Tech Mahindra CEO CP Gurnani and Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra have both apologised for the manner in which a yet to be named Tech Mahindra employee was fired recently. The employee was asked to resign as a part of the company’s cost optimisation and restructuring plans by 10 am the next day. What made this incident go viral was the fact that a sound clip of his exit interview was uploaded to SoundCloud on Thursday.
In the clip, the employee can be heard pleading with the HR executive for more time and despite those repeated pleas the HR executive curtly tells the employee that that is not an option and refers several time to the employment contract that gives the employer the right to fire an employee instantly.
“Cost optimisation is happening at the company and your name is part of that list. If you can put in papers we will be treating it as a normal exit with June 15 as last working day, if not, we will be sending you a termination letter and don’t expect anything from the company including experience letter or basic salary,” the HR executive is heard saying on the call.
I want to add my personal apology. Our core value is to preserve the dignity of the individual & we'll ensure this does not happen in future https://t.co/yBxAxvFZlc
— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) July 7, 2017
Anand Mahindra issued a personal apology via Twitter. He wrote “I want to add my personal apology. Our core value is to preserve the dignity of the individual and we’ll ensure this does not happen in future.”
CP Gurnani also took to twitter to express his regrets – ” I deeply regret the way the HR rep & employee discussion was done. We have taken the right steps to ensure it doesn’t repeat in the future”
Tech Mahindra also issued a formal statement regarding the matter. – “Tech Mahindra has always regarded respect for colleagues, fairness and human dignity as core values, and has demonstrated these consistently over the years. We have become aware of the incident involving a conversation between and employee and a Company HR representative. We deeply regret the manner in which the discussion took place, and has taken necessary corrective steps to ensure that this doesn’t happen again in the future.”
I deeply regret the way the HR rep & employee discussion was done. We have taken the right steps to ensure it doesn’t repeat in the future. pic.twitter.com/KKLt6tIBb6
— CP Gurnani (@C_P_Gurnani) July 7, 2017
The company further added – “We continue to implement strategies to implement the changing demands of business in the current global economic environment and align with our workforce with the business objectives, strategic priorities of the organisations, and requirements of our clients. This however, will be done in a manner that benefits our rise philosophy and our Group’s core values”
This incident comes at a time when the IT job market in India is seemingly crashing. Information technology firms in India are reportedly in the middle of one of the largest job cuts ever seen in this Industry. The number of layoffs this year is set to be twice that of last year, with inability to adapt to new technologies, inadequate growth, rise in costs and the inability to deal with newly elected US President Donald Trump’s nationalist-protectionist policies.
There were reports a few weeks ago that Tech Mahindra had reportedly let go of more than a thousand employees in May-June. Seven of the biggest IT firms in the country are (already) in the process of laying off more than 56,000 engineers.
source: indiatoday.intoday.in
