To combat the high turnover rate of the sunrise industry, Blue Star has introduced an Employee Referral Scheme whereby any existing employee of the company who makes the right reference for recruitment to its new software company, Blue Star Infotech Ltd will be paid an incentive of Rs 10,000. The scheme will be operational till the end of December, 1998.

The scheme has two conditions attached to it: first, incentive accrued by the employee is taxable, second, an employee referring a candidate becomes eligible to obtain the incentive only if the candidate remains in employment with the infotech division for a minimum period of six months.

Company senior manager (corporate affairs) Sanjay Mallya says: "The referral scheme is still at its infancy as people have to be educated about requirements for thesoftware professionals."

The scheme is open to all employees, except for those in the human resources department in the international software division, and those directly responsible for recruitment. It has, of course, been clarified that the selection of the candidate will be based on recruitment norms. The decision of the human resources department will be final.

According to Mallya: "This scheme has been introduced because the company would like to tap good software professionals with the help of our employees all over India to argument the existing work force."

The response to the scheme has been overwhelming since it was announced. The personnel department has been flooded with referral applications sent in by the employees.

Although recommendations have started coming in, the division's specific requirements have not yet been fully met, and the applications still have to tally with requirements. Out of a target employee strength of 380, the company has so far 280 on the rolls.

The company hascalled for an extraordinary general meeting on November 13 for the shareholders approval to spin off the software division of Blue Star into a separate company called Bluestar Infotech Ltd.

The employees of Blue Star engaged in the business of the international software division, if willing, will be transferred to the new company without any break or interruption in their services as on the effective date.

The international software division (ISD) of Blue Star provides on-site and off-shore software services for a wide range of applications. It has three offices, at Mumbai and Bangalore in India, and at San Jose, California in the United States.