Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Human resource acquisition (HR Planning and job analysis, recruitment and
selection, induction and placement),
Infosys
The journey of Infosys since its inception in early 80s to economic downturn in 2002
demonstrates the importance of aligning organizations strategic situation with strategic
plan and strategic plan with HR strategies. Mr. Narayan Murthy, founder of Infosys was
professional, ethical, people focused and believed in wealth creation and its distribution.
1981-91: during the early years of Infosys, the external environment of was non-conducive
for the company and Infosys strategy essentially revolved around body shopping
(consultation).
1991-2001: Economic liberalization resulted into reduced trade restrictions which in turn
lead to demand enhancement; however, at the same time competition crop up both from
domestic firms and few (smaller) MNCs. To meet the growing demand manpower of the
company increased tremendously, people focused practices were adopted. Focus was on
improving brand equity. Key strategies during this period focused on developing Offshore
development centers (ODCs) and Global Delivery Model (GDM). During this period the HR
practices focused on enhancing emotional bonding of employees world class campus,
ESOPs, HALE, C-life, customized training, challenging and overseas job opportunities etc.,
are some of the HR practices observed in the company. The period was characterized by a
strong link between the firms HR policies and Strategy (of the GDM through better quality
and productivity)
2002-03: The external environment changes in these years witnessed economic downturn,
SEBI restrictions, intensified competition and restrictions on US B1 visa; internally company
witnessed reduced employee satisfaction, raising costs, SOP, variable pay system was
introduced. These changes lead to change in the business strategy; consulting, ITES/GDM,
BPO operations were started operating as independent firms. Infosys HR practices were
unable to keep pace with the changed strategy (of focusing on productivity and turnaround
time while diversifying at the same time) resulting in the company falling out of the
employer of choice rankings.
The key issue in this case is about the linkage between HR practices and company strategy.