HCLTech employees’ ‘we want hike’ chants go viral online

HCLTech employees’ chants of “we want hike”, directed at chief executive C Vijayakumar during a 50th anniversary event in Chennai, have gone viral online.

The video, circulating widely on X and Instagram, shows the auditorium erupting into the chant the moment Vijayakumar took the stage.

The chant continued for some time while the CEO remained on stage during the celebration.

The event marked HCLTech’s golden jubilee, celebrating fifty years since the company was established.

The clip has triggered mixed reactions online, with some viewers finding it amusing and others connecting it to broader compensation concerns in India’s IT sector.

Some commenters praised the employees for speaking candidly, while others felt the chant was out of place at the event.

The video has continued to be shared and discussed widely since the celebration took place.

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.

Social media users were divided in their reactions, with some praising the employees for candidly expressing workplace concerns in a public setting, while others felt the moment undercut the tone of a company milestone event.

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.

(Image: Itsbilluid (CC BY-SA 3.0))