Terming Tata Consultancy Services as a company ‘sensitive’ to staffers, Chief Executive Officer N Chandrasekaran indicated that that the recent drive to weed out non performers could have been handled better.
“I joined this company as a trainee and I have gone through all the processes that every other employee in TCS goes through. Performance-linked separations are a normal process for the company every year,” Chandrasekaran, who is also the Managing Director of TCS, said.
“I don’t know if it’s a communication failure or something else, but we have to reflect, in all humility, why this has created so much noise and dissatisfaction this time around,” he said at a news conference today.
As per some estimates, TCS was to dish out pink slips for 25,000-30,000 non-performers. However, TCS recently clarified that it will terminate the services of around 1 per cent staffers this year. This means that the axe could fall on over 3,000 employees as the company had 313,757 staffers on its rolls as on September 30. The involuntary separations are in line with previous year’s trends, the company said.
The alleged layoffs have created a storm in IT industry circles as the Tata group company employs over 3 lakh people – nearly one quarter of total private sector jobs in the organised sector.
However, the company said that the onus lay on its staffers, especially at senior levels, to take initiative and sharpen their output.
“Our HR department does not have a policy to take a decision on the basis of one rank or one year rating. It’s a multiple year process that we have taken,” said Chandrasekaran, adding that the company continues to hire and train people as demand for its services are growing.
In what could be a precedent to help terminated employees in the software sector, the Madras High Court on Tuesday restrained TCS from retrenching a woman employee. The management did not give any notice of retrenchment, as required under the Industrial Disputes Act, she said in the petition. Chandraskeran did not comment on this particular case.