TCS Kochi start layoffs at the Kakkanad office. Sacked employees issued termination slips

Reports are coming in that TCS has issued termination slips to some employees at the TCS Kochi office (at Kakkanad) as part of its recently announced restructuring exercise. TCS had earlier announced that there will be layoffs across India as part of their restructuring. This has nothing to do with the strength of TCS as the leader in IT outsourcing but a strategic move. “Involuntary attrition” is the term used, though it basically means employees get fired.

The number of employees sacked is unclear but has been reported in reputed newspapers like Indian Express.

It is always better to check as sometimes it just turns out to be a rumor.

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/Layoff-TCS-Hands-Out-Pink-Slip-to-Employees/2014/12/31/article2595990.ece

Globally, many companies like Microsoft and IBM have done regular restructuring over the past few years.

TCS officially distances itself from the claim that lots of employees are being laid off. According to the article in Money Control yesterday

http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/cnbc-tv18-comments/tcs-allays-layoff-fears-no-pink-slips-for-employees_1263016.html, they refute that any unusual number of layoffs are happening. Apparently 1-1.5% involuntary attrition per year is standard, except that for the size of TCS, that works out to 3000 to 5000 employees.

Kakkanad in Kochi, Kerala, is home to software companies like TCS, CTS and Wipro, while Infosys is located in Trivandrum, which is the capital of Kerala and located 200 Kms away from Cochin.

There is even a Facebook page created called “We are against TCS layoffs” – ostensibly by employees affected by the layoffs.

The reports also include photographs of the termination slips issued to the employees affected by the Layoff.

While TCS is a very large organization that regularly has employees leaving involuntarily, this time the apparent size of layoffs is causing people to get jittery. There are unconfirmed estimates that upto 30 000 employees may eventually be affected by the layoffs across India.

TCS has over 330 000 employees, so even a count of 30 000 employees fired would only come to 10% of the size.

In addition TCS is on course to recruit 50 000 people next year.  It is unclear if the freshers being recruited in 2015 are going to be affected in the restructuring – TCS has said that their hiring plans are on course. Those who have been given offer letters through campus recruitment will be called for training. In previous years, sometimes the freshers who have been offered jobs in IT companies like TCS have been affected by a delay in being called to join.

TCS continues to prepare for more employees to be added to their strength. They have already announced plans for building the worlds biggest corporate training centre in Trivandrum, which is 5 hours drive from Kochi. They are also building a new development centre in Trivandrum at Technopark, which is the oldest and biggest single park in India.

The question on the mind of TCS kochi employees will be “Which projects are affected by the layoffs?”

It is also not clear if the impact is for lower ranked employees or seniors. Reports in the newspapers online versions suggest that many mid senior employees will be targeted. That makes sense from a purely financial perspective, since senior employees enjoy a higher pay and can have a bigger impact on the cost savings in any restructuring exercise.

Additionally , as in the US, companies will learn that lower ranked employees (and lower paid) can perform at close levels to a senior  employee with extensive training.

Other IT employees need not gloat at their peers in TCS, because if the biggest company is setting the trend, other IT companies are bound to follow.

Larger companies like TCS can easily cut costs and improve margins through layoffs, since the employee salaries are a reasonably big component of their overall costs.

The good thing to come out of this is that some of the employees may decide to start companies or startups on their own, particularly if they are experienced. It will also free up a pool of senior employees that Startups can employ. There may be also a slight impact on the overheating of salaries in the market. Companies may find that employees think twice before jumping ship, if they are looking to move to a larger company like TCS, CTS, Infosys or Wipro.

Google translate launches support for malayalam language translation

Google has launched support for malayalam in its ubiquitous translate feature. You can try Google translate malayalam here  – https://translate.google.co.in/ by choosing malayalam from the drop down of the languages.

This means that you can copy paste malayalam into the Google translate tool which is an in browser tool for chrome, firefox, safari etc , and you can then  translate the piece of text provided into a language of choice.

Obviously the most common usage for Malayalam translate would be to convert it into english.

Perhaps it might be useful in Technopark while communicating to clients ? 🙂

The reports coming in from those who tested the translate tool for malayalam was that it was not good. This is not surprising considering malayalam is a fairly complex language and im not sure how many malayalees were available to test it 🙂

If the translate tool for malayalam to english (or vice versa) is bad, then the feature may just lie around till google deadpools it later. The problem is that there isn’t enough business need for a malayalam to english translation. First of all the kerala market is not a hot one that international businesses are going after. Second is that most malayalees understand english too, so the translate option isn’t that much of a need like in German or French where the market is big and english is not understood.

Having said that, Google malayalam translation keyboard is quite often searched for , atleast according to some prompts shown by Google during searches related to these keywords. Perhaps those who are trying to enjoy literature, or want to get their word meanings down pat for any communication, would like to use a service like this.

There are already a plethora of jokes based on the malayalam translations that are spun out by the Google tool. Being malayalees, the first thing they would search for is Google translate malayalam jokes so that they can share it on Facebook or Twitter. It would not be long before a hashtag or facebook page around Google translate jokes takes effect. There are google translate jokes on Mammooty (a famous movie star in Kerala) and on Pinarayi Vijayan (A leader of the communist party in Kerala).

Inspite of the smaller size of the community with regard to Major indian languages, 38 million is still no joke when it comes to a community’s size on a global level. That is already bigger than the population of Canada, more than half of UK and more than 10% of the population of the US. So perhaps with a little more effort, the tool will meet our expectations.

The question would be why is the Google translate tool for malayalam having so many errors in translation and giving the wrong translation for the inputs provided?

The answer is that the tool was largely developed using dictionary words and crowdsourcing from those who know malayalam. So if we malayalees have not provided the right inputs during the crowdsourcing efforts, the tool will obviously come out short when it comes to translating the text.

Some malayalees (and perhaps a handful of foriegners) would be checking up whether this malayalam to english translate tool can be downloaded and installed on their computer so they can use the malayalam virtual keyboard on their system. Right now however, as with other Google translate languages supported, this is a purely online tool within the browser and cannot be downloaded as an installable software.

Lots of people also love to share jokes in malayalam on Whatsapp and facebook. Some malayalees who can’t read malayalam would love to translate these jokes to be able to enjoy it in english. It is still open to debate if the joke will be easy to understand when it is translated from malayalam to english.

While you can’t download the translator, it is still free to use online!

Have fun!