Hyderabad: The shrinking size of bench in IT companies seems to be the reason for changing dynamics in the most competitive industry in the country.

“Most of the companies currently have a very small bench and keep rotating people on the bench between projects. The idea is to utilise the bench as much as possible,” said Ashish, Forum of IT Professionals.

Earlier, these companies used to have 20 per cent bench, which was now reduced to 1-3 per cent. Some companies in fact have almost discontinued the benching practice. Three years back, it was seven to eight per cent. The bench means surplus employees maintained by companies.

The cost dynamics has changed even that now.

A direct fallout of smaller and non existent benches means lesser time spent in trainings and upgradation. “With bench sizes decreasing and also time on remaining on the bench going down, employees get lesser time to learn new technology versions before being put onto a new technology. Many are unable to cope up with new technologies or may not have any background in a particular technology but are left with no option but to accept whatever comes their way,” said another employee Harsha.