‘Management Wins, Employees Lose’: Techies Roast TCS Appraisal Season, Claim Salaries Shrunk After ‘Hikes’
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From negative appraisals to structural salary deductions, techies expose why the latest round of increments has left employees reeling.
‘Management Wins, Employees Lose’: TCS Employees Roast Appraisal Season Online, Say Their Salary Shrunk After ‘Hikes’
Appraisal season is supposed to be a time of celebration, but for thousands of techies at India’s largest IT services exporter, it has turned into an absolute nightmare.
A wave of frustration has flooded social media platforms as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) rolls out its annual increment letters. Instead of seeing their bank balances grow, a shocking number of software engineers are claiming that their actual take-home pay has miraculously shrunk.
Taking to the internet, tech workers are sounding the alarm on a bizarre reality. One tweet reads: “TCS yearly increments are out and unfortunately many people got salary Decreased 🤣 The laugh is because you wont even know the hikes their management gets and it will be more than last year only. Plus the shareholders looking pretty happy too. Just they dont care about employees”
Social Media Reacts To TCS’s Appraisal Season
As the claims gained viral traction, the comment section rapidly evolved into a battleground between corporate realists, angry software engineers, and industry veterans who say this “pay cut” phenomenon is a regular feature.
One user wrote, “Management’s hike math: your take-home shrinks, their bonuses balloon.” And in a market like this, another user opined, “It’s still better than losing jobs tbh.”
Some users were in support of TCS’s appraisal process. One user asked, “Yash , Can you spit some facts. I heard that in IT only 2 to 3 employees in a team are strong in their skills, remaining will depend on them. In such a scenario do you really think they need a hike 🤔🤔.”
This has been happening for decades. I have been voicing this out from the day I was working in TCS way back in 2008.TCS cleverly planned the salary increments in such a way that none of the pay hikes comes from the balance sheet.
One year, one employee gets it once he/she… https://t.co/bHAZT1vsBh
— K. RAJESH (@rajeshkmoorthy) May 18, 2026
Another explained how this process rewards people who perform. “I left it in 2006. But at that time structure was Total compensation= fixed + variable. Ex. 100=60+40. It could happen that 60 becomes 70 but 40 becomes 20 which depends on company and your performance. This is the way you reward your high performing team. Absolutely correct way.”
The Truth About Ratings
Some industry veterans shared their own experience at TCS: “Does that mean many people got poor rating? In our time, employees with a rating of 4 used to get their base salary reduced. Rating of 5 would lead to PIP or termination. Rating of 3 (the max of the distribution) would marginally increase your basic.”
Perhaps the most important revelation came from an industry veteran who spent years working for the IT giant. They wrote on X, “This has been happening for decades. I have been voicing this out from the day I was working in TCS way back in 2008. TCS cleverly planned the salary increments in such a way that none of the pay hikes comes from the balance sheet. One year, one employee gets it once he/she gets a high rating. Next year, if he/she does not get that rating equally or better than previous years, TCS reduces their salary. That reduced salary goes to another employee and so on and so forth. By this way, TCS efficiently manages the pay hikes between employees and nowhere does the salary hikes comes from the balance sheets.”
TCS yearly increments are out and unfortunately many people got salary Decreased 🤣— Yash Sartanpara (@SartanparaYash) May 18, 2026
The former employee added that attempts to change this internal structure from within are met with no response: “Way back in 2010, when I voiced it in the town hall, they employed an agency to do the survey and even in that I voiced out my opinion. Result – just as any other survey they do, it went into the bureaucratic black hole (I’ll write about this in a separate thread soon – this TCS bureaucracy will put our babu’s to shame). To sum it up, there is nothing new to be astonished at. It’s TCS’s way of life. 😇😇😇”
In response to this, TCS spokesperson noted, “In line with the announcement made during our Q4 earnings, we have rolled out annual increments to eligible employees. Additionally, we have completed the restructuring of compensation for all our India-based employees to align with the new labour codes.”
Further adding, “The revised salary structure that the employees have received are guided by three key principles that include, compliance with the new labour codes, standardisation of wage structures across our India workforce, and protection of employees’ take-home salary, while allowing flexibility for tax efficiency. TCS has consistently maintained a track record of awarding annual increments to its associate’s year-on-year, reinforcing its commitment to employee growth and long-term value creation.”
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