Infosys has announced that it will hire 10,000 American workers over the next two years and plans to open four new technology and innovation hubs. In an interview with BusinessLine , Infosys Chief Operating Officer UB Pravin Rao shares the company’s perspective on job creation in the US and its impact on its Indian workforce.

You have been hiring Americans for quite some time now. So, how different is this time now?

You are absolutely right. We have always been hiring the Americans. But in the past, we had not set up any such centres. Now, we are setting up four incubation centres to showcase our technology capabilities and solutions and have training centres for the locals. We will also use it as a hub as a development centre for our clients. While earlier we recruited the locals, but the scale of training we are doing now, has not happened before. Also, the commitment we are making for the next two years was not there earlier. In the past, we did not make such a commitment but it has always been part of our model. Even with this recruitment, we will always stick to whatever is right for the project type. So, the kind of training that will happen and the commitment we are making is all part of this.

Has this announcement anything to do with the Trump administration’s stated policy on hiring more Americans for local jobs?

I think it is a model that has been evolving over a period of time. About a month back, we announced the setting up of a centre in Croatia and Russia and hiring of locals there. Increasingly, we are looking at hiring more local talent. The US happens to be a large part of our business with 63 per cent of revenues coming from there. The kind of scale and numbers we are talking about as far as the US is concerned, is not comparable with other geographies. It is all part of our larger strategy to be more global.

But is there enough talent and skills readily available there or will it take some time for the Americans to acquire those skill sets?

Obviously, there is a shortage of experienced talent there for the kind of work that we want. So, that is why we have said that it is not only about experienced people but that we will also recruit post graduate students from US universities. Obviously, we have to train them on newer technologies and hence we have set up the training centres. They will take some time to come up. We will have to look at a mix of both experience and freshers.

But what about the compensation package? Will it be equal or more for the American employees?

We don’t differentiate between the Americans and the Indians. Our salaries are competitive and meets regulatory and compliance requirements. It entirely depends on the geographies and the skill sets. This is not about cost savings but having a much more global mix in your talent pool.

But Indian engineers come armed with required skills and hence you wouldn’t lose time in training them and they can be deployed immediately.

I think the advantage of recruitment from the US is that they come from local environment and bring certain soft skills which the others don’t have. With the kind of solutions that we are developing for our clients, they will probably come with better or superior soft skills. With the kind of transformations that are happening, it is all about how to apply new technology in a certain context. I think it is more about problem finding than problem solving now. So, that is why superior soft skills plays a key role there. So, we need a good mix of local and global employees.

With over 60 per cent of revenues coming from the US, will Infosys hire more locals there?

The model will always be offshore and onshore right. Offshore will continue to be largely stocked with the Indians (if it is in India) and we don’t anticipate any dramatic changes in that mix. Obviously, the percentage of locals will increase and that is what we have always aspired. That mix will not change unless the offshore model changes which we don’t expect in the future. We don’t have any percentage in mind but we would like to recruit more locals as much as possible.

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