Cognizant, the US-based information technology (IT) company is looking at hiring around one lakh people this year. This comes against the background of high attrition rates that have swept the industry. The company said that it expects to welcome in an additional 30,000 new graduates this year, and is planning to best its own record by pushing for a further 45,000 candidates by 2022. As per Cognizant’s attrition metric estimates, which includes trainees and corporates across both the IT services and BPO, the company had more than 3 lakh employees by the end of the June quarter. Cognizant CEO Brian Humphries said, “Against this backdrop, we continue to take a series of actions to reduce attrition, including compensation adjustments, job rotations, reskilling and promotions and a host of associated engagement activities…we now expect to hire approximately 100,000 laterals in 2021 and to train close to 100,000 associates.”
The top executives of the company noted that the attrition rate is mainly present in the more junior and mid-level positions in India. Having said that, they made it clear that it was still a global phenomenon.
“It’s really one of the hottest markets we’ve seen or our team has seen over the last 10-plus years. So, we’re all dealing with it… annual merit-based increases have been announced here in the last few weeks, they’re effective October 1. That’s on top of a whole host of ad hoc measures we played through in the course of the last year: out-of-cycle increases, promotion, retention dollars,” said Humphries in a press release.
Cognizant managed to raise its revenue by 14.6 per cent at $4.6 billion in the quarter under review from the $4 billion in the year-ago period. This marks a clear increase in the company’s guidance of 10.5 per cent to 11.5 per cent revenue growth for the June 2021 quarter, the release mentioned. Along the same lines, the IT giant reported a 41.8 per cent increase in the June quarter net income at $512 million.
Humphries was quoted as saying, “We delivered a strong second quarter. Through targeted investments, we’ve been shifting our portfolio to faster-growing market segments while extending our capabilities and partnerships to help clients build modern businesses. I see a stronger, more competitive Cognizant emerging, with growing commercial momentum.” The company further elaborated that it expects to see a growth of 10.6 per cent to 11.6 per cent and a revenue range of $4.69 to $4.74 billion in its third quarter.
“Second quarter topline results exceeded our guidance, driven by improved demand for our services and momentum in our digital revenue, and we increased our full-year 2021 revenue growth to 10.2-11.2 per cent,” Cognizant Chief Financial Officer, Jan Siegmund said.
Coming back to the matter of hiring, Humphries states in an investor call that the company is committed to the ‘meaningful scaling’ of its headcount over the coming quarters in light of the strong industry demand and the bullish outlook of the market.
Humphries then went onto add that the company had announced a shift in the last few months signalling a move to quarterly promotion cycles for billable resources alongside fast-tracked job rotations and reskilling initiatives being undertaken by the organisation. He also noted that the bookings growth moved upwards by 12 per cent year-on-year in the second quarter. “Qualified pipeline is significantly up, and our win rates are also up year-to-date, positioning us well for continued bookings momentum. Digital revenue growth accelerated to 20 per cent year-over-year in the quarter,” he said.
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