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Performance evaluation drama peaks at TCS (TATA Consultancy services)

Every year the annual performance evaluation (or Rating as TCSers call it) goes with lots of drama but this year it is going to be even more chaotic thanks to the economy.

The ratings or the actual values were released on 17 March 2009 and the final Bands will be released on April 11 2009.

Apart from many other dumb reasons managers have one more reason to tell their team members for their poor rating – economy !.

In most cases the employee would have done his/her job perfectly but the Manager will try to convince these poor souls that the entire company is in losses because of the one or two days vacation the employee would have taken, or the bugs in the system etc.

And the real cultprits who are responsible for not foreseeing market realities or signing hopeless contracts at the bare minimum pricing would still get better ratings.

If a Project Manager is able to convince most of his team members to take poor ratings he will get a good rating from his boss. So you can understand how the situation in a team would be. Now top reasons a manager might give to reduce your performance evaluation ratings

1. If you want release I will give you lower rating and this is how TCS works.

2. You haven’t done any certifications this half yearly, Next time try to improve.
(Our hero would have worked 12 hours shifts everyday for no good)

3. You haven’t contributed anything to the Centre level activities (like dancing or singing !!)

4. We thought of giving you even lower rating, but I argued with top management for this rating for you.

5. You haven’t contributed to Knowmax, PIPs blah blah blah

6. Your rating got reduced in curve fitting which is out of my hand. (As if curve is some indeterminate shape and values in curve are random)

7. You have been given better rating last time, so give chance to others.

8. I made a mistake while giving the values as I was doing it in late night. Please don’t make it as an issue I will compensate next time.

9. Our project doesn’t have money.

10. We will send you to onsite soon.. so your rating doesn’t matter.

Please add your own views experiences here and pass on this to your friends as well.

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TCS increases working hours and gives VA cut again

TCS – TATA Consultancy Services, has gone too low in these times not only in terms of Revenues but also in its HR values and ethics.  TCS is not  exactly a IT role model it has always used tactics to circumvent many laws and also extract more out of employees.

There was a time when TCS used to steal employees Tax refunds and was sued in US, only  then it  started giving back the money, So you know how much values count in this company. During the profitable times TCS never made company performance related VA component. But once its revenues started getting lower now it has started reducing the VA.

(VA – Variable allowance, a part of salary up to 25-50% which is supposed to be dependant on company’s performance and individuals performance)

TCS has become cash cow for TATA group, and funded some of the misadventures like Corus, Jaguar Purchases. Thats why the employees of TCS are suffering with paycuts increased working hours.  Many have jokingly said TATA Motors is launching TATA Nano at the expense of TCS.

The funny part about making employees working more hours is there are thousands of employees in Bench (means without projects / unallocated to any project) and the ones working in projects are getting crushed with more work (As projects released many associates to bench to show better revenues from individual projects). This is the result of greed of Managers,BRMs and GLs.All the managers want to save their positions and present a rosy picture to upper management, in turn crushing the developers and making them work for more hours.

I bet the cream or even mediocre employees now will look to jump to better managed companies as soon as opportunity presents to them. Most of the people who were loyal to TCS till now might think otherwise going forward.

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TCS recalls its BRMs and All non billable staff from US

It  is confirmed that TATA Consultancy Services has called back all its BRMs (Business Relationship Managers) who are in charge of creating new business oppurtunities in US and other regions outside India. This position has become a liability to the company during the tough economic times. Though their pay is not very high, the benefits they enjoy is huge.

The same goes with Project Leader positions in Onsite locations, most of the PL positions in client locations are funded by TCS and hence TCS looks to move these positions back to India. Though the recall maynot cover every BRM/PL but it should cover most of them.

The status of other non billable positions like PMO, (Project Management Office team), HR and MATC is not known. But there will be lots of chaos in the onsite ranks of TCS in the coming weeks.

The cutoff date for this movement has been announced as first week o February. This was confirmed by a mail from CEO to middle management and upper management.