Cognizant to pay 25% extra base pay to employees during coronavirus lockdown

New Delhi : Cognizant has decided to pay extra 25 percent of basic pay to employees in India and the Philippines for April due to the coronavirus lockdown, CEO Brian Humphries said in an email note to employees.

The extra pay will be limited to the Associate level, the mail added. With this, the announcement is applicable on two-thirds of the employees in the country. Cognizant currently have around 2,00,000 employees in India. Globally, the employee count is about 300,000.

In an email to employees, Humphries said, “(This is) In recognition of the extraordinary continuity-of-service efforts of our associates in India and the Philippines. This will be processed with your April paycheck, and we will be reviewing this approach monthly.”

While Humphries agreed that the pandemic will dampen industry demand, fulfillment remains critical. “So we quickly sought to enable work from home to ensure employee health and safety, and to maintain continuity of service for our clients, while absolutely safeguarding their data and protecting access to their systems,” Humphries added.

He also mentioned that the employees have been provided with laptops and desktops to keep them at ease even while working from home. The company also enabled the use of BYOD (Bring your own device) with appropriate client permissions and security protocols.