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No poaching from Satyam: Infy

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ET: Infy not to hire Satyam employees:

“We have asked our recruitment staff not to poach anybody from Satyam. The company is in the middle of a crisis and people will jump ship,” Infosys Technologies HR, education & research and administration director TV Mohandas Pai told ET. On Wednesday, Infosys had ruled out any possibility of taking over Satyam. “We will not touch such a tainted company,” Infosys founder and non-executive chairman N R Narayana Murthy had said.

You don’t want the company, understandable. You don’t want the employees? What kind of stupid logic is that?

The idea that by not hiring them will make the employees stick to Satyam is silly. If they want to leave, there’s not much Infy can do to influence that choice. And if the industry gangs up against Satyam employees, won’t it be a shame?

Those employees that couldn’t have participated in the scam are free to go where they choose. By denying them a job, Infy is only shooting itself in the foot. The best of the Satyam stock will go to other companies, and there are indeed some excellent people in there.

Tomorrow there will be no Satyam. But there will be a memory of how Infy became an asshole. Those employees will remember.

But it might just be that Infy has no place for more employees anyhow. These are bad times, but it’s inexcusable to make silly statements like we wont hire from Satyam. You will, you always have, and not doing so jeopardises only you. Loyalty cannot be forced on anyone. Infy will be wise to understand that early.

Update: Since Infy mentioned “poach” versus “hire”, I must apologise for the heavy remark. Yet, having been in the circles, I know there is hardly a line between “poach” and “hire” – if you get a resume from a recruiter, does it amount to poaching? How do you know the recruiter – who gets one month’s income as compensation – did not approach the employee first? How can you prove you didn’t poach? The obvious answer: you cannot. Even if you ask the employee he’ll say no, I didn’t get poached; he wants the Infy job. So what happens? If the dictat is rigid, Infy HR will not hire anyone from Satyam. If it’s not rigid then this is all false posturing anyhow. Either ways it does Infy no good.

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