1.35 lakh Cognizant techies to get ‘gratitude’ allowance
CHENNAI: Cognizant Technology Solutions on Friday announced that it will pay a ‘gratitude’ allowance of 25% of basic pay to more than 1.35 lakh employees in India. This is being paid recognising their efforts at maintaining business continuity during the coronavirus pandemic.
“In recognition of the extraordinary continuity-of-service efforts of our associates in India and the Philippines, and as a tangible sign of our gratitude for their perseverance, we will provide those at the Associate level and below with an additional payment of 25% of their base pay for the month of April. This will be processed with your April paycheck, and we will be reviewing this approach monthly,” CEO of the company Brian Humphries said in a mail to employees.
The company’s overall India head count is 2,03,700 as of December 2019 and nearly 1.35 lakh of them are in the rank of ‘Associates’.
In the past few weeks the company has enabled a majority of its offshore delivery teams to work from home by provisioning new laptops and encrypting desktops and moving them to your homes, as well as by enabling the use of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), providing additional bandwidth connectivity and air cards—all with the appropriate client permissions and security protocols.
“While working from home may amount to a significant shift in behavior for many of you, please continue to keep up the essential work you do for our clients,” Humphries said in the communication.
Earlier this month, the company announced that it will reward its employees with a bonus payment in the range of 35% to 95% of the promised sum, its lowest ever for fiscal 2019 (the company follows a January-December fiscal year). For nearly 80% of its India-based employees the bonus is between 65% to 95%.
“The morale of many employees was down as the bonus payout was very poor. Maybe this is just to assuage their feelings,” an employee told TOI on condition of anonymity.
“In recognition of the extraordinary continuity-of-service efforts of our associates in India and the Philippines, and as a tangible sign of our gratitude for their perseverance, we will provide those at the Associate level and below with an additional payment of 25% of their base pay for the month of April. This will be processed with your April paycheck, and we will be reviewing this approach monthly,” CEO of the company Brian Humphries said in a mail to employees.
The company’s overall India head count is 2,03,700 as of December 2019 and nearly 1.35 lakh of them are in the rank of ‘Associates’.
In the past few weeks the company has enabled a majority of its offshore delivery teams to work from home by provisioning new laptops and encrypting desktops and moving them to your homes, as well as by enabling the use of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device), providing additional bandwidth connectivity and air cards—all with the appropriate client permissions and security protocols.
“While working from home may amount to a significant shift in behavior for many of you, please continue to keep up the essential work you do for our clients,” Humphries said in the communication.
Earlier this month, the company announced that it will reward its employees with a bonus payment in the range of 35% to 95% of the promised sum, its lowest ever for fiscal 2019 (the company follows a January-December fiscal year). For nearly 80% of its India-based employees the bonus is between 65% to 95%.
“The morale of many employees was down as the bonus payout was very poor. Maybe this is just to assuage their feelings,” an employee told TOI on condition of anonymity.