CASE STUDY ON BENEFITS AT COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS BY: PRIYANKA SINGH MBA( HR) ROLL NO:32 SECTION A

INTRODUCTION: Benefits are indirect compensation because they are usually extended as condition of employment or with intention of inducement or motivation and are not directly related to performance. Basic employee benefits are critical to ensuring employee satisfaction at work. By implementing innovative employee perks, employees are more productive and organizations retain hard-to-find talent. Employee benefits strategy is critical to ensuring you attract and retain talented individuals. Hence, the employee benefits strategy is necessary for growth. Most highly successful organizations, such as Google, WalMart, and MIT, all have innovative basic employee perks. CONTENT OF PERKS Perks refers to nonstandard benefits that are unusual or for which only a limited number of employees are eligible In organizations, perks are often viewed as an incentive or a form of gratitude that is offered to executive level employees or employees with seniority or longevity something that sets the employee aside from the average employee. Perks also refer to employee benefits that are discretionary and optional on the part of an employer. Perks do not necessarily involve a monetary cost to the employer. Perks may consist of privileges, rewards, or options. ELEMENT OF COMPENSATION: PERKS Perks are used to recognize exceptional contribution, performance, commitment to culture and values. Perks are in addition to the payment for example: car fuel, insurance, leave , work from home etc.

SUB ELEMENT: LEAVE Leave is a basic benefit which an employee seeks in his job. Leave is a short term benefit provided by the company to its employees. Leave can be Vacation leave, Sick leave, Compensatory off, Maternity leave and Personal leave. DEFINING THE EFFECT Though it may seem counterintuitive, providing paid family and medical leave when people cannot work due to responsibilities helps keep people employed. In the short term it keeps people away from work, but in the long term it reduces the number of people who have to quit their jobs when they need time off to care for a seriously ill family member or when they have a new child. Paid medical leave serves this same purpose for workers who have short-term but serious illnesses that prevent them from working.

LEGAL COMPULSIONS

According to the labour laws in India, at least seven days leave for national and other festivals. Republic day, Independence day and Mahatma Gandhis birthday are compulsory holidays. Similarly minimum seven days casual leave and fourteen days sick leave is provided to employees. These leaves are paid means employees get the wages of these leaves as they had actually worked for that day.

Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTS) : Example The company provide for the following types of leaves:

Vacation Leave

Vacation is provided to enable employees to take time off their busy schedules to rest, recuperate and revitalize. Employees are entitled to avail a total of 12 working days of vacation per year. Vacations are credited to the employees leave account at the end of each month at the rate of 1 working day per month of continuous service with the Company. Vacation Leave is not encashable.

Sick Leave

Each employee is allowed up to 6 days of Sick Leave with pay in a span of 12-month period of service. Sick leave can be accumulated up to 18 days. Any accumulation greater than 18 days lapses automatically. For the purpose of the company's records, the employee must give a copy of the Original Medical Certificate and Sick Leave application in case of long Sick Leave. Sick Leave is not en-cashable.

Personal Leave

The employee is permitted to take up to 4 days of such time-off' from work in a year. 4 days of Personal Leave will be in the employees account on 1st January of every year and if not availed this will elapse on 31 December of the same year. Personal Leave cannot be accumulated or encashed.

Maternity Leave Every woman associate shall be eligible for Maternity Leave as per The Maternity Benefit Act 1961, provided she has been in the rolls of Cognizant for a period of not less than 80 days in the twelve months immediately preceding the date of her expected delivery. The Maternity leave will be for a period of 6 weeks immediately following the day of delivery and 6 weeks preceding the date of expected delivery (inclusive of all intervening Saturdays, Sundays and other holidays).

Compensatory Off

The compensatory off has to be availed of within (and including) 122 calendar days of the day on which the associate has worked, and against which s/he avails of the benefit. Compensatory off availed cannot exceed 5 days at any time.

TREATMENT AND IMPACT: All employees are entitled to the same number of leaves as per the company policy. ADVANTAGES OF LEAVES: Productivity enhances if proper leaves are given. It helps in retaining talented employees . The cost of recruiting and training is saved . It helps in maintaining the work life balance as people feel motivated to work. People show high commitment to the firm.

DISADVANTAGES OF LEAVES: Low morale: Combining sick and annual leave creates a situation in which some workers may exhaust their leave days and have no days left to be off work when they fall sick. Even if the employee is aware of the leave policy, he will still expect the company to empathize with him and allow him to be off work during his sickness. Most companies will insist on sticking to policy and allow the worker to be off work but deduct the day's wages. This creates resentment by workers, whose morale goes down. A company with demotivated workers cannot be very productive. Loss of employees: Combining sick and annual leave predisposes a company to potential loss of employees who prefer a system where sick leave is treated separately from annual leave. These employees may decide to look for other jobs. If many employees with important skills that the company needs leave, this may disrupt the company's workflow and lead to losses. The process of hiring other workers may be more expensive than the potential benefits of combining sick and annual leave.

CONCLUSION

Therefore it is concluded that we should not underestimate the value of perks and make it an important and valuable part of package. Perks can really add value to the employee experience. Basic employee benefits are critical to ensuring a conducive environment for employees to provide value. Apart from compensation, perks helps to retain talented employees and promote a secure and balanced life. They enable higher employee retention, employee satisfaction, and employee development.