TCS staff churn

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sharktale1212

Herald
As Tata Consultancy Services, the largest IT services provider in the country, continues its lay-offs, trade unions are attempting to break into the IT industry, which has long avoided any unionization of its employees.

A Chennai-based group of IT-professionals called the Young Tamil Nadu Movement has threatened to take legal action against the company for laying off employees.

"TCS is saying they are going to sack thousands of senior people in the name of restructuring. They are going to do this on the basis of appraisals, but we know how the process works. Employees are being given vague reasons," said Parimala, a working committee member of the movement.

Large trade unions have also begun to approach TCSBSE -3.63 % employees to consider unionization, according to media reports.

All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has asked software engineers to plan a strategy to resist the workforce cut, the International Business Times reported.

TCS has reiterated over the last two weeks that there is nothing out of the ordinary in these job cuts and that it's hiring target of 55,000 for FY15 remains on track.

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
 
I heard that they are setting a ntoice period of 1 month and 3 months of pay are being given to the employees as severance package.This year they are looking to add 55k people and are getting rid of underperforming (pure HRspeak) people who have more than 5-6 years of experience.
 
There might or might not be merit to this. I know a friend who worked with HSBC, where a similar exercise was taken in the IT arm around 3 years ago. The company trimmed not only the middle but "higher" management too. Everyone was given a generous severance - number of years served + 2 (for notice) months of salary. Some of the higher ups took home around 50+ lakhs (20+ years of service). That was fair and there were some who were really happy with this.
In light of that, TCS' targeting only "middle management" is a bit unfair. Secondly their actual view of firing people with experience to fill the company with cheaper labour of 55k new hirees is similar to what us Indians do (cheap labor compared to US people).
 
I find it no reason when the company is paying you for 3 months and kicking you off. Yes this might be their restructuring. And every company follows it, not only in IT sector. I feel the company has rights to kick any one if they found not to be suitable. This is not a government job for job security. People are so happy when they are paid huge sum on money, but get emotional when they are ready to be kicked.

I think to reduce cost the TCS is kicking all those in middle management who are just similar to mediators.
 
sharktale1212 said:
The company trimmed not only the middle but "higher" management too.
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From what I understand, the top management analyzes the performance of the division based on the revenue and then sometimes, entire division is laid off. so, over night all the engineers, vice presidents, directors and managers are sacked irrespective of their performance. The hint is that if your product division is performing badly, its time to go.
 
From what I have learned, the lay off is driven by the Corporate HR people (aka the big guys). Immediate managers aren't involved in the short listing (as there's probability of their name being on the list :D). Its mostly effecting people with 10+ years of experience, but there's exception too.
According to the rumor, they have set some criteria based on previous years' performances - different crietria for different levels.

But the HR head released some kind of statement on the internal portal denying any such layoffs.
It said there's around 2% people are laid off every year. Thats also a huge number considering 3lakh employee base of the company. But the rumor is its 5% this year and hence comes the number 15K or so.

someone from Kolkata got promotion on last October and got fired on December. :o
Interestingly, naukri dot com was blocked in the internal proxy, but not sure from when, now its unblocked. :D :P

ps: yeah I am here....
 
booo said:
From what I understand, the top management analyzes the performance of the division based on the revenue and then sometimes, entire division is laid off. so, over night all the engineers, vice presidents, directors and managers are sacked irrespective of their performance. The hint is that if your product division is performing badly, its time to go.
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I am no expert but there are no singular criteria which drives this. In HSBC's case, the criteria was trying to bring "six degrees of separation" into IT based on BCG's recommendation. That meant everyone in management needed to have at least six people reporting to them. This artificially meant 1 TL = six SE + SSE, 1 PM = 6TL and so on. This actually caused a rather unique change in reporting. In some cases, even the VP had reporting from SE/SSE level. ie VP = SPM + 2 TL + 3 SSE or something.

In TCS' case it has more to do with savings than anything. From what I have heard, there are onsite folks who were given C (met expectations) rating because "you are onsite and already making money why need hike". These guys got C for last 2-3 years and now are on the chopping block.

That said, I also understand there are some people who need to be fired irrespectively. I have met some unique folks who run home business (Amway) from office; stay till late to use office phone but then cry their hearts when threatened to be fired.

@mathrisk - safe?
 
raksrules said:
They can always stop promotions / raises or not give variable / less variable instead of layoffs.
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If you are given the option of either everybody in the company taking a 50% cut in salary or that the under performers in the company be laid off, which one would you opt for if you assume you belong to the performers category?

A private business is not keeping its doors open for doing charity. They are doing business for profit and if a bunch of people are not contributing up to par or if a whole division is not being profitable (despite the hard work of the employees) the company has every right to reduce its costs by removing those positions. However it is in the interests of any company to retain people they want to even while they remove those that they don't need any longer. So, it is not so odd that companies would rather lay off people to cut costs than reduce incentives for every one. At my former company, during a massive layoff session, they actually gave retention bonuses to the rest of us who they wanted to retain because in the long run that was in the best interests of the company.

If people think they have every right to switch to another company when they a better pay package regardless of whether they are causing problems for a project that they were involved in, then why is it that people want companies to retain people at all costs even when they are no longer needed.
 
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I think people are deluded if they think that individual performance is the only basis on which a company may have to reduce head count. Skill/Role stagnation are also reasons for being selected for layoffs. Some times its also done on a cost center basis. Regardless of how much the whole company earns, each project, team, dept etc. may be treated as its own cost center. If a cost center is incurring more cost than its earnings, it may be considered for clean up or even the whole unit may be laid off. Yes, that can also be seen as a performance related reason, but it is the performance of your unit that is under par and needs remedy.

I don't see any thing wrong about it because when employees think they are entitled to say good bye to a company when ever they fancy leaving for a higher salary or whatever other reason, a company should also have that freedom. That is what a professional relationship is about. You carry your work responsibilities sincerely and the company pays agreed remuneration and either party can terminate such a relationship whenever one of them wants to get away.

I have a number of friends and colleagues who have worked at TCS in the past and they all curse it for its slack attitude in not disciplining its employees properly. Since they operate it like a govt company, many people take it easy and don't work at all. Many employees like to be on bench rather than be involved in a project since they still get the salary. He was also saying that there are employees whom the manager hasn't seen in months because they don't come and do some other work at home while on bench. Some are not even enticed to join a project even when offered the opportunity to work on site abroad. They would rather be on bench earning salary and doing another side job or business. TCS in Calcutta apparently is the worst of the lot. One of my colleagues was telling when he was for a short time deputed to TCS Calcutta, the people there told him that TCS stands for Tea Coffee Snacks or something like that in Calcutta.

There is no doubt that people who get used to such kind of culture would it hard to digest lay offs. Especially the ones who actually gave a damn about really working. But they have to realize that they are working at a private company and nonsense about loyalty and how they put their best years in the company doesn't make any sense.

I have been through and survived 16 layoff sessions in my 10 year career so far. I am always ready for it. There is nothing personal about it. I many have worked at only 2 companies over 10 years, but I have never been loyal to either. I only strive to handle my work responsibilities in a capable manner and that includes doing any and everything that is in my power to make the company succeed. I get paid for that. The company can ask me to leave whenever they don't need me and I will leave them whenever I wish to.

At least in my personal experience, in the places where I worked, most who are asked to leave usually leave on good terms. Even if it may be a sad thing or a hassle to some, they don't take it personally. If they really are good performers, they can score a job at another company in no time. The whiners are those who don't have such confidence in their skills and they go about spewing nonsense about company loyalty and such.

Any one working in the private sector should be mentally prepared for such things and maintain a professional relationship with their employer. These are not govt offices where you think you are entitled to keep your jobs and get salaries at expense of the tax payers regardless of your performance or continued utility.
 
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I feel for the HR who has to do this.

This reminds me of a story - I knew a guy at my first company, who was supposedly part of such exercise. The HR messed up and sent an email to everyone who was in the list (which he was supposed to paste in the mail instead). And yes, many of the them were the ones "meeting expectation". The company wanting to save face, postponed the exercise.

Now everyone became aware of that their name was in the last, including this guy. So the next step was to try and work his way through. Instead he was more focused on something else. The company had a share buying plan wherein people could buy company shares at 20% discount. This guy had invested in a 3year plan ie the shares full value was realized only when he completed 3 years in the company. He stood to make over 8 lakh from this transaction.

When his manager asked him to improve or go, this is what he wrote in the mail - "Hi xxxx, As per our discussion around my performance, I request you to help me stay in the company till August xxxx. I have invested in the company's share buying plan and stand to make 8 lakhs. If you fire me now I stand to lose the money. Thanks xxx". In spite of telling him to be at least sorry for his under performance and not writing such personal stories, he did not listen. HR initiated an action against him the very next day.

He now works at TCS. ;)
 
raksrules said:
Haven't heard the recording yet but can anyone give a gist ?
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Some of the recordings are of people who thought it is perfectly fine by them for their employer to rate them lower because they are working onsite abroad and then whining that they have been laid off because of those ratings. Wrong time to talk about that.

Personally, if I ever feel that I am ever unfairly rated for whatever reason, I would resign from that company immediately. If these people are fine with being rated lower for whatever they thought is a fair reason, they should be fine with being fired on that basis. It is not an excuse for these people to whine about. An unfair rating is a sure shot indicator that the company doesn't value you enough to want to retain you.

Some of the other recordings are about people who were being asked to go because they lost their utility to the company either because of skill stagnation or because there is no future scope for the kind of projects they are involved in and other such reasons.
 
pauldmps said:
The recordings are horrific.
I have been offered job in TCS. I think I'll start looking elsewhere.
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Well, there is nothing horrific about that. Many of those people are making noise unnecessarily.
I think any person with a fair amount of skill will find it hard to work in the kind of culture offered by TCS. As I said, I have had many of my class mates colleagues and friends who worked for TCS at some point of time, but no body who has at least half decent skills stayed for more than an year.
 
abhi1984 said:
I feel for the HR who has to do this.
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Don't.. You don't know how arrogant HR @ TCS is. They think they are doing you a a favour by offering you a job and they definitely won't care about firing either. Can you believe they had the nerve to call a guy saying that package is no object despite him telling them before hand that they might not be able to afford him and then went ahead offered him half the package that he was already getting and telling him that since TCS is such a world class company, he should just forget everything and take up the offer.
 
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