New Delhi,UPDATED: Nov 13, 2023 15:30 IST
Since the beginning of this year, many tech giants have cut down costs by either conducting large-scale layoffs, freezing hiring new candidates, not giving any salary hikes to employees and so on. And renowned software company Wipro is one of them. The company, in February this year, had made headlines for slashing freshers’ job offers. More recently, Wipro announced adapting to a hybrid work model where employees will be required to come to office for at least three days a week.
Now, reports say that the company might also skip giving pay hikes to some “top performing employees with higher compensation packages” this year.
No pay hike, work from home for Wipro employees
Reuters reported seeing an internal memo that says that Wipro won’t be giving hikes to ”top performers with higher compensation” in the upcoming round of salary revisions in December.
Reuters also quoted a Wipro official telling employees in an e-mail that they are doing a “selective MSI (Merit salary increases) rollout” based on their “business affordability” this time.
In addition to this, the company had earlier called its employees back to offices and had rolled out a hybrid work policy. This meant that Wipro employees will have to come to office for at least three days a week. This rule too, was announced via email. The policy will be effective from November 15, 2023.
Wipro’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Saurabh Govil, had said in an email to employees that the move towards a hybrid work model is designed to promote face-to-face collaboration, strengthen Wipro’s corporate culture, and facilitate more effective communication.
“Starting November 15, all employees must be present at their assigned office location for at least three days each week,” the email stated, as reported by Moneycontrol.
Also, Wipro warned its employees that if they don’t follow the new work policy, there will be consequences starting from January 7, 2024.
When Wipro slashed freshers’ job offers
In February, Wipro decided to slash freshers’ job offers by almost 50 percent. The tech giant had initially offered salary packages of Rs 6.5 lakh to freshers. However, citing the ‘changing macro environment’ as the reason, the company mentioned that it was altering freshers’ compensation.
The move attracted a lot of backlash from people, who questioned the ethics of such a decision. However, reports had also added that the company was not forcing the freshers to accept the new offer and had given them a chance to decide if they wanted to hop on board with the lower compensation offer.
In an interview with Economic Times in April, Wipro’s Chief Financial Officer, Jatin Dalal revealed that 92 percent of freshers decided to join the company at the low salary offer in order to fast-track the onboarding process. “The decisions regarding freshers are taken with full fairness and transparency. The next-gen associates were given both the options and 92 percent of the campus hires chose to join Wipro at the original offer. We will continue to onboard next-gen associates based on our business needs throughout the year,” he had said.
