Freshers Sacked After Failing Internal Test, Wipro; Terminated Freshers Cry Foul

Wipro, one of India’s multinationals and among the top five IT companies in India, confirmed reports of terminating hundreds of freshers following poor performance after an internal test.

While the company has not given the exact number of layoffs, its official update states the number at 452, giving rest to earlier rumours that 800 freshers were terminated.

The company is said to have waived off the training cost spent on the employees; as per the termination letter, it said – the training cost of Rs. 75000/- which the freshers are liable to pay, will be waived off.

The termination comes after an internal test was conducted, and it found the freshers not up to the mark; according to the company, it said that it holds itself to the highest standards, and thus it expects every entry-level employee to have a certain level of expertness in their respective area of work.

The evaluation or the internal test is designed to align its employees with the company’s business objectives and its clients’ requirements.

The company further said, “This systematic and comprehensive performance evaluation process triggers a series of actions such as mentoring and retraining and in some cases separation of certain employees from the company.”

Quite recently, Wipro communicated to campus recruits that it would be onboarding the fresher candidates in a systematic phased manner.

Wipro, in the email, said, “We would like to inform you that we are in the process of planning your onboarding with us as per business requirements.” The company further said it would honour all these candidates’ offers.

However, there were also some concerns voiced regarding the onboarding of freshers, as the company had earlier said that it had postponed the joining date of over 2000 students despite the fact that they were in compliance with its assessment guidelines.

The Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate also communicated the information through a tweet “@Wipro has no right to play with the future of students & employees. We are seeking. @LabourMinistry intervention to stop this unethical practice which has jeopardized lives of more than 2000 campus hires and employees.”

A fresher who was terminated due to poor performance at Wipro said, “I had got an offer letter in January 2022, but after months of delay they onboarded me. And now they are firing me giving the excuse of the test?”
Another terminated fresher employee said, “This is just a convenient excuse for them to fire people.”

Meanwhile, the company has continued to arrest its attrition rate, which eased to 21.2% from the previous quarter’s 23%.

The firm’s total headcount at the end of the December quarter slipped to 258,744 from 259,179 in the last quarter. In the third quarter, Wipro added 605 new employees. The company promoted more than 10,000 colleagues in the second quarter and increased salaries across bands.

Earlier this month, Wipro reported its Q3 FY23 results. The company reported a 2.8 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in net profit at Rs 3,052.90 crore compared with Rs 2,969 crore in the same quarter last year.

The IT major guided for an 11.5-12.0 per cent growth in IT Services revenues in constant currency terms (CC). This translated into the guidance of minus 0.6 per cent to 1 per cent revenue growth sequentially in constant currency terms for the March quarter.
The guidance was lower than the nil-2 per cent that analysts anticipated ahead of the quarterly earnings.