Cognizant shows the way with ‘skills premium pay’

When the success of a business depends on its level of agility, it is not surprising to find companies investing more on growing and maintaining their talent. Cognizant, the multinational IT services provider has adopted a differentiated approach. It has coined something called ‘skills premium pay’.

A term rather uncommon in the IT industry, ‘skill premium’ refers to the ratio of remuneration of skilled vs unskilled employees. In the present scenario, it refers to the remuneration of digitally-savvy employees vs digitally-unsavvy employees.

The Company rewarded 40,000 digitally-savvy employees in its workforce with the ‘skill premium allowance’ this year.

Of late, Cognizant has been facing alarming staff turnover. Introduction of the skills premium allowance is a step towards controlling the same.

Through this generous move, Cognizant also aims to inspire its employees to improve their skills in artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and other digital areas.

With the increasing dependence on technology in nearly all business spheres, and with newer and advanced technologies making an appearance, the demand for relevant skillsets has also been on the rise.

There is a dearth of tech talent at the global level. The skills premium pay has allowed Cognizant to offer competitive compensations to those who possess the skills that are much sought after, globally.

The average raise in the Company in 2018 was said to be the best in the last five years. The average raise for its offshore staff was seven to eight per cent.

IT companies the world over, are waking up to the benefits of paying attractive remunerations to their best talent. Most organisations are opting to reward rare talent in different ways.

For instance, some time back, when specialists in SAP were hard to come by, the SAP-savvy employees were handsomely rewarded. Now, a similar premium is placed on those trained on other newer next-generation business suites.