Infosys emerges multi-ethnic, multi-culture employer

Mysore, July 31: Shedding its desi garb, software major Infosys has emerged a multi-ethnic, multi-culture employer by recruiting foreigners and scouting for more talent across the globe, with 98 per cent of its revenue coming from exports.

Infosys, which had trained 100 engineers since last year, had gone across universities in the US in search of talent and offered jobs to 126 youngsters from 82 universities. The company would be spending 2.5 to three million Dollars on the US hires.

These US citizens were currently under a 16-week training at the Global Education Centre of Infosys here and by the next year the number would increase to 300.

''We are looking for another 100 from the UK and also searching for talent in other European countries, besides Australia,'' Infosys Director and Human Resources Head T V Mohandas Pai told newspersons here today.

He said currently Infosys had in its rolls 1,800 personnel from other nationalities (roughly three per cent of the total strength) and ''we want the numbers to grow in future and increase the percentage of foreign hires.'' Infosys Chairman and Chief Mentor N R Narayanamurthy said these new hires were the largest group of foreign nationals recruited to work in India to date. The Global Talent Programme (GTP), Infosys' university level recruitment programme outside India, was created to enhance recruitment efforts to attract the best and brightest talent in the countries and communities in which Infosys operated.

''The arrival of these American graduates marks the creation of a true global village at our Global Education Centre in Mysore,'' he said, adding ''the collective capabilities that will develop as these infoscions interact will create a more competitive business model.''

Mr Pai said the company would be spending 150 million US on educating its employees, besides spending on continuing education. It had spent one million US Dollars for imparting training to Chinese engineers. Another 100 engineers would be trained from China this year, he added. Infosys began GTP for entry-level software engineer positions at top universities in the US following a successful pilot programme that brought ten young Americans to work in Bangalore.

Applications were admitted from all majors, including liberal arts majors, for the software engineering position. In 2007, Infosys would extend GTP to begin recruitment at top universities in the UK.

Trainees recruited under the GTP would undergo a customised education and orientation programne created to ensure that they were trained adequately with technical skills, necessary client-facing skills and sufficient live project exposure in the global delivery model.

Mr Pai said ''We want to expand our exposure to people from the local areas in where we do business''.

Referring to the Rs 900 crore expansion programme of the Global Education Centre, he said by June next, the company would have in all spent Rs 1200 crore on training and education facilities alone at the Mysore Campus, creating a capacity to train 35,000 to 45,000 people in a year. Perhaps this was the single largest investment in education in any single centre, he added.

UNI