This Is How HCL Is Forcing Resigned Employees To Return Bonus, Incentives: Is This Blackmailing?

We have reported that HCL, India’s 3rd biggest IT company, having a massive workforce of 1.9 lakh employees, is now forcing resigned employees to return variable pay, incentives and bonuses.

It seems that HCL has provisioned new clauses and rules in the offer letters, which forces the resigned employees to return advance variable pay, if they resign before a stipulated period.

We have already reported that Harpreet Saluja, President, Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) has termed this as illegal, and they have already shot a complaint letter to the Labor Ministry (update: Acknowledgement has been received from the Ministry).

We are in touch with several HCL current and ex-employees, who have shared their horror stories, of how the management is forcing them to return the bonuses, incentives and variable pay.

And in some cases, the experience certificates of these employees are being denied: Pay the incentive back to HCL, to get the experience certificate.

Is this blackmailing? Arm-twisting?

We will let you decide.. Here are the actual experiences and stories shared by the resigned HCL employees, of how HCL is forcing them to return the variable pay, incentives and bonuses..

(names have been withheld to protect the identity of these ex-employees)

Story #1

So i resigned from my position on 15th of November and after few days the Finance team shared a Provisional FnF settlement letter with me in which i got to know that instead of getting my pending amount i have to pay the recovery amount to the company. They shared the breakup as below

AMPB paid from April till LWD : 92601 till november and the amount which will be paid in the notice period will also be recovered.

EPB : Around 40000. We never signed anything regarding EPB in our offer letters but on 18th November 2021, HR shared an email with all the employees that EPB paid will also be recovered from April till LWD if anyone resigns between the FY. This was not mentioned in the Provisional FNF neither in the offer letter, but they changed the policy in between a year and now forcing everyone to pay back this amount.

Project Bonus: 80000 which was a part of my compensation since august 2021 after my appraisal, this also has to be paid back to them.

Story #2

Hi All.. I have worked in HCL for less than a year and moved out recently..

I had 2 variable components 1. Engagement Performance Bonus (EPB – Monthly payout if billable in a project) and 2. Performance Bonus (Annual based on rating)..

HCL has deducted EPB component completely in my final settlement for the FY21-22 (April till my LWD) which was paid out..

This was not mentioned in the offer letter nor in the policy portal but when enquired they are saying employees whose last working day is during 01 sep 2021 to 31 Mar 2021 will be recovered complete EPB paid out from April 2021..

Impact:

I was not prepared for this recovery as this was not mentioned anywhere including the provisional final settlement letter. It was a hefty amount so had hard time to manage financially..

I checked with my friends who worked in HCL before, there was no deduction like this but now suddenly they are adding new clauses which I feel is not fair and will not give the confidence to work in HCL again..Many of my friends are leaving now from junior to senior level they all will have severe impact as this is their hard earned money

Story #3

Hi All.. I have worked in HCL for 16 months 

I had 2 variable components 1. Engagement Performance Bonus (EPB – Monthly payout if billable in a project) and 2. Performance Bonus (Annual based on rating)..

Issue1-HCL has deducted EPB component completely in my final settlement for the FY21-22 (April till my LWD) so I lost 6 months of monthly bonus which was already and then retrieved as per their new policy which suddenly arrived in middle of the pandemic.

Issue2- I have completed the entire cycle and I was eligible for yearly bonus which they told will be settled in my full and final but later I was told that you will not be paid as your management rated you PNI(performance needs improvement) and that is a huge amount for me to lose so I initiated emails and escalated to HRs to give me justification on the rating and the managers never joined the call and after couple of months of chasing and escalating I was given 70% of the amount and no justification on the left over 30%

Issue 3-Apart from this I am still struggling escalating to get my full and final settlement updated and getting my PF transfer done from their end.

They make you work without any backups and be available for 24/7 and after such long hard work we end up paying them which is aweful.

Totally unacceptable, irresponsible behaviour from Exit management,HR management and entire management.

Story #4

I am an employee of HCL technologies and currently serving the notice period. After 1 week of putting the resignation I received the provisional full and final statement and got to know that I have to pay the amount of more than ? 1 lakh to get the experience letter and relieving letter. They are doing this with every employee, for some employees the amount may exceed ?2 lakhs. This is affecting me financially because they have put my salary on hold and after deducting that amount i still have to pay them more than ?40000. My family is dependent on me, please look into this and do the needful. Still i am wondering that i will have to pay the amount of 20k-25k more as a part of EPB recovery

We will keep you updated, as more details come in.