In his decade-long innings as the chief financial officer of Infosys, T V Mohandas Pai has been instrumental in enabling the listing of Infosys on the Nasdaq, conducting sponsored secondary offerings and instituting an employee stock option scheme all of which were firsts in India.
Now he has taken over the human resource and education and research functions at Infosys, which employs over 50,000 professionals.
What caused the shift of this high profile CFO to HR? Answers Pai, "We are a people's company where HR's role is most important. HR has always been in the mainstream in Infosys. Across the IT industry, people are analysing HR's importance.
It is more about globalisation, talent retention, high performance and culture than the hiring and firing. With global talent coming to India, HR in India will change radically in the coming years."
The biggest challenge, Pai says, is training. The IT-ITES sector will have to spend $2.6 billion in the next three years in educating and training its workforce. This enormous cost is because of the inability of the education system to give them the right inputs.
Also, although Infosys is well positioned with its bench of professionals, the IT industry in general does not have an adequate middle management level and in the next 10 years India has to build up on this. A total of 3,70,000 engineers graduate in India every year, out of which 2,00,000 are reasonably good.
"The IT industry will hire around 85 per cent, or 1,70,000, of these people next year. So nothing is left for the rest of Indian industry. Part of my job will be to interact with policymakers to tell them there is a call for action," he said.
In his new avatar, Pai would be a mentor to the HR department, carry governance role, deal with policy issues, enhance the focus on globalisation and help create a multi ethnic and multicultural environment in the company for the employees.
"We plan to improve the bonding between the employees by increasing communication and add value to their experience and knowledge in the company, give them more learning opportunity and let them work in their area of choice," he explained.
But what measures will Infosys adopt to ensure it has one of the best HR policies in place?
"We are looking at the HR models of the world players like HP, GE, IBM and other international companies in the US and Europe. The next decade will be called the decade of HR in India and HR is going to make or break our progress. Infosys is competing and it has a lot to learn," he concludes.
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