Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) has formally requested the Ministry of Labour & Employment to seriously look into the two-year delay in onboarding graduates who were given offer letters by Infosys during the 2022-23 campus hiring drive.
As if the endless wait to be onboarded wasn’t enough, the graduates were told to participate in a 24-day virtual pre-training programme in July. The programme was to be followed by a competency assessment. They freshers were clearly told that that if they failed to clear the competency assessment, their joining date would be deferred. This was an unpaid programme, on completion of which the graduates were promised that they would be informed of their joining date by 19 August or latest by 2 September. Even after completion of this training, the disappointed graduates did not receive any information regarding their joining. Instead, they have been told to take the virtual pre-training once again, this time for six weeks. This is to be followed by an in-person competency assessment to be conducted at various centres across India. Again, the graduates have been told that failure in this competency assessment would result in deferment of joining dates.
Calling this “exploitation’ of the engineering students, NITES has requested the Ministry to intervene and ensure justice for those affected. These graduates waiting to join are facing financial issues too having had no income for two years.
Among various demands, NITES is seeking full salary for the period from receipt of offer letter to cover for the onboarding delay.
The Senate also seeks access for these impacted graduates to the company’s employee assistance programme, so that they can get help for the mental and emotional stress they have undergone.
According to NITES, if Infosys does not find onboarding feasible right now, it must at least help these graduates find another job or role suited to them, within the company itself.
As NITES rightly points out in its letter addressed to Minister of Labour and Employment Mansukh Mandaviya, Infosys is actually causing immense frustration to the affected young professionals whose future is shrouded in uncertainty. The Senate wishes for the Ministry to take immediate action to ensure justice to these employees and also see to it that companies do not treat fresh graduates in such an unfair manner in the future.
