Wipro 445 Layoffs

As part of their annual HR exercise Wipro Ltd has asked about 445 people 'separate' this year. This includes about 380 people from its software development and export division, Wipro Technologies and about 65 to 70 people from its domestic systems and services division, Wipro Infotech.

Wipro corporate executive Vice President (Human Resources), Dileep Ranjnekar said, the move was not lay-offs. "Every year we go through a very intense performance appraisal system. From this the Top 10 percent (employees identified as the best performers) and the bottom 5 per cent are identified."

Of this, according to Ranjekar, an action plan is charted out for the bottom 5 per cent. "We first look at what development plans can we undertaken for the bottom line. These could include additional training, mentoring, or if there are relationship issues within the group – even shifting them to another group." The performance of these employees is closely monitored and after a designated period of time –which could vary from three to six months – they are either taken off the watch list or, as Ranjnekar says, "separated."

According to Ranjnekar, Wipro has done this almost every year, with the only exception at Wipro Technologies last year, when the business and HR environment was such that companies were looking for ways and means of retaining people, rather than sifting out the bottom performers.

"It is important to understand, however," says Ranjnekar "that the bottom five may actually be good performers in the absolute sense. Its just that in the relative performance levels within Wipro, they might be at the bottom of the beaker."

According to Ranjnekar, a five-step HR exercise is undertaken. People whose performance levels are not up to expectations are called in for a talk with their seniors in the presence of a HR official and the action plan is outlined for them.

"In cases where people are asked to leave, we ask them first how long it would take them to find a job. The company and the employee agree on outer time limit and we’ve found that almost all of them find a job within that time."

When asked why so many people were "separated" this year Ranjnekar said "the absolute numbers look big because as a company we’ve grown. In 1999-2000 we had about 220 people. We hired 5,000 additional people since then. The percentage of people asked to go remains more or less the same, it's just that the absolute figures have changed. It’s a very painful process. So this exercise is not undertaken lightly. A lot of time and effort and thought goes into the process."

Besides, says Ranjnekar, the same exercise last year hadn’t invited the kind of attention as this year. "A lot of it has to do with the slowdown and the changed business environment. Suddenly, everything done looks big."