Tech giant Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has laid off nearly 12,000 employees, about 2% of its global workforce. The move, which comes amid growing criticism, reflects a broader trend in the tech industry, where companies are ramping up AI investments while cutting costs to fund them. The layoffs, which spanned all levels of the hierarchy, have also left many employees disheartened, but not surprised.
Reports suggest that while this wasn’t a surprise, ‘forced resignations’ were part of the deal. In a report from The News Minute, an employee claimed that TCS offered three months’ worth of pay as “an incentive to resign”. However, if someone refused, they would be terminated without compensation, a mid-management level employee revealed. An employee took to social media and claimed, “They released me early and paid immediately. That’s how badly they wanted us out.”
“People are scared into quitting”
The coercion to quit comes after mass layoffs across TCS. The TNM report claimed that employees who were “asked to resign” were made to switch off their phones before the meeting with the concerned department. “They will try their best to convince us to resign,” stated an employee in the report.
While only some employees seem to be aware of the legal rights they hold in case of a wrongful termination but many hesitate due to overbearing finances.
What is the TCS ‘Bench Policy’?
This policy of TCS limits an employee’s time on the bench. Taking from the concept of a bench in sports, it is the period when an employee is not assigned to any active client. Putting a cap on this duration, TCS has reduced it to 35 days.
The Bench Policy places employees in a holding phase, where they await assignment to new projects under their responsibility. Additionally, the layoffs are not restricted to those on the ‘bench’. An employee told TNM that people working on active projects started receiving emails that informed them that their role was ‘non-critical’. An employee from TCS Bengaluru claimed that 300 people were forced to resign on campus over the past week. The daily average is nearly 50, the report stated.
Pointing to the staggering number of layoffs, netizens speculated that 12,000 was the number of people were laid off. This data largely omits those who resigned or are on the bench. “12k is the count that they are going to lay off the people who were in the allocation…They are not considering Bench guys,” wrote a user on social media anonymously.
Similarly, pointed out a pattern in the layoffs, a user also shared that freshers or junior-level employees would likely be placed in a high-pressure team. With building workload pressure, “You’ll not be fired after 35 days, you will be given warnings, the resource management group will try more to get you into a project and pressurize you more,” speculated a user on the internet. These warnings are also likely to “affect your appraisal cycle and promotions”. Citing a lack of “in-demand skills”, the user claimed, an employee would most likely be fired.
From layoffs to TCS salary hike
Days after a streak of layoffs, TCS announced the annual salary hike for junior to mid-senior level staff. Their annual remuneration was between Rs 15 to 35 lakh, reported NDTV. Just days before the TCS salary hike was announced, a netizen claimed, “It’s just cost-cutting. Also, they don’t want to pay the hike money, which is why they are firing everyone.”
Employees outside India were set to receive a 2-8% increment in their wages. This salary hike affected 80% of the workforce, announced TCS. However, the attrition rate reached a staggering two-year high to 13.8% in June while onboarding 6,071 employees till now.