Among all the ways to get fired, this has to be among the worst.
An audio recording of a Tech Mahindra employee being fired over the phone by the HR is currently going viral. In the secretly recorded clip, the Human Resources representative tells the employee to put down his papers by the 10 am the next day, or be fired.”Cost optimisation is happening at the company and your name is part of that list. If you can put in papers we will be treating it as a normal exit with June 15 as last working day, if not, we will be sending you a termination letter,” the HR executive is heard saying in the 6:45-minute long audio clip.
OfficeChai couldn’t independently verify the veracity of the clip. We have written to Tech Mahindra for their comments and will update the post if we hear back.
In the clip, the employee can be heard pleading with the HR to give him some time. He insists that he’d been a good performer and had never been on the bench. The HR official says Tech Mahindra has the right to ask employee to make the employee leave whenever they wish. The HR official repeatedly claims that his termination is because of a “cost optimization.”
While the company claims to be cutting costs, it doesn’t seem to be reflecting on its top leadership. This year, Tech Mahindra MD and CEO CP Gurnani was the highest earning CEO in the country with a package of Rs. 150 crore. In comparison, Infosys CEO Vishal Sikka took home Rs. 45.11 crore, and TCS CEO N Chandrasekaran earned Rs. 30 crore. Gurnani’s compensation of Rs. 150 crore, incredibly, is more than the combined compensations of the boards of TCS, Wipro and Infosys combined.