Competing for Employees

June 06, 2007: IT giant Infosys [Get Quote] is having all its employees sign a non-compete clause which states that even after the employee quits the company, he/ she cannot work for any of Infosys' competitors.

I attended the first day of the SAP Summit in Mumbai. Did not stay too long, so didn't learn very much more than the fact that the Belarus SAP rates now match India SAP rates and that SAP (India) wants to have 12,000 customers and 8,000 employees by 2010.
If they achieve this, SAP will have more customers in India than employees. Think about it. We have our great IT icons. TCS, Infosys, Wipro... Their targets are all about hiring employees by the thousands. And then we have SAP. Whose business model, and targets are all about adding customers by the thousands. No prizes for guessing which model creates more long term value.
And now we have Infosys. A company that competes on value against the best companies in the world. Or so we believe. A company that now wants to retain employees, not by competing for their 'business', but by decree. By dictating terms to people who are ill equipped to stand up for themselves. Not by demanding fair payback for training costs. But by doing the 800 pound gorilla act.
Yes, yes I know. Other companies have been doing this for years. This is the way the system works. Blah Blah Ad naseum.
But then we all thought Infy was different. A company that could take the Money = People x Time equation and change the algebra. A company that could take the derision away from the term 'cybercoolie'. But I guess we thought wrong. Maybe competing on value is too difficult after all. How the mighty have fallen....