HCL Tech announces major changes to variable pay policy - who will benefit? When will employees walk? Details here

IT Giant HCL Tech has announced its plan to change its quarterly variable payment policy to fixed salaries for all employees and to carry out salary increases from October, after last year’s process. “We also made a decision to shift the quarterly variable payment and convert it into fixed payment and merge it with a fixed salary for all our employees,” HCL Tech’s head, Ram Sundararajan, said at a press conference after the release of the quarterly earnings Monday. How does HCl Tech work -variable pay? HCL Tech’s variable payment system has two components. The first applies to most employees involved in projects. This involves variable payment based on project performance statistics, which are distributed quarterly. According to Sundararajan, the IT firm has combined this section with the fixed payment, so it is now paid as a fixed monthly salary. “We had the variable payment, which is linked to performance metrics at the project level spread on a quarterly distribution. The part is that we merged with the fixed payment so that it is paid monthly as a fixed wage,” the HR chief said. The second component of variable payment is the annual performance bonus, which will continue. If we are considering linking your payment to performance, the ongoing component is the annual performance bonus, which will continue to be in place, Sundararajan said. Who is likely to benefit from the change? According to the IT major, moving a quarterly variable pay policy will mainly benefit the junior staff, while senior employees continue with their annual performance bonuses. When does HCL Tech employees get a salary increase? The IT major will start rolling out the annual steps from October 2025. The company will follow the same process as last year. “We continued and made a decision to execute the increments, which will be in effect from October. We will follow the same process as last year in terms of how we use the increment process,” Ram Sundararajan said. HCL Tech Dispasing Rate The voluntary employee’s dismantling rate dropped in September 2025 to 12.6%, from 12.9% in September 2024 and 12.8% in June 2025. HCL Tech had a total of 226,640 employees on September 30, 2025, compared to 223.151 at the end of June 2025, reflecting a net addition of 3,489 employees during the term. On a year-on-year (yoy) basis, the company added 8,019 employees, higher than 218.621 in September 2024.