HCL’s Chief Human Resources Officer Apparao V. V. has shared in a report company’s optimistic hiring plans. The company plans to hire about 12,000 fresh graduates from campuses in the current fiscal and would hire another 20,000 (net) people with 2-10 years of experience in 2019.

HCL’s CHRO, Apparao V. V. said, “We are very bullish on campus hiring this year. In fact, we are doubling it. We will hire 10,000 freshers from Indian campuses and another 2,000 from U.S. universities. Our lateral hiring will be in tune with our revenue guidance.”

For the financial year ended March 31, HCL noted a gross hiring of 51,589 and net addition of 17,884 people.  In fact, in the fourth quarter itself, it hired 14,249 people with a net addition of 5,637.

However, on the other side, HCL also experienced an increase in attrition from 15.5 percent to 17.7 percent in the last 12 months. Apparao shared that the company is putting in all efforts to understand what are the pain points causing attrition. 

Besides increasing hiring, especially adding more fresh graduates, HCL has many other talent management initiatives in place. Two of their major priorities have been skilling and enhancing gender diversity. 

Under their skilling initiatives, HCL conducted 1, 77,351 sessions of training and reskilling in digital technologies during the fiscal. Under these, 31,140 people in the six months to 15 years’ experience category were trained. In addition, the company trained 79,970 people in general skills during the fiscal.

Further for boosting gender diversity at HCL the firm has increased focus on hiring women. From having only eight women in the vice-president (VP) category to hiring eight more women in last fiscal. 

Apparao said, “We have been focusing on gender diversity across the board.”

As HCL needs more diversified skillsets to lead it in its next phase of growth, initiatives in the various facets under talent management are surely critical. But the challenges of building and managing a diversified workforce are many. HCL, besides learning from its past practices can also learn from peers in the industry or across industries on how are they are dealing with similar talent challenges.