Infosys Is in the Learning Business Too

Fortune's March 20, 2006 issue includes a brief look at Infosys U, the new training center for one of the world's largest companies (which happens to be located in India and happens to specialize in IT and business process outsourcing).

Infosys U, according to reporter Julie Schlosser, is in Mysore, India, about 90 miles south of the company's headquarters in Bangalore. It is the company's not-so-secret weapon for gaining an edge in employee attrition. The 4,000 new hires -- "freshers" -- who are on campus at any given time are typically new graduates fresh from college, but not always. They spend their weeks at the training camp honing tech skills as well as soft skills -- "team building, comportment, and improving interpersonal communication."

New hires come from all over the world, including China, where the company has begun ramping up operations. Everything at the facility is Brand Infosys -- mugs, shirts, sugar packets. (The individual dorm buildings are shaped as the letters that spell out Infosys, which you can only read from the air.)

This is a $120 million investment that I don't hear about other companies emulating. Yet every article I've read in the last decade on creating strong loyalty between worker and company emphasizes the need for training and development opportunities. Now that employees have the upper hand in the hiring battle again, I wonder what the other service providers are doing that can possibly compete.