EMPLOYEES WORKING IN FIRMS ACROSS SEVERAL SECTORS TO GET INCREMENTS AND BONUSES - REPORT 

During the festive season, several firms in India are reversing sharp salary cuts that were announced earlier in the year due to economic slowdown.

This rollback of salary cuts comes as a big relief for employees who have been working at many firms after facing months of financial burden.

Earlier in the day, billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL), announced to roll back salary cuts for employees of hydrocarbons division. Not just that the company is also giving out a retrospective performance bonus that had been deferred due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

After speaking to two people familiar with the matter, news agency PTI reported that the oil-to-telecom firm is also expected to offer advance 30 percent of the variable pay from the next year’s salary to its lakh-plus employees as a gesture of goodwill for their efforts during the pandemic.

Which means that employees of various divisions at RIL will not only see a restoration of their original salaries but also receive a bonus for performance. Earlier in April, Reliance had cut the salary of employees of its hydrocarbons division by 10 percent to 50 percent.

Amid this festive season, it's not only Reliance but several other firms who are planning to roll back salary cuts. Past couple of weeks, several top technology bellwether firms like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Wipro, HCL and Mindtree have announced plans to roll out new increments and bonuses during the festive season. 

Even manufacturing and services firms are also looking at the prospect of rolling back salary cuts that were announced at the height of the pandemic-induced lockdown, PTI further states. 

With the reopening of the economy, things have smoothened the difficulties that employees faced during the lockdown, so they are now planning to reward their employees. Meanwhile, the rollback of salary cuts could start as early as Diwali.

Coming to the increments and bonuses: There are few firms which are planning to give out increments to employees that were held back due to the pandemic. Now with things getting back to normal, most of these companies are planning to handout performance-linked bonuses in key functional areas.

Amid all the losses there were a few sectors that performed well during the lockdown like pharma, consumer food, and technology; even they are likely to give out the increments faster. Meanwhile, financial experts note that companies are expected to roll back the salary cuts and give pending increments to employees based on future business recovery.

According to few experts, bonuses and hikes will depend largely on whether a company can bear additional costs at this time of the year.