Cognizant announces bonuses up to 200 percent

Bangalore: In order to reward its employees for posting a strong growth during turbulent times, Cognizant has announced bonuses for its employees globally for the calendar year 2009. The company has confirmed the bonus payout, but did not reveal the numbers. However, sources close to the development told ET Now that the top performers got as much as 200 percent bonus, a number which is unprecedented in recent years. They also added that a vast majority of employees got bonuses between 150-200 percent, reports Chandra Ranganathan of ET Now.

The Nasdaq-listed company's performance-linked incentives are tied to the variable part of the compensation, which is about 10-15 percent at junior levels and goes to as high as 40 percent of the total compensation at senior levels. "During a challenging year, we posted materially higher revenue growth of 16 percent relative to our peer set. To reward this stellar performance, we decided to pay out healthy bonus to our employees for the hard work they had put in to provide our customers a unique experience. We believe our bonus payout is the best in the industry," a Cognizant spokesperson told ET Now in an e-mail response.

The company had earlier sent out e-mails to it's over 75,000 employees announcing the performance-linked incentives. For 2009, Cognizant posted revenue growth of 16.4 percent (organic and inorganic growth), when most of its off shoring peers in India saw negative growth. It has guided to grow revenues by 20 percent to $3.935 billion in 2010.