This performance appraisal period is about underperformers as well

This appraisal season, Indian companies are in no mood of sparing their underperformers, especially after Wipro sacked about 600 people following a 'rigorous performance appraisal'.

While Indian IT firms, financial services companies, startups and BPOs will be leading this race in being aggressive with the firing process, other sectors would also be following the same path so that they can only have the best of manpower.

"Going forward, the trend will be a lot more around performance-orientation," S Venkatesh, president group HR at RPG Enterprises, told ET. "People are negotiating hard: whether it's while being hired off campus or while changing jobs. Naturally, companies, too, are taking a hard line on slips in their performance," he said.

RPG Enterprises owns companies like CEAT, KEC International Zensar Technologies, and has a tendency of putting employees on performance improvement plans if need be.

"The days when people joined a company only to retire from it are over," said Venkatesh.

Other than performance, reduction in budgets allotted for salaries can also be cited as a reason behind these aggressive firing policies.

In the recent past, IT majors like Infosys, TCS and Cognizant along with banks like Axis Bank and ICICI Bank have fired a large number of employees. Similarly, e-commerce companies like Flipkart and Snaodeal have also followed the path of firing nonperforming employees.

Also read: Snapdeal asks 200 employees to shape up or ship out; employees choosing latter over ‘impossible’ targets

However, experts are of the view that Indian companies are relatively more easygoing when it comes to firing employees, as compared to their global counterparts.