Forget about Wipro chairman saying no one would lose their job due to COVID-19: UK staff told they're facing redundancy
- Reference: 1594980067
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/07/17/wipro_uk_staff_redundancy/
- Source link:
According to documents seen by The Register , the IT services provider, which has offices in London and Reading, last week kicked off a 30-day consultation process with staff, which indicates that between [1]20 and 99 people are at risk of redundancy.
"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new uncertainties for business and necessitated and accelerated the need to draw upon efficiencies and focus on rationalisation of our resources," the internal memo stated.
Service providers and their legions of field engineers were squarely in the firing line after governments put millions in lockdown to curb the coronavirus: all but non-essential workers were forced to stay home, offices and facilities were mostly closed, and travel curtailed. Getting to customer sites became something of a no-no.
The short and medium-term project pipeline has therefore taken a bit of a tumble. "Unfortunately, this has made considering redundancies as an option unavoidable for the company," the letter sent to staff added.
Staff are expected to be told of their fate in early August, with those affected urged to look for other vacancies within the business in the meantime.
However, days after staff were warned of being 'at risk', at the start of this week, a triumphant Wipro chairman Rishad Premji was quoted by four Indian papers as [2]saying at the 75th Annual General Meeting of shareholders that it will not chop any jobs as a result of any commercial pressure caused by the virus.
"We are trying to drive cost reduction through various other means through operationally and otherwise, but we have laid off no people and have no plans to lay off anybody at the moment," he said.
He added that 93 per cent of its staff – the consultancy giant employed a little more than 188,000 people in the most recent [3]annual report [PDF] – were working remotely and "some of these changes will forever transform how we work in the future".
In a statement sent to The Register , a Wipro spokesperson said: "We continue to monitor and assess the situation closely including the risk of redundancy. However, our continued endeavour is and would be to protect jobs."
Wipro turned over
[4]PDF
₹610.2bn (£6.456bn/$8.1bn) in sales during the 12 months ended 31 March 2020, a rise of 4.2 per cent year-on-year. Net profit was ₹97.2bn (£1.028bn/$1.293bn). The company reported Q1 numbers for fiscal 2021 this week, [5]as we covered here .Starting out as a vegetable oil manufacturer in western India in 1945, Wipro entered the Indian IT industry in the early '80s by building and selling mini computers. In the '90s it started developing software. The non-IT components of Wipro were de-merged in 2013. The company is listed on the NSE, Bombay and New York Stock Exchange. ®
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[1] https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/consultation
[2] https://www.businesstoday.in/current/corporate/no-plans-to-lay-off-anyone-at-wipro-says-rishad-premji-defends-ceo-salary-package/story/409716.html
[3] https://www.wipro.com/content/dam/nexus/en/investor/annual-reports/2019-2020/wipro-interactive-annual-report-2019-2020.pdf
[4] https://www.wipro.com/content/dam/nexus/en/investor/quarterly-results/2019-2020/q4fy20/press-release-q4-fy20.pdf
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/15/wipro_q1_2020/
[6] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Is this even legal?
You might be being optimistic to think the shareholders will want to save UK jobs at the expense of their future dividends.
Plus there's likely to be a standard disclaimer about the accuracy of forward looking statements in there.
no jobs would be shed
of course not! Those kicked out, will simply be offered a way to expand and diversify their lifelong work skills while seeking new and exciting working environments
To those affected
I'm sorry but honestly did you not expect that when the going got a bit tough, an Indian Conglomerate would not make non Indian workers face the chop first?
I've been through just this very scenario in 2008/09.
Don't forget to train your replacements who will be earning 25% of your salary.
Re: To those affected
Considering how some UK companies (or the UK portions of multinationals) handled negotiations with their outsourcers regarding working from home, I'm wondering how much of the blame lays on Wipro's side. i.e. outsourcing staff were expected to remain in the office while the rest of the staff worked from home even when they had viable or superior remote working solutions than the other staff.
As the old saying goes, "the customer is a moron but smile nicely and don't say anything dumb and you can take their money".
Aw, bless
"Premji also replied to shareholders' queries around justification of compensation to the CEO (highest in Wipro's history)"
Always a good reason for others to suffer.
Is this even legal?
I mean, it could be construed as misleading the AGM..