked from Rs 20,000 per month to Rs 30,000 a month. Henceforth, Rs 2,000 are going to be paid towards petrol charges by the govt , instead of the earlier Rs 1,000. As per the bill, the legislative assembly speaker and the chairperson of the legislative council will enjoy a salary of Rs 75,000 instead of the earlier Rs 50,000. The monthly salary of the leaders of the opposition also will increase to Rs 60,000 from the earlier Rs 40,000 per month. The tour allowance for the ministers are going to be Rs 2,500 per day. The MLAs and MLCs may now expect to a salary of Rs 40,000 per month instead of the earlier Rs 25,000. Source: PTI

Kotak Mahindra Bank announces a New Mother Benefit policy, which will help provide financial support to new mothers for a period of one year after return to work, which will benefit them and their newborns. Under the New Mother Programme, new mothers will get an allowance for a period of 12 months, ranging from the day the new mother joins back after maternity leave. Newly-joined employees and people who have recently adopted a toddler also are eligible for the benefit. Sukhjit Pasricha, president & group chief human resources officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank, reveals that women employees make up nearly a quarter of the Bank’s workforce and that it has “always been sensitive to developing a better work culture for Kotak Wonder Women”. Therefore, women have enjoyed flexible work hours, flexible work opportunities, and other arrangements. In Pasricha’s words, “We endeavor to keep doing more and more on this front. Any mother who returns to work post child delivery practically to address this need of our women employees. We want to support them in better managing their careers as well as their children’s lives.” Apart from this, the company already has an extended maternity leave policy, part-time work options for flexibility, tie-ups with creche services, and medical insurance which covers the newborn from day one.

Online travel services provider Cleartrip on Thursday said it’ll increase its employee headcount by 40 per cent in the coming quarter taking the overall to 700 by December 2022. The company has increased its workforce strength by 60 per cent in the ongoing quarter. It had 240 employees in October 2021, the company said in a statement. The extra hiring are going to be across tech, product, growth and emerging business areas, it added. Commenting on the plans, Cleartrip CEO Ayyappan Rajagopal said, “Cleartrip has been witnessing steady recovery as customer confidence, slowly but surely, returns to pre-COVID-19 levels. At this juncture, it’s the opportune time to scale up our business, which is understandably recovering slower than other sectors.” Rajagopal further said that as the company’s move forward in 2022, one among its key goals this year is to bring more offerings, scale up its existing verticals to bring more digitally-enabled travel experiences for the firm’s customers to boost their confidence while travelling during what has been a difficult time Cleartrip said an outsized number of the hiring has been dedicated toward supporting its plans to scale up its hotels category business by hiring across regions in India to build out its hotel vertical portfolio as well as build the technology and products teams for this category. The hiring is across popular destinations in India including Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu , Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal , Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab, it added. Source: Economic Times

Amazon has told its corporate employees that it is raising its cap on base cash compensation to $350,000, more than double the previous amount, citing “a particularly competitive labor market,” according to an internal announcement viewed by The New York Times. Amazon previously capped its pay for tech and corporate employees at $160,000 in most parts of the United States, favoring stock compensation that vests over several years for the rest of an employee’s pay package. Despite strong earnings announced last week, Amazon’s stock is down more than 4 percent over the past year. The company did not say if the increased cash compensation would be paired with lower stock awards. It told employees that it was increasing the overall compensation ranges for “most jobs globally, and the increases are much more considerable than we have done in the past.” The compensation increases were only for salaried corporate and tech workers, not the hourly workers who power Amazon’s operations. Those employees earn an average of about $18 an hour. Amazon confirmed the note but declined to comment further. Amazon has seen a rash of departures at its senior levels, in which compensation is heavily weighted in stock. Its cash salary cap was far lower than that of other major technology employees and a source of frustration for its workers. The changes to compensation come during the first annual pay review cycle since Andy Jassy became CEO in the summer. He previously led Amazon’s cloud computing division, which competed fiercely with other tech companies for talent. The announcement was first reported by GeekWire, a Seattle technology news site. Amazon increased its workforce by more than 300,000 people over the past year and now has more than 1.6 million employees. Source: Reuters

IT giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced plans to expand its operation by hiring more than 1,000 employees for the New Jersey location, by the end of 2023. In order to nurture the local IT pool in the area, the company will be boosting science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and computer science education programs in New Jersey by 25%. TCS’ Edison Business Center, one of 30 TCS facilities in the US, serves more than 100 customers in New Jersey. TCS has more than 3,700 employees in the state who provide IT and consulting services across industries, harnessing technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, and enterprise software. The new employees will primarily focus on offering IT and technical services majorly based on the artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, and enterprise software verticals. Commenting on the news, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said that TCS has been significantly driving the economic growth of the region by creating a pool of local talents. He added, “Our economic mission trip to India in 2019 continues to bear fruit as we have seen deep investments from Indian companies in our state.” The number of hires by TCS over the last five years counts as 21,500. It has 556,986 employees globally, with over 20,000 workers in the US which is its top client and revenue market. “TCS is committed to nurturing tomorrow’s technology leaders through STEM initiatives and volunteerism across New Jersey, so they can continue to drive economic growth and give back to their local communities,” said Surya Kant, Chairman of North America, TCS. He noted that for TCS New Jersey is the centre of technology and IT innovation and thus, makes an important hub for the company. Source: Business Standard