5000 Wipro Employees to Face the Axe

Wipro Technologies is right- sizing. To improve operational efficiency, it has decided to sack more employees than it usually does on the basis of performance. In the current quarter (January-March), 7 to 8 per cent of the people working in its global IT services division will have to leave.

In normal times, only 0.5 per cent of the employees are sacked for professional reasons. But the proportion was higher at about 2 per cent in the last two quarters. In the current quarter, it will rise above 7 per cent. The global IT services division, mainly catering to the US and European markets, had 60,605 people at the end of December.

Financial Chronicle learns from several Wipro employees that the number of people on the hit list could be as high as 5,000. This, however, could not be confirmed with company officials. FC emailed a questionnaire to the company’s human resources head, Pratik Kumar, who, in response, only said, “Wipro would not like to comment on this.’’

The people being eased out are mainly freshers not yet confirmed in their jobs and staff who have three to five years’ experience. Also, a number of managerial- level employees (such as vice-presidents, general managers, project managers and project leaders earning over Rs 12 lakh annually) are also facing the axe. Earlier, senior- level staff rarely came under such intense scrutiny.

An employee on the hit list told FC on condition of anonymity, “At the moment, employees with higher salaries are being laid off to save cost.”

Another senior- level employee, who has spent a over a decade in Wipro, said people at that level had been asked to justify their positions. He said, “Senior people have to take on more responsibilities. We have to manage more employees in out teams, acquire more clients and more projects.”

Senior employees will get about two to three months to justify their presence in the company and if they fail to do so, they will have to go, he added.

Junior staff are being trained across all processes, reducing the need for senior employees. Since January, Wipro has a introduced certification test for all staff barring the senior management. Those who can’t score over 70 per cent and clear the test in three attempts are shown the door.
Employees said that many project teams, especially those in the financial services sector serving European or American companies, had been halved.

A software engineer, currently benched, said all benched staff had been told that if they couldn’t get into new teams within three months, they too would have to leave.

Generally, IT firms place 5 per cent of their employees under the non-performance rating. After being put through a mandatory improvement programme, about 0.5 to 0.8 per cent of them are asked to leave each year. However, bad market conditions and a drive for optimisation have meant that involuntary attrition has increased.