Infosys’ first U.S. recruits start in India

In an effort to create what it calls a "diversified, global workforce," Infosys Technologies Ltd., the $2 billion India-based IT-services company, has launched its new Global Talent Program.

The program involves recruiting recent graduates from countries in which Infosys operates. The first phase of the plan, which started this past July, involves 126 new recruits from the United States who are studying in a customized education program in the company's facilities in Mysore. Infosys is headquartered in Bangalore.

"We wanted to make [these recruits] understand our processes," said Bikramjit Maitra, vice president of human resource development for Infosys. "[For a] global delivery model [it's] how you work in a virtual team and in a cross-cultural team. You learn the best by learning side by side with Indian colleagues."

According to Maitra, approximately 80 percent of Infosys's 58,000 employees are in India while 65 percent of the company's business comes from the United States and most projects are done in virtual teams.

Participants in the current talent program will return to the United States after six months of training and will work with Infosys's U.S. clients.

"They can take this exposure and go back to the United States and work with clients," said Maitra. "They can implement what they learned in a virtual model."

Maitra also noted that because so many of Infosys's employees come from different cultures, this training in which the American participants learn how their Indian colleagues work and "understand their mindsets" is the "best diversity training one can get."

"We are creating teams which are cross cultural in nature," he said.

So far, the program is working, noted Maitra.

"The way they are learning and taking classroom training and the way they are mixing with each other is how we anticipated it happening," he said.

The program is fully residential with both the U.S. recruits and local Indian employees staying in the same campus.

Infosys recruited participants from 82 U.S. colleges including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Notre Dame University, Drexel University, Columbia University and University of California - Berkeley. Maitra said the company went after both engineering school graduates and liberal arts majors. The one thing the company was looking for, said Maitra was "learnability."

"Technology changes so often and they go from one client to another," he said. "They need to use knowledge from one environment in another. They need the ability to learn a knowledge and utilize [it]. We believe that's an extremely important attribute of an individual that will be successful."

The recruits will all work in the delivery side of Infosys's business.

Currently, the company said the plans are for the program to increase to 300 participants by next year. Maitra said the company anticipates the program will continue to increase but how much bigger has not yet been determined.

"This is a pilot," he said. "We are very enthusiastic about the results. This could start a significant trend," he added.

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