By HCLTech’s 50th anniversary event in Chennai saw employees chant “we want hike” as chief executive C Vijayakumar took the stage, in a clip that has since gone viral.
The video, widely shared on X and Instagram, shows the auditorium breaking into the chant as soon as Vijayakumar appeared.
The chant persisted for a period while the CEO remained on stage.
The event was held as part of HCLTech’s golden jubilee celebrations, marking fifty years of the company.
Online reactions to the video have been mixed, with some viewers seeing humour in the moment and others reading it as a sign of pay concerns in India’s IT sector.
While some commenters commended the employees for speaking up, others felt the timing and setting were inappropriate.
The clip has continued to circulate and generate discussion since the celebration.
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))
