MindTree to slash trainees' salary, campus hiring

MindTree, an international information technology (IT) company is planning to take similar steps like TCS and other IT giants by slashing the salary of trainees and campus hiring to stabilize the company's performance.

On the current trends, S Janakiraman, President, Group CEO - Product Engineering Services, MindTree said, "Revising salary is the need of the hour. This will bring a change in mindset of employees, and variable pay should not be linked only to the company's revenue, but also on productivity of the employee. We have already revised the variables in the R&D division, and this segment has shown great recovery in the last few months."

The company, which offered jobs to 750-780 students in 2008-09 fiscal, is planning to decrease the number in the next year. Janakiraman said, "To maintain our strong relationship with some prominent colleges, we will keep hiring from the campus, but seeing the affect of slowdown, we are planning to hire lesser number of engineers next year."

As the economy has started recovering, all the companies have started looking beyond the boundary. On the similar note, MindTree is planning to open a bridge office in China by the end of 3rd quarter (December 2009) of the current fiscal. Janakiraman said, "We are in the process of registering the subsidiary shortly. The engineers to China centre will be outsourced from India as there is a language barrier for local hiring. The subsidiary will act as a bridge for Chinese customers and global giants who have presence in China." Currently, the company has only one customer 'Widget' in China.

In the quarter ended June 30, 2009, the company's total revenues were at $62.1 million, indicating an increase of 36.3 percent Year over Year (YoY). The profit after tax (PAT) was $11.56 million with an increase of 554.6 percent YoY. However, Quarter over Quarter (QoQ), revenues declined by 9.8 percent in rupee terms.