IT firms looking beyond metros to hunt talents

Remote working, high attrition prompt hiring from Tier 2 & 3 cities
Image used for representational purpose only. (Photo | EPS/R V K Rao)
Image used for representational purpose only. (Photo | EPS/R V K Rao)

BENGALURU: With work-from-anywhere becoming the ‘new normal’ amid the pandemic, IT firms are now considering tier-II &-III cities as viable locations for work and also to attract young talent beyond main hubs.

Till 2020, freshers used to migrate from smaller towns to the metros in order to pursue their dream jobs, but the pandemic has made the tech world move to their hometowns. Since IT companies are struggling with attritions, they are now showing keen interest in bringing jobs closer to talent.

IT companies such as Mindtree, HCL, TCS and Infosys continue to focus on tapping the advantage of tier-II&-III cities across the country. HCL Technologies says that Tier-II cities enable enhanced operational resilience, stability and scalability. Apart from offices in main cities, the company has presence in Lucknow, Madurai, Nagpur and Vijayawada.

Its headcount in the cities under the company’s New Vistas category, which includes four smaller cities, is up nearly 43% from the last fiscal year. HCL’s total headcount is at 1.97 lakh. As there are reputed educational institutions in tier-II cities, IT companies say hiring from such campuses work well for them.

Recently, Infosys in an earnings call said its global college graduate hiring programme for this fiscal has been increased to over 55,000 against the previous quarter number of 45,000. IT constitutes 8% of India’s GDP contributing more than half of India’s services exports and the demand for digital skills is projected at 20X by 2024.

Talent aplenty in Tier-II cities
According to the Randstad Talent Trends report, among the tier-2 cities, Chandigarh, Vadodara, Indore, Coimbatore, Kochi and Trivandrum are emerging in importance as employment hubs in IT. It says at the junior level of talent, Vadodara leads with 14% of the IT jobs among tier-II cities followed by Chandigarh, Jaipur, Coimbatore and Kochi.

At the middle level, Chandigarh leads with 20.83%, and at the senior level, Coimbatore leads with 37.86% of the IT jobs among tier-II cities. There is a good concentration of software companies in Tier-II cities due to talent availability and also cheaper real estate. The report further adds that Tier- II cities in India are expanding rapidly as they have started developing as sector hubs for IT, services and manufacturing.

Organisations are also recruiting and increasing hiring from these cities for jobs that can be done from anywhere. Mindtree MD and CEO Debashis Chatterjee says, “As part of our ‘Work of the Future’ talent strategy, we are also tapping into tier-II&-III cities and setting up offices in Coimbatore and Warangal. The idea is to take work to talent instead of bringing talent to work. These cities have a vibrant educational ecosystem and are great reservoirs of talent. The response from talent in these cities looking to associate with us without having to relocate has been overwhelming.”

Vinit Teredesai, Chief Financial Officer, Mindtree, in an earnings call said, “We are also trying to look at getting some talent in tier-II, III cities like Coimbatore, which would help us in terms of not only managing the demand, but also managing the attrition. These cities are traditionally having lower attrition rates compared to some of the tier-I cities.

TCS has a good presence in Tier-II cities including Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar. The city has many IT companies including Capgemini and Tech Mahindra. In 2020, Tech Mahindra inaugurated a new delivery centre in Warangal, which is being promoted as the next technology destination after Hyderabad.

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