How HCL Tech & Its Employees are Impacted due to US Visa Ban? - CEO Shares Company's Future Course of Action!

A month after US President Donald Trump suspended issuing of H-1B visas along with other foreign work visas for the rest of the year, HCL Technologies termed the suspension as "unfortunate". They further said the move will have "minimal impact" on the IT services major in the short term.

This statement from HCL comes after it has been ramping up local hiring in the US for the past 10 years. 

"We started investing in the centres in the US 10 years back, we have 15 scaled delivery centres in the US. We were one of the first to increase localisation, close to 67 percent of our employees in the US are locals. This is the trend, which we really pioneered in the industry and now we see several other players are following," HCL Technologies President and CEO C Vijayakumar said.

Further highlighting the visa issues, he added that the company has adequate people in the US on visas to fulfill demand. "However, the rules, I would say, are unfortunate, but given that we've always been prepared and kind of enhancing our local footprint not just in the US but across all geographies, we see very minimal impact due to the current change in policy at least in the near term," he stated.

Pointing to the issues in the long run over the H-1B visa, Vijayakumar asserted that if it were to continue in the long term, then HCL may have to "relook at how we address the demand". When asked if the suspension were to extend beyond December, Vijayakumar said it would depend on the customers.

"Today, we can deliver any service from anywhere in the world. Largely, that's the model that we have adopted. And we've been able to collaborate extensively with customers across continents, across time zones and customers have also become very comfortable about this operating model. So, to that extent, I think the onshore demand will be a little muted, so I think it will be fine," he said.

Amid all the crisis around, HCL Technologies, which has over 1.5 lakh employees globally saw 63.7 percent of its revenues come from the Americas market. Also, if issues persist then some tweaking may be needed on how it operates as it gets into the next year.

Finally giving his take on, if HCL Technologies has taken steps to bring back employees stranded in the US, Vijayakumar said the company has undertaken similar steps but declined to give out numbers. 

"We're very sensitive to our people's requirements and we've helped them, we've enabled them to go back to their respective countries. The numbers, it varies in different geographies, some geographies are very small numbers, some geographies are slightly large," he said. 

Last month, US President Donald Trump signed a proclamation to suspend issuing of H-1B visas which was popular among Indian IT professionals. This big move was taken aimed at helping millions of Americans who have lost their jobs due to the current economic crisis.