Friday, February 27, 2009

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Cap Gemini sacks 2,000

Notice period? What notice period?
Questions are being raised about how IT consultancy giant Cap gemini is laying off employees in its Indian offices. The company sent out an email to employees early 2008 saying they need not serve a 90-day notice period when they quit their jobs. The notice period was reduced to 30 days. This was done without the consent of employees as it results in huge savings for the firm - Capgemini will now have to pay outgoing staffers a month’s salary instead of three months, an insider told IT Examiner.

Another message followed, asking employees to sign on a tailored resignation letter. While most employees fell prey to the nasty nip, few decided to snub the proposal, calling it illegal, said the source.

According to our source, this method has been adopted to lay off around 2,000 employees over several months, in Bangalore, Mumbai and Kolkata. In these tough times, it’s shocking to see companies choosing methods that can hardly be termed as legal to cut costs. Shrinking the notice period without employees’ consent is unethical.

Our source said that those who refused to sign the resignation letter pointed out that their appointment orders clearly states that the notice period extends to three months. The HR department responded by de-activating their email IDs and even threatened them, the source said.

A few employees, who spoke to Capgemini’s India HR head Dr. Sripada Chandrashekhar, were told that if the company decides to shrink the notice period from three to one month for 2,000 employees, it certainly has to be legal. “Following the massive revolt, Jnanes Kumar who was heading the HR process back then was deported to another division. Arun Kumar was brought in as replacement,” the source said.

A senior advocate, on condition of anonymity, told IT Examiner that, “as per Indian laws, companies cannot shrink the notice period in the case of permanent employees. But it can be done with those still on probation. Otherwise it is illegal to reduce the notice period without the consent of employees.' According to him, in such cases employees usually give up and sign the resignation letter. 'A company has an upper hand in these cases as employees are reluctant to individually sue the company fearing high expenses of the legal process. Even if one wins the case, there is no guarantee that the company will hire him/her in the same position. The best way to battle this is by approaching an employees’ union and fighting the legal case, making it more economical.'

IT-BPO union, UNITES has made an appeal to the Capgemini employees to raise their voice. “I am aware of what’s going on at Capgemini. Employees often commit a mistake by succumbing to the pressure. Capgemini has done the same thing by forcing them to sign it. We cannot intervene once they sign the resignation letter,” said UNITES India general secretary, R Karthik Shekhar told IT Examiner.

Shekhar added, “It’s illegal to violate the terms and conditions mentioned in the agreement. If they have promised three months’ pay, they have to hand it over the same day. This is unacceptable. Even if they throw workers out citing poor performance, this has to be given in writing.”

He made an appeal saying, “We can go to the labour commissioner with this problem only if the employees are courageous enough to talk to us.”

Capgemini failed to respond to our queries by press time. But do they have anything to say at all?
Courtesy: itexaminer.com

17 comments:

  1. Hi,Capgemini is not the right company to join. They have a poor management.Their management is also biased at least in Kolkata center. They threaten to terminate and refuse access to any company assets after they inform you about the removal from services. They play games with your ratings and push it down to 5 (lowest) and ask to resign and if you refuse then they will tell that you will be terminated and no letters (relieving and experience) will be given. To that extent that they will spoil the back ground check also. No ethics and a lot of politics and biasing goes on. To add more they are making any settlements after firing. They havent paid the amount of flexi plans which I have declared in January not even the medical allowances.

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  2. Capgemini is one of the worst companies to work for. They fire people for no rhyme or reason. You will never get to know till the end that you are on the queue...no body bothers to tell you where the problem is..they are racial, illogical, inhuman. There are 100's of VP's handling just one account each and drawing salary equivalent to entire team on the project...and the people who suffer are the ones below

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  3. Capgemini is one of the terrible company i have ever had. It fires with no reason.when they need it they will take but when they dont need they will fire..of course if you are in probation you are the most sensitive one. In my case, my project went to china.. they told me to resign. So, guys beware of joining capgemini. they will play with your career.

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  4. Capgemini - I don't know what it is! I went through the interview process with these guys(it happened twice in one year) - they can never get it right. They are never courteous, and rude. They think people are begging for a job with them. My first experience with them was for a position of PM - somebody comes to talk to me and he asks questions with such arrogance, as if I already work for him. I have to call the interview off. My second interview was for a Senior Position and the recruiter asks me "Did you see our website?". I told her I didn't see as I already know enough about their company as one of the well known company in consulting business spanning over different countries. I also told her that I have a large number of friends work for CapGemini. (these fricken HR representatives sometimes think that you care about the company only if you go and check out their web sites, as if they have breaking news every minutes). She asks me tell me what you know - I told her whatever I knew, and she goes there is a lot more than that. It was my turn to ask questions, and I asked her about what is the largest (in dollars) project implemented by CapGemini in SAP ERP area - she replied a several millions in size. I said that does not tell me the precise dollar number (several can be 10 or 100). She said she did not know. I immediately asked her for how long have she has been with the company (she said 4 years). Immeidately I got a chance to jump on her ass to ask - you have been with the company for 4 years and you don't know precisely what is the largest project value, and you expect me to know all about your company. She did not like it. They are always abnoxious. I don't think I will ever entertain CapGemini recruiters any more - good bye CapGemini. I am sure there may be a lot of people who share the same sentiment with me. - Annonymous from Atlanta

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  5. Capgemini India, its time you pulled up your socks and showed the necessary transformation to rebuild a good reputation.

    Anybody from outside thinks Capgemini is a top class world renowned organisation, but inside stories are well... in short "stinky".

    I hope the senior/top management are listening!!!!

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  6. capgemini have no regards for staff or customers(&not just in india).

    all employees would leave at the drop of a hat if there were other employers to go to.

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  7. Capgemini's sudden decision to group the Business Units by location gave power to some most inefficient and potentially unstable people. Some of these people were actually promoted every year to get to the top of these Business Units.

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  8. Am working in Capgemini and resigned recently. My Manager said that he will blacklist me in Capgemini as i am resigning too early. I checked the Policy document of Capgemini and there is nothing stated in that document. Secondly he again threatened me that he will not releive me. Am already serving notice period and doing as per policy of Capgemini.
    He has done same thing with my previous predecessors in company, please advise how to avoid such nuissance. Is there any forum or union to look into it.

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  9. That cannot be done by him. Look to give a valid reason to resign.

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  10. I am really really surprised. I dont know if this blacklisting stuff is there. I had an offer with CG and in negotiation with them on salary. I am not going to accept anything invariably low now, after reading all these opinions.

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  11. Hi all,

    it is quite understandable that negative comments are accumulating below such a negative and besides that not poorly investigated article.

    I work for Capgemini for 7 years now. I worked for several other big companies before. From my side I can only say, the superiors and management always treated me and my team fair-minded even in difficult situations.

    I have been to Mumbai and especially Kolkata and the centers are very good. Good people get good opportunities in international engagements. However, not everybody will get the best position - this is very much clear.

    I understand that there might be some cases, where disappointment might have happened - but having 40.000 employees in the country you might always find few, which are not satisified. So don`t trust these comments per se.

    Best Regards
    A.

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  12. Hi All,

    I am working in capgemini from 1 yr and its the best company to work with.. Good Managers, projects and all people are always take initiative to help there employees. Yes, the people how work will always be appreciated. Hence don't trust these comments and work well to get good results from the managers.
    Regards.

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  13. I work for cg in the uk, i was warned by 1 ex employee not to join but regardless of ones opinion i took the job. It started of well but the longer you work there the more you see how incompitent they are at every single level especially in service centres. They are a bunch ofdirty c@#ts and dont deserve most of the staff they employ which is why the turn around is so high its not that they dont see it they simply dont care, no wonder they can hardly keep a contract long term. The one thing they do care about is saving money with no regard to staff with petty excuses. I hope they get shafted or take a step back and seriously look at what they are doing to themselfs, i love my job its such a shame they run the company this way....well they are french which says it all.

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  14. Yup its really a BAD Company... They throw employee as a Mango seed after eating....

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  15. 6 rounds of interview at CAP for some account manager & sales enablement role over a period of 3 months. Every interviewer had different set of questions to ask which had no convergence to actual job profile and relation to work content. After 6 rounds, the answer i received is: The client requirement does not match to my profile. It was as rediculus as it sounds that it took 3 months and 6 rounds of discussions to convey that client requirement is different to that of my profile.
    Stupid a** holes believe in wasting time of people without really knowing what are they looking for.
    Hate it to the core.

    ReplyDelete

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