HCLTech employees chant ‘We Want Hike’ during CEO C Vijayakumar’s 50th anniversary event
Vijayakumar is seen entering the stage to loud cheers from employees. Moments later, a section of the audience begins chanting "We want hike", with the slogan continuing for several seconds.
A video from HCLTech’s 50th anniversary celebrations in Chennai has gone viral after employees were heard chanting “We want hike” as CEO and Managing Director C Vijayakumar walked onto the stage during a company event.
The Chennai event was part of HCLTech’s nationwide golden jubilee celebrations marking 50 years since the HCL Group’s founding in 1976. The private employee gathering featured a live performance by popular music composer and singer Anirudh Ravichander, with thousands of employees attending the celebration.
In the widely shared video circulating on social media, Vijayakumar is seen entering the stage to loud cheers from employees. Moments later, a section of the audience begins chanting “We want hike”, with the slogan continuing for several seconds as the CEO greeted employees. The clip has since been widely shared across platforms, drawing mixed reactions from social media users about employee sentiment and compensation in India’s IT sector.
When the CEO of HCL came on stage, employees started chanting, "We want a hike!" pic.twitter.com/hty1tNGp26
— Nandkishor (@devops_nk) July 27, 2026
HCLTech has not issued an official statement regarding the incident at the time of publication.
The celebrations are part of a months-long programme organised to commemorate the HCL Group’s golden jubilee. Earlier this year, the company kicked off the celebrations with a concert by Arijit Singh in Delhi-NCR. During that event, HCL Group Chairperson Roshni Nadar Malhotra announced that the company would host nine exclusive employee concerts across different cities as part of the anniversary celebrations.
C Vijayakumar, who joined HCL in 1994 as a senior engineer, was appointed Chief Executive Officer of HCLTech in 2016 and became Managing Director in 2021. Over the past three decades, he has held several leadership roles within the organisation and played a key role in building HCL’s remote infrastructure management business, which later evolved into one of the company’s major global service lines. He also serves on the boards of several HCL Group subsidiaries across North and Latin America.
Despite the chants, the Chennai event continued as scheduled, with employees attending the live concert and other activities organised as part of HCLTech’s 50th anniversary celebrations. The episode has since sparked broader discussions online around employee expectations, workplace culture, and compensation trends in India’s technology industry.