TCS, Wipro, Patni, Satyam Layoff News

TCS planning more layoffs, Wipro sacks 1000, Satyam to axe 4,500… It seems the days of pink slips have come to haunt IT pros. Though all companies have termed these terminations performance-based, it is anyone’s guess that global slowdown has started hurting Indian IT cos. Late last year, the global IT giant IBM had reportedly laid off 700 entry-level trainee programmers (ELTPs) across its offices . Zensar too had reportedly given pink slips to 2 per cent of it staff, again the company claimed that it was on performance basis. The increments and salaries too have been a causality at most IT firms. Here’s looking into the companies who have taken the manpower call.

After delayed appraisals and cut in payouts, India’s fourth largest IT service provider, Satyam Computer is reported to downsize its workforce by a whopping 4,500 employees. This translates to a little less than 9 per cent of the 51,000 employees that the company employs. Company sources reveal that 1,500 employees have been put under the performance improvement plan (PIP), euphemism for employees put on watch list and asked to shape up or ship out. Apart from this, 3,000 others have not been given any increment in the last appraisal cycle, thereby indicating that their services are dispensable. Last Friday, company’s chief Ramalinga Raju had sent out an email to all employees warning them, especially the ones on the bench, to not bunk office and be in their best dress code, failing which they may face strict disciplinary action.

The company is reported to have handed pink slips to about 400 engineers and associates in Hyderabad, Pune and Visakhapatnam centers. The company management reportedly asked some of the employees to move out of its rolls to a contractual agreement or leave. Like its peers, Satyam too claims that the layoffs are a part of its appraisal system. Global head, human resources, SV Krishnan says, “Our experience has shown that around half of them exit the system either voluntarily or involuntarily. We have concluded our appraisal process some weeks back, and we believe we are witnessing similar trends like those in the past.”

According to a recent report Asia’s largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services is gearing up to another round of layoffs. The company also plans to discourage employees from staying on bench for more than two months on any of its centres. Incidentally, the company had also fired close to 500 employees, citing poor performance after its annual appraisal. It was also among the very first companies to announce a cut in the employee variable pay across the board.

The company which sees some project delays this quarter, but no cancellations, terms this as an employee utilisation exercise. The process will involve counselling employees and training them. Employees would be asked to undertake projects on which they have never worked on and will have to update their skills. Recently, TCS also retrenched 15 employees from its Australian subsidiary. Interestingly, last month too, the company had shown door to some 25 employees from its Kolkata and Bangalore for fudging CVs. By June-end, the total employee strength TCS stood at 116,300, across 64 countries. The company hired 8,982 employees in the first quarter.

The bad news has come from India’s third largest IT outsourcer, Wipro Technologies too. The company has already laid off 1,000 employees, and another 2,000 employees have been put on scanner. The company is reviewing the performance of 60,000 global IT services employees from the senior leadership team down to the person with one-year experience.

Terming it as a regular exercise, company’s corporate vice-president (human resources) Pratik Kumar said, “As the appraisal cycle gets over, a multi-layer review happens. Following that, people who have fallen in the lower quadrants of performance are put on watch. Some are asked to pull up and others are asked to move on.” He added that, “We took a closer look at our hiring and realised that we did not need to hire more, since there were people on the bench.” Many employees are being given counselling to improve their performance, others may be asked to leave.

At the end of the quarter ended June 2008, Wipro’s IT services employee base had fallen to 61,345 from 62,070 employees at the end of the previous quarter. TOP Indian Reality Shows

In July, Mumbai-based Patni Computer Systems too gave pink slips to 400 employees on grounds of non-performance. Terming it as a routine exercise and not a slowdown setback, country’s sixth-largest exporter said that it is an effort to weed out non-performers. Rajesh Padmanabhan, vice-president and head, global HR, Patni, said, “This is an absolutely regular appraisal that is important for any performance-driven organisation. It is something standard we do every year.

Employees who have got 0-1 rating on a scale of 5 typically form the basis for the first-level shortlist. These are performance-based resignations; we’ve not issued any termination letters.” However, industry sources reveal that the laid off employees included several project managers as well.

Incidentally, while in case of TCS, the retrenched number was about 0.5 per cent of the workforce, for Patni, it made for closer to 3 per cent of the 14,800-strong workforce. Narendra K Patni, Chairman and CEO, Patni Computer Systems said, “The overall market environment remains challenging with prevailing global uncertainties. We are cautious in our short-term outlook but remain positive on long-term prospects and are continuing our investments in identified areas”.