TCS Layoff

"Those who cannot meet the performance requirements of our company were asked to look for another job commensurate with their abilities." – This was the statement issued by the spokesperson of TCS.

Along with all the varied reasons like US recession, US lay-offs, Rupee rising against dollar speculated/known by most, the company says it’s the performance that has put the 500 employees in this jeopardy.

And it is said that the performance was rated on a scale of 1-5. The rating of the performance on a scale of 1-5 was true, till March 2007. But from April 2007, the performance rating has taken a new form called ranking on a scale of A-E with E being the least, which is actually a relative rating. The words might sound similar, as most of the employees think but the difference can be appreciated in the following example:

Till March 2007, in a team of 40, one could hardly see people with rating 1, 2-3 people with rating 5 and 8-9 with rating 4 and rating 2 & 3 for the rest of them.
If the same rating is applied to the prevailing ranking (relative rating), there need to be many Es as well as Ds. And how do they arrive on this ranking (within a team, within a project, within a center) is never revealed to anyone. So the statement of performance on a scale of 1-5 becomes false.

Coming to the point of who could be these employees and what could be the reason for their poor performance in TCS terms is another interesting question. These 500 people could be developers, project leaders, Project Managers, etc.

Just considering the two broad positions of developers and managers, one common thing among these people would be these are the people who would have a happy family, healthy and peaceful life and who may live longer than others. The project managers could have been someone who still appreciates the family system, treats the employees who work under him as humans who and may not use the words “tremendous stress/pressure” or completely unlucky ones.

Though the same can be applicable to developers, the pity is that the person who decides on the developer rating (Module Leader/Project Leader) could be an absolutely dumb guy who may not even speak fluent English, may not possess 50%of the technical/functional knowledge of what the developer possess, but still elder in age and has more experience going to the office and is called the senior/superior. Even if the developer works hard/smart and does everything for the project/company, the attitude of a fool might put him in the 2nd list which could be released in a couple of months saying – TCS lays off another 500 employees…..

And what do TCS achieve by laying off – (since there are no loss reported and only the estimated profit not being attained) become a super power, become a Global Top 10 in ten days, become number one in the whole galaxy or would attain world peace by becoming numero uno ??

Competition is needed and that needs to be encouraged but not at the cost of someone’s life.

PS: The writer is an employee of TCS and he very well welcomes the move of cutting down the salary than cutting down someone’s neck.