It’s no longer TGIF! Techies now dread Fridays

While giants like IBM, Cognizant and Infosys have already laid off many of their employees, several smaller companies are are believed to be quietly asking their employees to leave.
For representational purposes (Express Illustrations)
For representational purposes (Express Illustrations)

BENGALURU: As the weekends approach, it’s not pub-hopping and partying which on the minds of many these days. Employees in IT companies are dreading Fridays as most of the pink slips are being handed out on that day after week-long processing by the HR departments.

“Our company has already pink-slipped almost 150 employees from both the IT and BPO services since September 1. We have been told that this will go on till the year-end. We are scared to be at office during the weekend wondering if and when the call from the HR department will come,” said an employee
of Conduent Business Services India LLP in Whitefield, who did not want to be identified. That makes it a nail-biting weekend for the employees.

While giants like IBM, Cognizant and Infosys have already laid off many of their employees, several smaller companies are believed to be quietly asking their employees to leave.

When The New Sunday Express contacted the three companies, Infosys and IBM refused to comment.
A spokesperson for Cognizant said, “The layoffs won’t be immediate. There are a lot of things which need to be worked out. There are plans to reskill and redeploy many employees too. It will only be in the third quarter that the announcements will come.”

“I was employed with a company for more than 15 years. I joined as a fresher and by putting in sleepless hours at work and on-site deputations, I worked hard to rise up the ranks. I was called recently and asked to leave as my services were ‘no longer warranted’ by the organisation,” said Narendra N H, who was an associate consultant with a software company.

According to sources, employees up to the managerial level are given three months’ salary and asked to leave while those in senior leadership positions are given better deals depending on the number of years they have served in the company.

Rakshia M Rao, an HR professional at a company in Electronics City said, “It is very dehumanising when you have to call the employees and tell them that they have to leave. But we have no option. Also, our process of paperwork and other things take a week’s time. We get to know by Monday which employee has to be asked to leave and the employee is informed by Friday.”

Many of them have not even got buffer time to look for jobs in other organisations. A senior software developer from Cognizant, on condition of anonymity, said, “These firms treat us with such impunity. There are no monitoring mechanisms from the government side to check such terminations. Nor is there a grievances redressal mechanism for us. Moreover, employees with more than eight years of experience do not have much of a future in the IT industry now as all other IT firms restrict senior experienced candidates.”

Reacting to the developments, Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan, who holds the IT/BT portfolio, told TNSE, “We are aware of the situation and we will be coming out with an IT policy very soon which will answer all these issues. The government will also come up with facilities to upgrade employee skills in the tech sector. Things will change for the better.”

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