Satyam Lay off Job Cut: Satyam Fires 100 Hyderabad employees

It was in September when the news of Satyam layoff first came in, but yesterday, Satyam went ahead and made another round of lay-offs from its base city of Hyderabad. Satyam fired 100 employees citing reasons which are the usual ones like - "behavioural issues", "poor performance" in an performance assessment. Not only that, they went way too ahead and cited reason like - "delay in filling appraisal forms" and even "poor dressing" at work - appears to be a lot weird reasoning.

It is learnt from the news reported that it was a forced resignation - affected employees were given just 2 hours time to decide to resign or services to be terminated.

Probably, people took inspiration from the Jet Airways employees lay off who went berserk after jet airways announced lay offs. Those who were laid off alleged that the company chose to put the blame on them as against owning up for the financial crunch it seems to be facing. They point out that ratings of most employees this year in its "Smart" appraisal exercise (with S as highest rating and T lowest) have dropped with many figuring in the bottom R and T slots.

Though the management at Satyam continues to justify the lay offs mentioning that they are all based on performance and behaviours.

As reported by TOI, sources say the firm is undertaking fresh background checks of all its employees to find "valid" reasons for firing. Besides, project leaders were asked to suggest at least two names from their teams who could be eased out of the firm. But it was the manner in which the news was broken that left many shaken.

"Despite having an impeccable work record I was shown the door. And to do this I was given just two hours," says a senior software engineer.

Another employee of three years with a "S" rating under his belt had to quit under similar circumstances. The techie was first asked to take an assessment test within 30 minutes. He was then told his performance was poor and that he had to leave. "Why would the company insist on a test that my managers in the past had described as only a formality," he asked. His demand to declare the test result went unheeded, he added.

A senior associate who was laid off last week said the pink slip came as a shocker. With six years work experience in known IT firms, he was handling a project in Satyam, two phases of which were already over with his work spilling over to late evenings. One such evening last week he was summoned by HR officials who asked him to meet them
the next day. "I was told, either you leave or we terminateyour service," he says, adding that the reason cited for his removal was his failure in filling the appraisal form on time.

S V Krishnan, Global head of HR, Satyam Computer Services, said, "As part of our appraisal process we identify around 5 to 10 per cent of our associates in the Performance Improvement category and put them through a structured Performance Improvement Program. Our experience reflects that about half of this group exits the system either voluntarily or involuntarily, while the others make credible progress internally. We have concluded our appraisal process a few weeks back, and believe we are witnessing similar trends like in the past."

So where are those individuals who believed that the IT boom is here to stay, or those who believed that there will always be new technology and innovations so IT engineers will never loose the jobs or those who believed that Indian Companies never lay off anyone.
Let's hope that alternative jobs are available to the affected employees of Satyam Lay off.