Worst company ever to work for - Consultant Tata Consultancy Services Employee Review

I have worked with TCS twice, once in 2004 towards the start of my career in Mumbai, India for about a year and again recently at Sydney, Australia since Sept 2015. In approx 1.5 years of employment with them, I have evaluated them very carefully under various segments. Based on my observations, I list down what a typical life at TCS will be and what kind of organization it is :- 1) Company lacks creativity and innovation. For those, who are out of box thinkers and like taking up new challenges other than daily mundane substandard coding, its not at all a right place to be. If you are one of these breeds and at TCS, leave immediately or otherwise have an offer, politely decline it. 2) Absolute red-tapism and unnecessary processes leading to lot more focus and time/effort wastage on things other than the projects.Gives a feeling of TCS only being the organization on earth doing business, rest all other companies are newbies and don't know anything about running a business. 3) Not a good pay master and pathetic hikes + appraisal. The foundation of their business is cost cutting rather than value addition for the client and thus, all employees get is peanuts when compared with other competitive companies in the IT space. 4) No work life balance. Though its an accepted fact that customer is God, but people are assets too. Here Client interests only are of paramount importance. Personal life has the lowest priority. If you are keen on maintaining good work life balance and follow professional office timings, this is not the place to be. If you do not conform to their standards, you will loose your job sooner or later. The status-quo within this organization is subfusc and the organization lacks vision. Cost cutting is their business excellence model rather than niche consulting. 5) Absolute discrimination between employees based on their Visa status. Residents and Citizens are given secondary and humiliating treatment. Sad to list this but is the truth. Probably it's so because, people from offshore who are deported onshore come at 80% of the cost of a local hiree. Since, the organization has no crystal clear vision and business strategy, cost cutting is the only way to increase revenues. 6) Attrition rate is much higher than reported for obvious reasons as mentioned above. 7) Organization has a penchant of laying off people under false pretexts and prejudiced opinions. History tells this. People who consider being this as the most secure job on earth should get their facts corrected and gather some empirical evidence before making such statements. 8) Managers are not at all professional and treat the people running the show as dirt and this should not be the case with any company. This is exactly opposite of what the HRs and higher management proclaim the agenda as "We call employees as associates and they are our assets". 9) Organization has earned a good reputation over years because of the "Tata good will" and also, the Indian IT is largely, a, services driven business and there are no major innovative competitors to them. Another reason for the good will is the huge job opportunities created by them which is good anyway and much appreciated. This situation is changing now, and I think the new string of startups and mid size companies will take over and change this perception of the majority of the people (only those who have in depth knowledge about the IT industry - nobody can help the ignorant and those turning a blind eye to the facts). 10) To all the sensible techies on this planet. My sincere advice would be to keep away from them. Consider them as a last resort when nothing works out. 11) The software developed by them is mostly a rip off ... 12) The attrition rate is huge and is never reported. PS: The above review is not out of frustration or vengeance but very carefully compiled based on experience and I can assure, people who know the IT industry inside out will corroborate every word of the above extract :-) Cons: no work life balance, no professionalism, red-tape, poor pay, lacks creativity and innovation, high attrition rate