Tata Consultancy Services
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Chief Executive N. Chandrasekaran speaks during a news conference in Mumbai July 18, 2013. [Representational Image]Reuters File

India's largest IT services company Tata Consultancy Services is reportedly planning staff restructuring exercise potentially covering 25,000 senior employees. 

Every vertical has been asked to evaluate the senior staff, including senior consultants, principal consultants, vice-presidents and above to identify the more productive ones, company sources said.

The workforce optimisation programme, which is said to be in its planning stage, will most probably be over by February 2015.

At least 25, 000 employees, both from onsite and offsite locations, are likely to come face the evaluation.

"These are employees with around 20 years of experience and some 25,000 employees could fall in this category. They would be reviewed during the process which will get over by February 2015, before the next appraisal cycle starts from March," Business Standard quoted the sources as saying.

A TCS spokesperson said: "As a performance-driven company, workforce optimisation is a continuous process, which happens throughout the year, taking into account employee performance, business needs, and people aspirations. This leads to some amount of involuntary attrition in the company. This is nothing out of the ordinary or a special situation for us to comment about." 

The optimisation programme is however not going to affect the freshers and junior-level employees, according to an executive.

The spokesperson said that the programme is nothing unusual or new, the evaluation of employees goes on throughout the year. The company said it will instead be hiring 55, 000 professionals in the fiscal year 2016.

Some analysts said this drive is a new trend being incorporated into the system by several other companies such as Infosys and Wipro. "Around one to two per cent of involuntary attrition happens in almost all the companies and TCS is not an exception. The overall numbers at TCS may be more pronounced due to its size," an analyst told BS on condition of anonymity.

At the end of the second quarter ended 30 September, TCS had total 3,13,757 employees, including gross addition of 20,000.