Says Tabassum Shaikh of Carbon Consultants: “With a reduction in manpower demands, our business, which was earlier limited to providing a large number of candidates to one or two clients, has been hard pressed to widen our net to ensure that there is no big drop in revenue. This puts extra pressure on all five of us, who, other than doing our routine jobs, now need to look for fresh business generation.”

Generating revenue is also the only solution to keep intact the already-allotted salaries to the employees of many companies.

With attrition levels at an all-time low, companies are caught in a vicious circle, where nobody is changing his job due to insecure market conditions.

The only way to filter the performers from non-performers is by putting additional responsibilities on their shoulders, feels Milindkumar Kavale, chairman and managing director of a private consultancy.

“The slowdown has resulted in an increased accountability for employees. Earlier, employees were responsible for a limited number of tasks. Now, things have changed with responsibility areas growing while salaries have dipped. This year, appraisals are going to be tough for non-performers; while the multi-task performers may actually get rewards despite the grim outlook.”

“This year, at many companies, some kind of rationalisation of salaries is expected to take place. The salary structure that comprises of a fixed and a variable component will now be modified so that the variable component will be linked with performance and may thus become a meatier portion of the take-home salary. Promotions could be limited to only 5-10 per cent of employees,” Kavale said.

Meanwhile, the added responsibilities have directly affected the goals set for those like Ganesh Rajan who works as an assistant manager with the recruitment department of an international BPO.

From handling responsibilities that till six months ago were limited to headhunting, interviewing candidates and making job offers, Rajan is today developing fresh skills.

“I’m now required to use the same network that I have till date been utilising for recruitment for developing clientele. In fact, all employees above a particular designation from all the departments — operations, finance, HR and admin — now have business generation as their key responsibility area.