Cognizant Tech rolls out promotions, payouts for staff

Cognizant Technology Solutions has announced bonus payouts, promotions and merit increases for its employees.

Rajesh Nambiar, Chairman and Managing Director, Cognizant India, in a statement said in recognition of the professionalism, client-centricity, work ethics and perseverance of employees globally in serving clients during this protracted pandemic, the company is awarding bonuses above the level of company performance and substantially higher than in 2019, despite 2020 being an extraordinarily challenging year.

Also read: Cognizant commits $250 mn to global corporate social responsibility

The Nasdaq-listed IT company has over 75 per cent of its 2.90 lakh employees working in India.

“We are also rewarding about 1.6 lakh employees with merit increases globally and have promoted more than 24,000 employees across every level. In order to reward our employees in a more timely manner for their hard work and high performance, we are moving to a quarterly promotion cycle for billable employees at the Senior Associate level and below, starting in Q2 2021,” he said.

“We continue to remain heavily focused on maintaining a competitive and appealing employee environment where every individual is inspired to achieve, driven to perform, and rewarded for their contributions. We aim for our employees to feel motivated, engaged, and empowered to do their best work through careers they find meaningful,” he said in a statement.

From October 1, 2020, the company began targeted merit-based increases and promotions. The model was based on skills, relative contributions and qualities needed to lead transformation and future growth.

Also read: Cognizant sees sharp decline in employee numbers in 2020

Cognizant saw a fall of nearly 3,000 in the number of employees in 2020, marking the steepest ever annual decline in its history. In the last decade, the number had declined just once before — in 2017.

The US-based IT company ended the year 2020 with 289,500 employees, of which 204,500 were in India. Sources said that today’s announcement is one of the measures taken by the company to arrest the increased attrition.