2017 winner: HCL Technologies - case study

The $7 Billion Global IT services company comprised of 100000+ Ideapreneurs across 31 countries, which adds tens of thousands to its ranks annually has a falling image as a career destination amongst Indian millennials on college campuses- the talent pool of tomorrow. This was cause for concern as HCL is an organization of millennials, with over 75% of our workforce belonging to Gen-Y(under ages 35 yrs). A decreasing presence on India b-school and e-school coupled with decreasing attractiveness of IT/ITES as a sector to pursue a career have led to HCL’s Talent brand equity taking a massive hit.

Employer branding expert Universum’s annual study on most attractive employers among Indian campus students, highlighted an alarming fall in HCL’s rankings year on year (#8 in 2012 to #48 in the 2015 study for Technology institutes, #24 in 2013 to #78 in 2015 for Business schools). While this downward trend was also observable for our competitors in the IT services sector, they did not mimic our rapid fall in rankings over the same time frame. This would significantly impact the cost of talent acquisition in the coming years, in a commoditized situation where top talent find no differentiation besides compensation packages.