Beyond Layoff

We seem to be seeing frequent news articles about well-paid Indian techies finding ways to defraud the government and claim fraudulent tax refunds.  A few months ago, Investigators from Hyderabad's Central Crime Station (CCS) busted at least 200 IT employees for faking disability and chronic illness of family members to claim income tax refunds fraudulently. The CCS sleuths filed a chargesheet against two income tax practitioners, N Srikanth Goud, 43, and Mohammed Khaleel, 34. The I-T department suffered a loss of Rs 1.36 crore from the case. ( link ) In yet another case in Bengaluru, Income Tax department sleuths announced that they bust a tax refund scam and arrested the accountant.  The directors general of income tax, Karnataka and Goa, have busted an income tax refund scam in Bengaluru by apprehending a city-based chartered accountant for abetting tax evasion. However, the sleuths haven't disclosed the suspect's name. The suspect would file revised re

Information technology firm Cognizant said around 400 of its senior executives have accepted its voluntary separation package which will help the multi-national corporation save around $60 million dollars annually, PTI reported on Sunday. The company had offered some of its senior staff up to nine months of salary. Wikimedia Commons The international company had pitched the package, which offers up to nine months of salary, to some of its senior executives based in the United States and India in May. The firm has not specified how many of the employees were based in India, which accounts for a sizable number of its 2.56 lakh workforce. “Of the $39 million (approximately Rs 248 crore) of realignment charges, $35 million was for the roughly 400 associates who accepted our voluntary separation package,” Cognizant Chief Financial Officer Karen McLoughlin said at a recent investor call. The CFO said the step will help increase profits. The firm’s staff strength was reduced by aro

The first is the news of   "A Senior Infosys Employee Writes to Management" Subject: Seeking your immediate intervention and kind attention to protect innocent employees against speculated layoffs, forced resignations, termination’s and force fitting into bottom performance grades. Recently there have been a lot of disruptive news around speculated layoffs, forced resignations and terminations at Infosys. Many employees are being force fitted into bottom performance assessment grades as “Can do better/Needs Improvement” without any valid data points. This is done just to create grounds for their forced resignations/layoffs, terminations in the name of bottom performance. These are the employees who have spent years of their lives towards serving large corporates like Infosys and its big clients. They helped towards growth and revenue building of the organization. Even the founder of Infosys respected N.R. Narayana Murthy is standing by the employees and condemned all

This was an interesting question from an online forum. Another similar question that came up. Is it true that Cognizant is planning a mass layoff in the upcoming months? Rumours has it there are plans to layoff as many as 20,000 people from the company. As a result there has been a delay in the appraisal cycle as well. Seniors or any people well informed kindly shed some light into it. To respond, let us start by looking at the basics: The business model in the western /developed countries are much more ‘business friendly’ and many states in the US have "right to hire" or “employment at will” laws. What this means is simple: Employers can terminate employees “without cause,” just like employees can leave a job without giving a lengthy notice period. However, employees who are part of such involuntary termination can file for ‘unemployment benefits’ till they find another job. Software service companies in India operate in the same global environments

Forum For IT Employees ( FITE ) continues to get a lot of media attention An IT Workers’ Union: Outlandish Or A Sign Of The Times? Bloomberg wonders, adding "India’s software services industry faces a twin challenge: U.S. President Donald Trump’s protectionist policies and automation. And as companies lay off staff, a group of employees is now trying to form an IT workers’ union. There’s been a growing sense of insecurity among the IT professionals over the last few years, said Elavarasan Raja, a 27-year-old IT worker from Pune. That’s led the group to try and form a union to better protect employees’ welfare, said Raja who is part of the group. Called the Forum For IT Employees, the group now has around 3,000 members and chapters in nine cities, including its headquarters in Chennai, and in prominent IT hubs like Bengaluru and Pune, according to Raja. The group, in a recent press release, alleged that Cognizant Technology Solutions was illegally terminating thousands of emp

There are two interesting headlines on layoffs in Indian IT, both from from Bloomberg. The one from today (25th May 2017) claims "Trump Blamed for Job Losses as India Tech Workers Face Cuts."    The other headline from May 11th claims "These Job Cuts Aren't Trump's Fault" The article in Bloomberg today basically quotes some former Cognizant employees to make an argument for a headline on Trump. The Article quoted Swapana Bhosale from Cognizant “Pulling people out of projects to sack them is unheard of in our industry,” said Bhosale, who demanded to be fired rather than resign so she can take legal action. The 36-year-old sees an unusual culprit behind job losses in the country’s outsourcing industry: U.S. President Donald J. Trump.  Bhosale’s not alone in blaming Trump. In cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad and Kolkata, thousands of engineers who have been axed or face dismissal are banding together on social networks and WhatsApp group

Hiring and firing are a common business practice in the west. The typical American spends about 4.2 years in a job ( link ) and sometimes leaves for better opportunity and at other times may be fired or laid off. The phenomena was glorified by reality TV shows like The Apprentice with Donald Trump’s punchline “You’re Fired”   ! Googled image Even considering the fact that layoffs are a common business practice in the west, the impact of a job loss is hard on individuals. Many psychologists and researchers classify “Job Loss” among the top 5 stressors for people, ranked with the “Death of a loved one,” Divorce, and Major Illness! Let us switch to layoffs in India, more specifically layoffs in Indian IT which is in the news a lot. The news of layoffs come at a time of additional scrutiny on employment-visas in the US, UK, Australia and elsewhere, and a general slowdown in the Indian IT (my earlier response to a question). For those laid off involuntarily, it may f