Mysuru layoffs: Infosys denies utilizing drive, intimidation techniques; says cooperating with labour dept

IT providers firm Infosys on Wednesday (February 19, 2025) stated it didn’t use drive or intimidation techniques when it laid off trainees at Mysuru campus over performance-related points, and that it was explaining the circumstances to the labour division authorities.

In an interview to PTI, Shaji Mathew, Chief Human Sources Officer at Infosys, nonetheless, conceded that evaluation failure percentages this time round have been “barely greater” than previously however dismissed prices that the assessments had been designed for failure.

On whether or not the layoffs would severely dent Infosys’ model as the corporate goes out to campuses for FY26 hiring, he stated that plans to rent 20,000 freshers for subsequent fiscal are on observe and they need to don’t have anything to fret about as they may get top-of-the-line company coaching.

Responding to allegations that testing parameters, evaluation standards and syllabus had been altered and intimidation techniques had been resorted resulting in the 300 plus terminations at Mysuru campus just lately, Mr. Mathew stated that provided that the corporate invests cash and energy to pick out and put trainees by means of the coaching program “it’s within the curiosity of Infosys to see that each one these individuals are profitable, and that’s once we are in a position to put them into our initiatives”.

“There’s coaching funding that goes in and we additionally pay them wage throughout the coaching…It isn’t within the curiosity of the corporate to let any of those folks go…It’s a loss to them after all, it’s a loss to us as properly,” he stated including that the actual batch of trainees had not cleared inner assessments after three makes an attempt.

On the Labour Ministry’s course to Karnataka State Labour Division to take motion, and studies that the Labour Division officers had adopted up with visits to Infosys campuses in Bengaluru and Mysuru, Mr. Mathew stated the Labour Division is in contact with the corporate and Infosys is cooperating with the authorities.

“Sure, the Labour Division has been in contact with us, they wished to grasp our coaching course of and the evaluation and so on and we’ve got taken [them] by means of the whole coaching course of, the evaluation, and the way this can be a essential a part of growing the long run expertise, not only for Infosys, however even for the whole IT {industry}.”

“They’ve been fairly supportive, and I feel they perceive the whole course of that we’ve got been going by means of by way of coaching and evaluation, all of that. So we’ve got cooperated with them thus far…and there was no additional ask from their facet,” mr. Mathew stated.

Requested if Infosys will contemplate taking the trainees again and reinstating them, he added “There was no additional ask by way of taking them again”.

Earlier this month, India’s second largest IT providers firm confronted a backlash after it laid off over 300 freshers who underwent foundational coaching at its Mysuru campus however couldn’t clear inner assessments.

The trainees after a two-year wait had been onboarded only a few months in the past in October 2024.

IT worker union NITES had sought pressing intervention of Ministry of Labour and Employment urging authorities to take strict motion in opposition to the corporate.

Nascent Data Expertise Workers Senate (NITES) had, actually, alleged that workers had been summoned to assembly rooms at Infosys’ Mysuru campus, and requested to signal “mutual separation” letters.

Mr. Mathew countered allegations claiming that at no level had been ‘bouncers’ introduced in, nor had been intimidation techniques used.

This isn’t what Infosys stands for, he emphasised.

“I am unable to even think about us interested by ‘bouncers’ and so forth so forth. These are our trainees, and we do not want to usher in bouncers. So that’s completely not right. There was additionally concern that we didn’t permit folks to remain on the campus. Once more, there are individuals who wished to remain on the campus, and we allowed them to remain on the campus,” he stated.

Infosys has now postponed, by per week, inner assessments scheduled for an additional set of trainees, reportedly 800 of them are slated to take their assessments.

The corporate has, nonetheless, asserted that the deferment is geared toward giving them extra time for preparation.

“It’s in our curiosity to see how we may also help these set of trainees to get by means of the coaching program, and that they arrive out profitable on the finish of the coaching so we are able to proceed with them as workers within the firm. We now have seen the failure charge, and subsequently we wished to present them an extra alternative and time to organize,” he stated.

The extra time will assist them within the doubt-clearing, and material specialists shall be made out there to allow them to really work with trainees to organize them properly.

The trainees who confronted layoffs had been helped with outplacement service, and given one month of severance pay, Mathew stated and emphasised that Infosys is doing all it will probably together with making counselling providers out there for the trainees.

Infosys, he stated, has been recruiting freshers from faculty, coaching them and making them industry-ready, and this has been a giant a part of the corporate’s technique for many years.

“We’ve been coaching a really massive variety of freshers during the last decade, a number of a long time really, actually, our coaching centre in Mysore might be one of many largest company coaching centres as properly, so it’s a large a part of our technique and coaching and enablement.”

“It is also vital that we get the suitable expertise by means of this coaching program. So we have a coaching curriculum and an evaluation methodology which has advanced during the last a number of years, and we actually ensure that we get the suitable set of individuals on the finish of the coaching,” he stated.

Trainees, he stated, are given three evaluation probabilities to clear, and should exit the organisation if they’re unable to clear even after the third evaluation.

“It is a course of that has existed for over 20 years, now. Nothing actually has modified,” he stated.