Leading 58,000 Employees to Success – with Shamita Mukherjee of Infosys

In this episode of the Outsource Accelerator Podcast, Derek speaks with Shamita Mukherjee, the Chief Human Resources Officer at Infosys. 

Infosys is an Indian-based outsourcing firm that is one of the largest in the world. The company flaunts a total workforce of 58,000 staff and a market cap of about a hundred billion dollars. 

They discuss Shamita’s role in handling employees across multiple locations, adapting to new technologies, and their recent win at the Outsourcing Impact Review 2024.  

Running a diverse workforce at Infosys

Shamita begins by touching upon the issues she usually deals with in her role. 

“There are discussions around retention of employees. The attrition rate is perhaps the highest [in] the outsourcing industry, in the BPO industry specifically. 

We look at strategies to see how we could keep our employees back. Of late, [there’s] wellness and mental health.” 

She has to consider this for the 58,000-strong workforce, which is why her team relies on effective communication channels. 

“They are constantly devising strategies to reach more and more of the company’s philosophy, its plans, its strategies, and what it stands for across to the workforce. So that’s a large part of ensuring that we stay on the North Star.” 

Shamita says that Infosys is present in at least 20 centers around the world. This has resulted in “a very complex set of challenges [in] the context of regulatory environments and cultural differences.” 

Infosys focuses on the field of technology and IT services. This has proven an advantage, as they could hire from the local talent pool. 

However, they also have an initiative that allows active interaction between the different branches. 

“We do this program called the Geo Ambassador Program. Every year we bring about 50-60 people from the locations outside India, into the headquarters in India. 

And we have a five-day long event where they get to see the company’s leadership. They get to talk to them and share ideas. So we get to present and talk about their cultures.”   

Training and upskilling employees in new technologies

Shamita acknowledges that there is a lot of competition from GCCs (Global Capability Centers), but Infosys offers its own benefits. 

“We have an advantage of having the entire spectrum of the entire set of the world’s Fortune 500 and other companies to outsource from, which gives us the ability to scale, and the scale helps us to provide long-term careers for our people.”

She affirms that learning and progression serve as their instruments of retention. 

“Because we’re very large, we’re able to have a very large training and reskilling engine. And we are able to provide promotions to our people up the ladder.” 

Infosys has a lot of advantage in the technology space as well, including AI and automation. 

“AI is not just another technology. It’s not like cloud or digital. I guess we are all on the cusp of a transformation.”   

Project Genesis and winning the OIR 

Infosys was recognized as the Outsourcing Impact Champion in OA’s Outsourcing Impact Review 2024. The award showcases Infosys’s dedication to bettering communities through the outsourcing industry. 

Shamita describes their program, Project Genesis. 

“It’s a community outreach program that we started some time back. We reach out to young people from non-engineering and non-tech backgrounds from lesser-known colleges and universities, and we’ve put together a program to enhance their employability skills.”

They have since extended the program to also provide opportunities for those with disabilities and in economically weaker sections. 

Shamita claims that this is a win for everyone in the community, even other companies. 

The objective is perhaps not so much to increase the hiring pool for ourselves. There are a lot of smaller players who would benefit from this.”  

If you’d like to learn more, you can visit the Infosys website. You may also reach out to Shamita via her email.