BENGALURU, May 18 -- A month after Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) completed its largest retrenchment exercise, laying off about 2% of its workforce, the company asked managers during its latest appraisal cycle to place about 5% of its 584,519 employees in Band D, the lowest performance category, according to an internal email reviewed by Mint and independently confirmed by an executive.

"Please review critically and share the list of associates who can be considered for Band D, thereby meeting the agreed 5% distribution," said an email from a TCS HR executive to one of the business unit heads of the company in April.

Business unit heads classified about 3% of employees, about 17,500 people, as underperformers, according to three ot...