Satyam to sack chunk of seniors

Hyderabad: "Either you leave or we will make you leave."That's the message the new management of fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services -- or Mahindra Satyam as it is known now -- is sending out to at least 900 senior employees in the rank of general managers, senior managers, assistant vice-presidents and vice-presidents, according to sources.

The company has about 1,500 of them, of which about 600 have been given new roles as part of organisational restructuring. The rest, said sources, are in the line of fire.

Satyam categorises its employee pool into three segments -- billable, non-billable support and non-billable bench.

The billable employees are the ones that keep the cash registers ringing. The non-billable support category, as the name suggests, is into support services including managerial functions and administrative roles. It is this segment that is in the crosshairs.

"Suddenly, the organisation feels we are overheads. In fact, a senior employee can never be put into billable category. We are paid to train and keep ready people who can be deployed in billable functions. The change in the organisational culture after Tech Mahindra took us over is creating some friction," a senior employee, who has been informed about his name figuring in the to-be-axed list, told DNA.

A Mahindra Satyam spokesperson called it 'rumours'."It is a fact that we gave an offer to some employees to find a job. We also told them to take home four months' basic pay and an experience certificate in case they find a better option instead of two months basic as per the agreement we have with them. But, the number you are saying (900) is not correct. It is not possible for the company to maintain its operations by firing so many seniors," Mahindra Satyam's chief people's officer Hari T said.

Excess staff is being accommodated in various other functions and sometimes being shown as available resources to other Mahindra companies, he said.

But according to employee sources, about 20 human resources executives have been given the job of liaisoning with the identified senior employees.

"The deal is straight. They are willing to offer us four months basic and an experience certificate in case we volunteer to quit. Otherwise, they are threatening to terminate us by giving us two months basic salary and a termination letter. In this market, it is difficult to find a new job with a termination letter on hand," an employee explained.

The tactics are not going down well in the company though the employees are still weighing the option of seeking a legal recourse.

"Starting with Ram Mynampati (the interim CEO appointed by Ramalinga Raju) to Vineet Nayyar (of Tech Mahindra), everyone assured the employees that there is no threat from the new management. But, no one stuck to what they said," another employee said.

In fact, the senior employees also recall that they were pressed into action immediately after the founder of the company Raju caused the unbelievable crisis by confessing to committing an accounting fraud.

"We were the ones to keep the flock together during the crisis. Now, we are being treated as overhead. Interestingly, the government seems to have given an unprecedented immunity to the new management and is not willing to take care of the welfare of the employees," the source said.