Representative image: an HCL office. Photo: Itsbilluid (CC BY-SA 3.0)
A viral clip shows HCLTech chief executive C Vijayakumar facing chants of “we want hike” from employees at the company’s 50th anniversary event in Chennai.
Shared widely on social media, including X and Instagram, the video shows a full auditorium erupting into the chant as Vijayakumar took the stage.
The chanting continued for a stretch while the CEO remained on stage during the event.
The celebration marked HCLTech’s golden jubilee, fifty years since the company was founded.
The video has generated mixed reactions online, with some finding it amusing and others tying it to broader pay concerns within India’s IT industry.
Some social media users praised the employees for speaking candidly, while others said the moment was inappropriate for the occasion.
The clip has continued to be shared and discussed since the event took place.
The episode has been widely shared and discussed as part of a broader conversation around compensation trends and employee sentiment within India’s information technology sector this year.
HCLTech, one of India’s largest IT services companies, employs hundreds of thousands of people globally, making internal sentiment around pay and benefits a recurring talking point whenever such moments become public.
Similar viral moments involving employees publicly airing workplace grievances at corporate events have periodically surfaced from other large companies in India in recent years, often prompting comparable debates online about appropriate conduct versus genuine expression of concerns.
The video’s spread illustrates how internal corporate moments, once captured on phone cameras and shared on social media, can quickly become part of wider public conversations about workplace culture and compensation across an entire industry.
C Vijayakumar has served as HCLTech’s chief executive officer, a role in which he has represented the company at major public events, including the golden jubilee celebration where the video was filmed.
The chant broke out as part of HCLTech’s golden jubilee celebrations in Chennai, an event that also featured other planned elements to mark the company’s fifty years in business.
(Image: Itsbilluid (CC BY-SA 3.0))
