Accenture Denies Salary Hike To Employees, Cites Macro Concerns

Accenture Plc, in an email to employees, has denied giving salary hikes to its Indian and Sri Lankan employees unless legally mandated. Along with this, the company has also reduced bonuses and promotions in the two countries in 2023. The company's Country Managing Director informed the employees of the decision over mail.

Ajay Vij in his mail to employees said, 'Our reward philosophy is to provide market-relevant pay based on skills and location that is affordable for Accenture. Keeping our payroll aligned with the market is essential to the health of our business, including competitive pricing for our services.' He further added, 'Given the context of our performance (in FY23), we will not be providing any stay-at-level (base pay) increases this year, except when legally mandated or committed in a few critical skill areas.'

The email further stated that the company will pay out bonuses to individual employees basis their performance and contribution, but it will be 'significantly lower' than what they received last year.

The company is also severely reducing its promotions. The company said it will reward promotions in December as scheduled up to the level of Associate Director (level 5), but it will be lower than last year. Accenture has 13 levels, with 13 being the lowest and 1 being the highest. Promotions have been postponed till June 2024 for levels 1 to 4. In March 2023, Accenture had also announced laying off 19,000 employees.

In the last quarter Indian counterpart of Accenture, HCLTech had also skipped salary hikes of senior management and deferred payhike to junior employees by a quarter. Wipro has also pushed hiking salaries of employees from September to December 2023.