Crorepati club swells at HUL, ITC and United Spirits

At ITC, 220 employees earned more than a crore last year. The number was 163 for HUL and 49 for USL. “Due to the Great Resignation, market leaders are compensating existing employees much more post Covid-19 than they would otherwise,” said Shiv Agrawal, managing director of human resources firm ABC Consultants. “And in this case, the compensation offered is higher in case of senior level where there is shortage of talent and the cost of hiring new employees has gone up significantly.”

Agencies

HUL is the largest fast-moving consumer goods (or FMCG) company in the country whereas ITC is the market leader in cigarettes, agriculture as well as paper business, and USL is the country’s largest spirits company.

United Spirits, maker of McDowell’s whisky and Johnnie Walker Scotch, in its annual report attributed the sharp spike in its crorepati employees to performance-based pay as there was no such payout in the previous year.

ITC said remuneration of senior employees went up by 8%, higher than average remuneration of all employees (7%), due to increase in the number of such senior executives last fiscal. HUL however reasoned the increase in crorepati employees, saying in a post-pandemic world, work force dynamics and employee preferences are changing rapidly with companies facing a highly competitive talent market.

“There is heightened competition from startups as well as direct-to-consumer firms to hire talent, especially from HUL,” said Abneesh Roy, executive director at wealth management and advisory firm

Securities.

“The company has to pay better to avoid attrition of top talent. Also, FY21 saw most companies focusing on cost savings and lowering compensation but they offered higher incentives as the situation normalised,” he said.

Managers in HUL – often referred to as ‘CEO factory’ – are sought-after in the FMCG space. Sudhir Sitapati, earlier executive director of foods and refreshments at HUL, joined

as its managing director last year, while toothpaste giant has appointed Prabha Narasimhan, who was an executive director at HUL, as its India managing director with effect from September this year.