COGNIZANT TECHNOLOGY

SOLUTION:
RETAINING EMPLOYEES
AMID IMPENDING CRISES

C3
 SUMMARY OF CASE
•Cognizant provides IT consulting and business process outsourcing services
for industries including banking, health care, manufacturing, media, and
entertainment.
•Fit for Growth plan introduced to cut cost and increase savings.
•Outbreak of Covid 19 and numerous lockdown affected the business
•In April 2020, another blow impacted the company in the form of Maze
Ransomware.
•Apart from these challenges, the company also had High Attrition Rate.
 MAIN
• The merit based performance system
did leads to a significant amount of
voluntary attrition.

ISSUES • Fit for growth plan

• Declining client demand.
• To cut cost further cognizant started
conducting layoff based on poor
performance and not being able to
secure projects.
• Maze Ransomware
• High attrition rate
 PROBLEM ANALYSIS
FIT FOR GROWTH
PLAN
Cognizant plan to let go of about 12000 employees retain and redeploy about 5000 others
into different functional areas. This no. was around 2% of the global employee head
count and more than 70% residing in India itself. This led to dissatisfaction among some
employees which eventually led to their resignation from the company.
 Fear of Job Security

Due to covid 19 Cognizant had to go back to its cost cutting method of layoff. This
means that employees who had been on bench for more than 35 days were evaluated and
many were terminated for poor performance. This caused a psychological impact on
employees and they feared for their job security. Hence, they would switch to companies
where salary hike was lower but so too was the rate of the employee dismissal.
 HIGH ATTRITION RATE

The company was turning into highly meritocratic on performance centric , and in turn
increasing the variable pay of employees, post risk for employees who counted on salary
increases, another reason why voluntary attrition was at an all time high at cognizant was that the
company was scouting for talent equipped skills for digital transformation and these skills were
more niche in nature
 Maze Ransomware

Incase of cognizant, maze ransomware didn’t allow cognizant to

access the database of their clients.
This also led to the decline in their client base who feared in
allowing cognizant in there network which further affected
there business. This also let to some employees resigning
because there were concerned about the safety of their data.
 STRENGTH
1. Great brand portfolio
2. 60% of their business lie
in health and financial
sector
3. Automation
OPPORTUNITIES
1. Innovation
2. Expanding market globally
3. New trends in customers
WEAKNESS
1. Lack of proper leadership
2. Lack of cyber security
3. Dissatisfaction among
employees
THREAT
1. High attrition rate
2. Intense competition
3. Changes in technology
4. Cyber attack
 DECISION ANALYSIS
Pre-pandemic plan- Let go off 12000 employees and redeploy 5000 for cost-cutting and reduce the bench
time
Post the announcement of first lockdown, Cognizant decided to distribute laptop and other
accessories to the employees, increased 25% on their base pay
Benched employees were evaluated and terminated for not able to secure projects
Cognizant was able to contain ransomware through regular discrete communication with clients.

Cognizant turned its attention towards digital segment and began hiring digital talent rapidly

Company provided medical support to employees post second wave of pandemic

Cognizant invested heavily in extensive training programs, gave promotions quarterly and salary hike to reta
employee
ALTERNATE
Measurement of Job attitude on
regular basis

SOLUTION Change of CEO

Can adopt PROFIT SHARING PLAN

More investment on training

Protection from cyber-attack

 LITERATURE REVIEW

JOB
DISSATISFACTION
MODEL
TEAM EFFECTIVENESS
MODEL
THANK YOU