Cognizant Layoff- CTS Plans to layoff 6000 in 2017

As if the gloomy picture of overall IT industry was not enough, the Times of India, Bangalore carried news of possible layoff of 6000 employees in Cognizant. This was definitely a Monday Morning Blue for the IT crowd in Bengaluru. There was also news of loss of variable pay. Normally Cognizant Employees enjoy more than 100% of variable pay (In the range 110% to 125%, based on performance. But based on the latest news, the variable pay may be reduced in this year.

Read the Original Article from the Times Of India, Bangalore

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/Article.aspx?eid=31806&articlexml=Cognizant-set-to-cut-6000-jobs-20032017001048

Variable Pay is decided as given below:

Rating                  Variable Payout

EA (Exceed All)      95%

EM (Exceed Most)   75%

Meet All (MA)          50%

Meet Some (MS)     Contact HR

There were some murmurs of silent layoffs in Accenture as well as Cognizant in 2017, but this news article of CTS validated the claim. Some employees in Accenture Consulting as well as Technology division were asked to move on with decent notice period. The affected crowd were those who were “Highly Payable but NOT Billable”.

We heard similar news for Cognizant too. People in M and SM Level (Manager and Sr. Manager) were impacted. Cognizant had a hiring freeze in most of the department right from the first quarter of 2017. Most of the project teams were given direction to use the Bench pool. Hiring budget was approved only in exceptional cases like hiring for niche skill like JDA and Kinaxis. For the past few years, Cognizant started tracking time using the Tru Time app. This year they changed the policy of Monthly top up time too.  Employees who are non compliant will be shown the door as per policy.

There are a couple of ways to avoid layoff

• Try to find a billable project. If you are generating money from the client, most likely they will not fire you.
• Try to be indispensible in the project. Work on your core skill set but also gain hands on other tools in the project so that you can run the project single handedly. In short, try to create dependency
• If you are not billable, find out some work related to Strategic Growth Initiative like creating a new app or developing a new tool. Cognizant has budget for such initiatives for futuristic sale. If you can make a POC (Proof of Concept), you will be in demand
• Attendance is tracked in Cognizant so complete the stipulated 8-9 hours every day.
• Be complaint. For example, don’t submit any fake bills for Income Tax proof. It becomes easier for the HR to fire those employees who are low on integrity

Last but not the least, Do not Panic. STAY POSITIVE. If you think you are falling in the radar then start looking for a job proactively.