TCS convinces 500 employees to resign
By Jonnathan Rose

When India’s largest Software exporter, TCS (Tata Consultancy Services) spells ‘performance of employees’, one can be assured that the company actually means layoff’s.  The company has, in literal sense, sacked around 500 employees over a period of time this year. In February it was reported by mainstream media that TCS has put 1000 techies under the performance scanner.

As soon as the news was published, a TCS spokesperson assured the public that this performance improvement plan was no different from previous years. What he didn’t mention was, last year also, following the so called annual performance exercise the company had fired 500 employees, which it called “Voluntary resignations”.

A source from the company who wished anonymity has revealed certain facts which break the code of “Voluntary resignation”.  The source who recently got engaged was with TCS for the past three years and had expertise in ERP (Enterprise resource planning) said he was serving on the bench for the past three months. As per company policy someone on bench has the flexibility to report from home but he continued visiting the HR office regularly and showed his interest by asking for projects. Last week, his happiness knew no bounds when he got to know that he was put on a project. But the hopeful moment was short lived, as he got a call from the HR on Monday to report for an important piece of news. On his visit to the HR Department, he was given a choice to either sign on the resignation letter and leave the company with one month of salary or get sacked by TCS.

Hearing the shocker, he rushed to his project manager (PM) for help.  To add to his shock the PM told him that he will not be able to help because tomorrow it might be his turn. The manager suggested to him that signing on the resignation letter would be a better option rather than getting sacked, and later at the time of joining another company he could make his impending nuptials as an excuse for quitting the company.

The source has confirmed that TCS, in a similar fashion, has sacked 500 employees this year. Going by the legal terms the company may call this sort of an exit as ‘voluntary’, but the situation it creates to compel its employees to give it a voluntary look is not just unprofessional but also in-human.

TCS may have signed few big deals this year, Ducati and IPL team Rajasthan Royals being the recent ones, but it surely has not been able to strike a balance in the current scenario of downturn.  Employee expense makes up at least 53-54% of TCS’s total cost and hence the company sees laying off as the most effective way of cutting costs. Whatever be the scene, but it should at least stop boasting that it doesn’t have the history of sacking, and it fires employees only for disciplinary reasons.