HCL recruitment issue

The HCL recruitment issue is an issue which concerns with fresh engineering graduates across India not being hired at the specified deadline after the job offer being given even before they finished their degree. The company has offered Letter of intent to many but hasn't hired them.

HCL has faced this kind of protest in the past as well but those did not enjoy media attention. HCL has failed to onboard campus hired Freshers for the last five years(2007-2012).The main reason for failure to onboard is high offcampus hiring also called as Just in Time Hiring. HCL with their "Employee First Customer Second" policy has an annualised attrition rate of 25%, which is highest in the industry. Forced resignation while on bench and fudging of information to woo investors is common.

The protest

This led to a protest among the students hired by HCL Technologies to convert their job offers into actual jobs.It began as the expression of their frustration on Facebook which eventually erupted in several cities in the country. Many gathered and protested at the gates of the office. The protest is backed in Chennai by IT support group Knowledge Professionals Forum.

The ongoing protest by fresh engineers against HCL Technologies took a new turn with the Uttar Pradesh police intervening in the case. The police have asked the graduates to take legal recourse instead of street protest. The Noida District Magistrate has told HCL Technologies to come out with A Plan of action by next week to on-board freshers. The Labour Department has formally written to HCL Technologies seeking an explanation regarding a complaint filed by a section of engineering graduates whose jobs have been deferred for nearly a year after they were recruited on campus by the tech major.

The protesters say they are unable to get anybody responsible in HCL to communicate with them. The company has a Smart Service Desk which sends automated messages. Prior to protests,HCL filled all fresher vacancies through off-campus by offering lesser pay than campus hired students.All IT MNC companies barring HCL have completed onboarding Freshers as of August 2013.

Company' response

The company in response to this issue said that the announcement of the joining dates will be in August 2013 only. It also offered the freshers to take up the job at a lower annual income of Rs.2.75 lakhs at the HCL Infrastructure which is less than Rs.3.25 lakhs which was promised to them. HCL’s Chief HR Officer Prithvi Shergill claimed that HCL issued a letter of intent and not a job offer.

Some protesters however declined the offer because they didn't want to work in HCL Infrastructure which offers more of Business process outsourcing job unlike HCL Technologies. After the protests HCL reluctantly reduced their off-campus hiring by 1/3rd to accommodate campus hired freshers.

The company has resumed giving date of joining to 2012 freshers it has recruited.Some of them got their joining date on August 21, 2013.More than 2000 students are still waiting for DOJ as on October 1, 2013.HCL has started giving joining dates to candidates who will not join the company so that they could continue with off-campus hiring for the candidates. Many candidates who have not written Front Runner Program(FRP) exams and have expressed their intention of not joining the company are getting date of Joining.Out of 6500 stduents,HCL fired more than 2500 campus hired Freshers during training citing under-performance and filled the subsequent posts through off-campus hiring .More than 2000 Students refused their job offer made by HCL and about 500 students managed to clear all the milestone tests to successfully join the company.

Students are going through mental, social, and financial stress since last one year and the company is never giving a certain and satisfiable answer to its campus recruits.

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