Infosys: humiliating fired techies
By Bala Shah

No other country has this system of publicly humiliating ex employees.  No other industry in India follows such blatant heartlessness.  Even in India, most tech companies deal with exits in a sensitive fashion. But many Indian tech majors are guilty of such public chest thumping.  Last week, Infosys HR Head, Mohandas Pai, told media on how non-performers were sacked.

On April 11, Infosys told Indian media that 2100 employees were sacked after negative annual performance appraisals. Infosys HR Head, Mr. Pai was quoted as saying: "The tolerance for non-performance has come down to zero. The appraisal was conducted for 60,000 of our employees. At the bottom, some 3.5% of the people were either outplaced or left the company. It's an annual scenario after every performance assessment. In fact, normally the bottom size is 5%”.

45000 Infosys trainees did not go through this annual appraisal exercise.  As you can imagine, these sackings and public humiliation have put the fear of God in them.  Managers who have the power to determine their sacking (or not) next year will be treated with fear rather than as team mates in arms working collectively to deliver quality tech projects.

Someone should tell Infosys that many a time youngsters (like business houses) make mistakes and are guilty of bad judgment in the early years of life.  Have they forgotten that even Infosys had to struggle for its existence in the first few years of its life?  Letting go someone because there is a ‘skill/talent mismatch’ is acceptable, publicly shattering their self confidence of a 21-year old is not.

Someone should tell the company that that there is something wrong with Infosys HR policies if you are hiring so many wrong people that as many as 5 percent have to be sacked every year.  Infosys is one of the veterans of the industry and so perhaps you should look at firing some of your own HR people first for hiring so many ‘non-performers’ year after year.  Infosys seems to be blaming young men and women for some shortcomings in its HR Department.

Why is there so much chest thumping when it involves junior employees?  When Infosys had to fire a senior US based manager charged with sexual harassment, why was the company so muted in its public response? Is it because serious managers can fight back as opposed to juniors who have just started their working life?

If Wipro, Satyam, TCS or Infosys fire a large numbers of employees every year,  many would question if this is a deliberate policy to save money by not offering redundancy packages to employees no longer needed for projects that have finished or did not eventuate.  Firing is always cheaper that redundancy.

And lastly if this was the right way to do things why don’t the industry behemoths like Microsoft, IBM and Oracle indulge in such public humiliation of ex-employees?   Perhaps it is because they realize it is not the best course of action.

Infosys has built up a very respectable brand based on its professionalism and financial transparency.  Most Infosys employees have a good word for their managers especially Mr. Murthy.  Perhaps, it is time for Infosys (as well as other tech companies) to open their hearts to employees who have been let go.  A public flogging of a 21-year old still finding his/her feet in life is seriously bad karma.