Tag: TCS

A $22,550 a year pay cut, presented as a $5,000 pay rise.

That’s what one affected ServiceNow consultant worked out when they sat down with the TCS offer and did the maths properly. They sent me the numbers. I’ll get to them.

First, some context on how I ended up with a full inbox.

Last week I wrote about something I’d read on Reddit. Nothing more than that. No inside source, no tip-off, just a post I couldn’t verify and a question about whether anyone else was hearing the same thing.

Since then I’ve had messages from people in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Australia and North America. Almost every one of them asked to stay anonymous. One messaged me from a brand new LinkedIn account because they’d been told the whole thing was confidential and didn’t want to leave any written evidence.

There is still nothing in the trade press. No announcement from ServiceNow, no announcement from TCS. The TCS and ServiceNow partnership release from February talks about co-innovation labs and AI workflows. It says nothing about several hundred people changing employer.

So this is what I’ve been told by the people it’s happening to. Names out, everything else as close to their words as I can keep it.

How people found out

The UK version, from someone who sat through it. Invited into a call with about two hours’ notice. All other attendees hidden. Webinar format, so nobody could comment and nobody could see anyone except the speaker. A pre-written statement read out. Then it was over.

Later that day, an email about the TUPE process and a request to elect a couple of representatives for consultation. An FAQ was attached. The person who read it described it as clarifying things very ambiguously, and said they couldn’t tell whether that was deliberate.

Germany got an ad hoc 30-minute meeting, a transfer date of 1 November, and nothing in writing for days afterwards. A verbal announcement, some high-level detail on pay and benefits, and an HR contact.

North America: around 30 people in one department, mostly HRSD.

One person summed up the whole experience in a line. Nobody gave us a sales pitch. It was just a case of us no longer being required, so this is now your new employer.

Where it’s happening

IC4 and below, with some areas excluded that are considered more complex or less routine.

UK, Ireland, Germany, Australia, Spain and North America have all been confirmed to me directly. Everyone I’ve spoken to believes it’s worldwide.

TCS in EMEA, Tech Mahindra in AMS, according to one person in the UK. I still can’t confirm the split independently.

Spain has a twist. Someone told me TCS approached them about a new role working directly at the ServiceNow office. So while one group is being moved out, TCS is hiring into the same building.

Three different reasons, from the same company, in the same fortnight

In the UK, staff were told their roles are now routine enough that ServiceNow no longer needs to provide the service itself, and that TCS has been selected as the best partner to take over.

In North America, they were told demand for HR workflow products has dropped.

Then, in a follow-up benefits meeting, the ServiceNow lead opened by giving a third reason. He put the decision down to the CEO’s commitment to keep headcount flat.

That’s the one I’d pay attention to, because it’s the only explanation that fits the numbers.

Q2 revenue was $3.99bn, up 24% year on year. Subscription revenue up 24.5%. Full year subscription guidance was raised to around $15.77bn. This is a company that has spent roughly $9bn on acquisitions this year, including $7.75bn on Armis.

Nobody is making this decision because the money isn’t there.

The line that stayed with me

One person in the HRSD team wanted to correct something I’d written. I’d said ServiceNow had decided it didn’t need these people any more.

Not so, they told me. In the initial meeting it was stressed repeatedly that nothing would really change. Same projects, same colleagues, same laptops. The only difference is who signs the payslip.

Their view: that’s worse than being told you’re surplus.

They do need us, they said. They just don’t want to pay us our RSUs or give us access to things like the employee stock purchase discount.

What’s actually in the offers

Now the numbers.

One person sent me their full comparison. Base salary at ServiceNow was $185,000, with a bonus target of $27,750 and equity vesting at roughly $28,300 a year. Total package around $241,050.

The TCS offer: base $190,000, bonus target $28,500, equity $0. Total $218,500.

A $5,000 rise on base. A $22,550 a year cut on total compensation.

The equity figure isn’t a projection or a stock price bet. It’s $99,000 of already-granted, unvested RSUs spread across the three and a half years left on the vest. That’s what walking away from ServiceNow costs them, and no part of the TCS offer replaces it.

On top of the base there’s a $2,000 signing bonus and a retention bonus worth about 10% of salary, paid in two halves at month six and month twelve. For this person that’s $18,500. Half of it isn’t real money on day one, because the second $9,250 doesn’t arrive until month twelve and they lose it if they hand in notice before then.

Everyone this person has compared notes with has been given the same shape of offer. A small rise on base, a similar bonus, a signing bonus, a retention payment, and nothing at all for the equity.

Other things that have come back to me:

People in the US have been told only vested RSUs are available to them. Everything unvested goes.

Some job titles are changing. One person went from Senior Technical Consultant to Senior Business Consultant, which they described as a non-starter.

The deadline is four days in most cases. One person was told they had until Monday to sign, and by the Friday still hadn’t been given the offer, the salary or the benefits detail.

When someone asked on the call what the severance would be if they declined, the answer made it sound like there wouldn’t be any.

Why there’s no payout option, and why that isn’t an oversight

This is the part I think matters most, because most of the anger sent to me is about the absence of a choice.

Under TUPE, if you object to transferring, your contract terminates and you aren’t treated as having been dismissed. You can refuse, but you generally can’t claim redundancy pay or unfair dismissal. Your employer treats it as a resignation. That’s regulation 4(8), and it’s why the move-or-resign framing people are describing is legally accurate rather than a threat somebody invented in a meeting.

There’s one exception. If the transfer involves a substantial change in your working conditions to your material detriment, regulation 4(9) lets you treat the contract as terminated and be treated as dismissed. That’s a real route. It’s fact-specific, and it’s exactly the sort of thing to take proper advice on rather than a view from a recruiter.

A total compensation drop of that size, and a title change, are the kind of facts that get looked at under 4(9). I’m not going to tell you they’d succeed. I am going to tell you they’re worth putting to an employment solicitor before you sign anything.

The headline still stands. This is a lawful way to move several hundred people out of a business without writing redundancy cheques. Whether it’s the right way is a different question, and it’s the one people are furious about.

The RSU question nobody has answered

Nobody in the UK, Germany or North America has been given a clear answer on what happens to unvested equity.

Here’s the one useful thing I can add, for the UK at least.

In Ponticelli UK Ltd v Gallagher, the Court of Session held that the right to take part in an employer’s share plan can transfer under TUPE even where that right sits outside the employment contract. Where the new employer can’t replicate the plan, and TCS obviously can’t hand anyone ServiceNow stock, the employee is entitled to a scheme of substantial equivalence. That follows MITIE Managed Services v French.

What substantially equivalent means in practice isn’t defined and gets argued case by case. It might be a different plan, it might be cash.

But the starting position is not that your equity disappears because the new employer doesn’t do equity. If you’re in the UK and heading into consultation, put that question to your representatives in writing and get the answer in writing too.

On “protection plus one day”

Several people have told me the same fear. That TUPE protection runs for a set period and they’ll be let go the day after it expires.

That isn’t how it works. There’s no fixed window ticking down.

A dismissal is automatically unfair where the sole or principal reason is the transfer. It isn’t where there’s an economic, technical or organisational reason involving changes in the workforce. Redundancies after a transfer are permitted on that basis.

So the protection isn’t a countdown clock, but it isn’t a shield either. What matters is the reason given, and the further you get from the transfer date, the easier it becomes to argue the reason is something else.

I’d rather people worried about the right thing than the wrong one.

What people inside TCS think

Two things came back from the other side, and neither is comfortable.

Someone with a long history at TCS, including work on the original alliance, told me they expect the transferred group to be moved out reasonably quickly and replaced with offshore roles or AI. That’s an opinion, not a fact, and I’m reporting it as one.

Separately, someone in the market raised the more immediate problem. The transferring group arrives as expensive resource compared with the bench already sitting at that grade. That’s an issue for the people already at TCS as much as the ones moving.

What I’d say if you’re affected

Don’t sign on day four because day four is the deadline. Ask for the deadline to be extended in writing. Ask what’s happening to your unvested equity, in writing. If your title is changing, ask why, in writing.

Get the consultation representatives to ask the questions you don’t want your name attached to. That’s what they’re for.

And then, separately from all of that, work out what you actually want. Because the ServiceNow market right now is not short of options for people with genuine delivery experience on the platform.

I’ve spent the last week talking to people who assumed that leaving ServiceNow would mean a step down. It doesn’t. Partners and end customers are paying properly for exactly this profile, and a lot of them would take a call from an ex-ServiceNow Expert Services consultant tomorrow.

What this does to ServiceNow as a place to work

Up until June, almost every ServiceNow professional I spoke to described the vendor as the place they wanted to end up.

That has changed a long way in three months, and I don’t think it changes back quickly. One person put it better than I can. It was a matter of pride to work for ServiceNow, and they feel that bridge has been burned.

There’s a version of this where ServiceNow was out of money and out of options. That version isn’t true. The business is performing. The company chose a route that doesn’t require it to pay anyone out, headcount finishes the year where it started, and several hundred people become somebody else’s payroll.

That’s a decision. It’s worth being honest about it as one.

Still asking

The questions that are still open.

If you’ve now seen a TCS or Tech Mahindra offer, what’s in it where you are? What’s been said about unvested RSUs in your country? And if you’re outside the UK, Ireland, Germany, Spain, Australia and North America, is this happening to you too?

Drop me a message. Names stay out of it, as they have all week.

If you’ve been affected and you want a straight conversation about what’s out there rather than a sales pitch, that’s what we do. We’ve been recruiting in the ServiceNow ecosystem for years and we know who’s hiring.

Get in touch with the Linking Humans team at www.linkinghumans.com, or take a look at our ServiceNow World Forum London guide if you’re going to be there.