With layoffs and recession fears, one would imagine employees settling for less during salary negotiations. But that’s not the case. They are asking for more. As of January, the IT engineers were still expecting a 50 per cent hike for any job change. Moreover, less than 70 per cent of them accepted the offers they negotiated. Which means they declined offers because they expected more. Job insecurity is on the rise. Most of us know that 95 per cent of start-ups fail. Employees are trying to mitigate the risk associated with joining start-ups, especially at a time like this, by asking for a significant hike.

In this episode, Kamal Karanth, host of the people@work podcast series, discusses a better and fairer approach to layoffs with seasoned HR professional Ravi Kumar. As Chief People Officer at Page Industries Limited, and with 25 years of experience in the HR field, Ravi speaks on good authority in this regard. New-age and modern companies benchmark the salaries based on market research. It is no longer predicated on previous drawing salaries. It is more about the value they bring to the table, says Kumar. People@work is a special series from businessline. Each week, Kamal Karanth, a veteran talent specialist and co-founder of a staffing solutions firm Xpheno talks to business leaders and experts about the most trending human resource topics.

(Produced by Akshaya Chandrasekaran)