India Inc sees rise in CXOs on short contracts with many firms

Gig roles typically linked to cab rides and quick commerce are making an entry into India's corporate corridors.

Several companies in information technology, pharmaceuticals and energy are looking to hire senior executives on short-term contracts for some key roles, consultants and lawyers said. These specialists may either pick up several such roles simultaneously,  or choose to finish one and start the next.

Lucrative opportunities

Companies are coming up with contracts lasting from six months to a year, said Anandorup Ghose, partner, Deloitte India. "We have also seen some unlisted companies structure equity for these roles as well. The roles are usually in the enabling functions like human resources, finance, technology and not sales / business development-oriented. For senior candidates who may not find it easy to find full-time roles given their career stage, these tend to be very lucrative opportunities," Ghose said.

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Such executives often come with over a couple of decades of industry background. The demand for shorter gigs by experienced professionals comes at a time when more corporates are focusing on younger talent. The decision to move to a more assignment-based role could also be because they want to work across companies and sectors.

"We are calling them aggregator profiles, and our teams are focusing more on these executives. They could be fractional CXOs or advisers or consultants and even spend time doing work in NGOs when not working in corporates," said Shiv Agrawal, managing director of recruitment firm ABC Consultants.

However, these executives may not be eligible for provident fund and corporate insurance covers. Also, most of the offers are from smaller firms.

Different from payroll contracts

Law firms say the employment contracts for these CXOs are different from the regular senior managers who are on the payrolls. "In such cases, the contract has a clear demarcation on what are the areas that the candidate can be privy to, as well as robust confidentially obligations. Most contracts are likely to have mediation as the first resort to deal with any stalemate, followed by an arbitration clause that may be critical from the viewpoint of resolving or adjudicating any acrimonious claims or disputes given the sensitivity around the scope and extent of information such advisors may be privy to," said Anshul Prakash, partner, Khaitan & Co.

In some cases, these CXOs on contracts work as advisors alongside boards though only as a strategist with expected level of expert inputs, but not as a board member.

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"There are CXOs who now want to free up larger portions of their time and take about 2-3 assignments, which would give them ₹75 lakh-plus as combined annual earnings. In some cases, a variable of about 10% is attached if they manage to complete or initiate a project for which they have been roped in meeting all key result areas (KRAs),"said Pranshu Upadhyay, regional director and India head for technology hiring at search firm Michael Page.

The search firm recently placed a senior executive in the role of social media head for an FMCG firm. The CXO was in his 40s and came from a similar background and for the next one year, will have a variable pay attached to the impact of his work on social media.

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