Getting ready for a battle

America is in recession. The number of economists bluntly claiming this theory is outpacing the number of economists defensively claiming that America has still got a chance. Recent slowdown in the Indian industry augurs that, because of this American recession, in India we may see a slowdown, if not a full-blown recession. During the last recession of 2002, I was a fresh college graduate and then the challenge was to get my dream job. Cut to 2008 - if the recession strikes, the challenge, I face, is to retain what I have. I lost the battle against the recession in 2002 because I was caught unaware. But this time, I am preparing for the battle, which, if the economists are to be believed, will continue for at least 2 years (Should I call it a war and not a battle? Literary confusions!).

I know, managing my career successfully will win me the battle and that brings me to the question – how to. Previously, I had decided that I would not enter into the people management so early in my career because I feel that I can understand the business better by managing the product and not by managing the people. A good side-effect of this decision is that I have a better chance of survival in this recession. I say this because the surveys done on recession indicate that, during a recession, middle management has a higher probability of getting laid off in the name of “flattening the organization” (Click here to see the results of one such survey). They mean it when they say, “managers are overhead”. However, I cannot be complacent just because I am not a manager and I should take steps to make myself recession-proof.

The self-proclaimed “recession experts” suggest, in their writings, to work hard and make myself indispensable. But, believe me (?), I have been working hard ever since I started my career. And, how could I be indispensable, if my whole department gets laid off? Negative thoughts hit before and harder than recession! The other suggestions they give are network and make contacts, find additional income sources and invest in education. These suggestions seem to be effective but may not be appropriate in all kind of situations.

Right now, I am confused and I have not zeroed upon my course of action. But, one thing I am sure of is that I am going to take conscious, proactive and informed decisions to decide my career path in this recession. Whatever may be the outcome of this battle against the recession, I will fight.

Riding a drowning ship

I have been, for whatever reasons, in the software industry since last five years. I should say that this learning experience has been nothing less than thrilling. Indian IT industry is in startup mode and people in it have witnessed many interesting things. But currently, I am witnessing what others in IT industry still have to witness, a downturn, god forbid. My company is facing downturn of fortunes because of a steady decline in growth due to business reasons. I have been a veteran of this decline since the beginning (Don’t apply transitivity to blame me for the decline).

Being an early bird to witness a decline phase, I would like to share the symptoms that indicate whether a company is in trouble. Traditional indicators like the stock price and annual reports cannot be believed because they can raise false alarms due to the very nature of financial markets. So, following is the list of symptoms, which I believe indicates a decline phase:

Confusion prevails: One day your company is selling a medicine to keep people awake, next day it sells a drug which gives a momentary kick, and some other day it sells a refreshing drink but internally you are manufacturing coffee on all the three days. Do you find your product being sold under different umbrellas? Do you see lot of reorganizations, which do not affect your regular engineering work? Boy, beware! The company is finding no takers of their story in the market.

Innovators look frustrated: Innovators (or researchers) are the most pampered people in a growing company. Everybody is jealous of the favors these guys receive. But, when in trouble, companies would dismantle all the innovation groups, and execution not innovation would be the “in thing”. The frustrated innovators could be located in canteens saying “It’s not the same company”.

Frequent and too many promotions: Many of your colleagues along with you are getting promoted very early? This is a sign of trouble because either the attrition has forced management to use promotions as an employee retention tool or the company is short of skilled people. The company would say that your promotion shows that we have “depth in leadership”, which implies that there is vacuum at the top.

Vision, mission takes high priority: One fine morning, have you been forced to understand (rather memorize) what the company‘s vision and mission is all about? If so, it is because the top management believes that company’s failure is because employees don’t attach them to the company. I trust that the vision and mission are inculcated in the employees by the working culture, not by making it mandatory to cram them.

If you observe these symptoms in your company, I suspect, you are also riding a drowning ship like me. Having said all this, I would suggest you NOT to leave the troubled company. If your company is the only one in trouble, stay back because you can “grow by attrition”, which will be faster than any other growth. If there is a recession and almost all companies are in trouble, stay back as there would be no one outside to take you.

Hence, I am enjoying the ride on this drowning ship with a beer mug, which is “half full”. And, I will stay back until either I am the last man on the top or some other ship chips in for rescue.

Slavery prevails in Indian IT industry

(This was publishesd in "My Times My Voice" section of Times of India, Pune edition dated 31st October, 2007)

My wife was working in a private software training institute, in Pune. Recently, she got a job in a big MNC. When she resigned, after fulfilling all her commitments, her employers did not give her a relieving letter. They think that if she is relieved easily, other employees may also start looking for better opportunities. Isn't this a slave culture wherein you are bound to work in an organisation even when you want to leave?Labour laws should come down hard on such employment practices.

Hemant Bhanawat, Pune

Tale of a slave

I wasn’t a slave always. My middle class parents weaved many dreams for my bright future. They wanted me to achieve what they cannot. They paid mammoth education fee for building my career despite money crunch and huge debt in our house economy. Understanding their pains, I studied hard and became an engineer in an extremely competitive environment. My parents felt their dreams were about to be fulfilled, when I got a job in one of the top IT companies in India. But who knew I was about to lose “right to freedom”.

Huge welcome on the joining day made me believe that the company has got a new CEO in me. Signing a bond of few ten thousands felt like an insignificant formality. However over a period of time, actual picture started appearing. Working on unchallenging tasks in odd working hours, no growth path and above all a dumb master (manager). Nothing was rosy except our receptionist whose name was Rosy. I was frustrated and felt suffocated. “Damn it! I am intelligent, I am extra-ordinary, I will find another job” I yelled. Interestingly, I found one in the next two weeks.

I rushed into my master’s office (manager’s office) with a resignation letter in my hand. He was shocked, he should be. He told me to wait for sometime. I wouldn’t have mind the wait if it would have been for few minutes or hours. But that “sometime” meant few days. Suddenly, he was the busiest person on this earth. After my untiring efforts for few days, I met him just to get my resignation rejected. I was made to believe that I was the most important slave in the company and can’t be freed.

I was helpless. This was the first time I realized that I am a slave. I started looking for any other slave who has gone through the same. To my surprise, I found many. Every slave had a unique story to tell. Few slaves had to pay their masters in hundred thousands to achieve freedom. Others, who were smart, tried avoiding this by vanishing from the slave locality. But to hire these smart slaves, their new masters asked for their freedom certificate (relieving letter) from previous masters. And finally (no more smart) slaves had to pay their previous masters hefty amount to get freedom certificate. Fascinatingly, slave trading is an upcoming trend these days. New masters pay old masters hefty charges (job agreement/ bond amount) to purchase the slaves.

I started worrying that how my story is going to unfold. I offered money to my master to get the freedom certificate (relieving letter). But my masters had a different view. They thought if I would be freed easily every slave will start dreaming about freedom. This will hamper the slave culture. They decided whatsoever they will not free (relieve) me. They decided to make me suffer so much that no slave even in the wildest of his/her dreams will think freedom.

Now, I am a slave. I am only doing what is required to fill my and my family’s stomach. And, I am reading about Sir Martin Luther King, who fought for the rights of black in America. “I have a dream. I have a dream that my little children will one day work in an organization where they will not have to suffer like their father did.”

(This blog is dedicated to my wife who is currently going through all this pain.)

Environment – Indian IT industry’s contribution

It is not too often that I go to office on a weekend. However, this Saturday was an exception. The darkness in office made me realize that somebody daily puts on the lights above my desk. After an effort of few minutes, I located the light switches and switched them on. To my surprise, not only my desk but the whole row, having ten cubes, was illuminated. I was concerned, “this is waste of power”, I murmured. Instantaneously, the grand Infosys office started haunting my thoughts.

I cribbed about this waste in front of my office friends, while enjoying free lunch. Everybody actively participated. After lunch and this intellectual discussion, I noticed that many people (including myself) have kept plates with lot of un-eaten food. Isn’t this waste? It may not contribute a lot to energy waste but still it is a waste. I pondered, what has increased in Indian economy, consumption or waste?

This made me mull over other wastes we in IT industry contribute to. Paper, the most obvious, instantly came to my mind. While printing documents, we never think twice. Fuel and electricity over-consumption are another areas where we contribute. As a Greenpeace supporter, I felt ashamed. I felt that we need to do more than financially supporting a campaign. But at the same time, I believe that to tackle big problems we need policy initiatives more than individual initiatives. So I started thinking what IT industry can do to reduce waste. While surfing environmental sites, I found the following article which talks about power audit as a solution to reduce power wastage.
http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/WasteAtWork.htm

This article suggests that regular audits should be made to analyze and suggest solutions for reducing wastage. As a part of IT industry, I can claim that Indian IT industry has lot of scope for improvement on the energy consumption front. Employees are not educated about the ways to reduce wastes and energy is used recklessly. The way out here is that Indian government should lay down a policy for power audits at workplaces. This policy will mandate IT industry to use energy efficiently and contribute less to the carbon emissions. Government should do something soon otherwise reducing the height of Himalayas by few millimeters (or perhaps melting of few Arctic glaciers) would be Indian IT industry’s contribution to earth’s environment.

Indian IT Industry - Screwing Careers?

Indian IT industry is credited with bringing thousands of jobs in India from west. But things are changing fast. An IT professional who was till now competing with westerners will soon have to compete with Indians or may be Vietnamese for his job, where he will lose the cost advantage. Higher one’s salary more competition one will face. In such a situation, will Indian IT industry be able to keep their current workforce employed?

Experts say that to keep on recording same growth, IT industry should move from labor intensive jobs to research and knowledge intensive functions. But in my opinion a huge chunk of Indian IT professionals are unfit for research intensive jobs. This is not because of lack of talent but because of the way Indian IT industry has molded them. The IT industry’s processes are forcing them to become champions of fields which may not be required at all in future. A recession in IT industry may make these people obsolete and unemployed. Following are the few functions of IT industry which I trust are turning intelligent kids into unemployable adults.

Overseas job assignment (onsite)
The biggest perk given by IT industry to its employees is a chance to work at client locations in foreign countries where one can make quick money. It forces professionals to compromise on nature of work, growth opportunities and learning prospects to get that chance. A huge pool of talent is wasting time at client locations while waiting for a problem, which they can fix, to occur.

People management at an earlier stage in career
An efficient engineer who is still not expert in his/ her domain and has less experience is pulled into people management to meet the shortage of managers. In case of recession, when jobs will move out of India to low labor cost locations and Indian companies will try to move to high end technical work to improve profit margins what will such chaps do? Architects/ designers and not managers will be required.

Supporting obsolete technologies
Companies are training people to work on obsolete technologies which are currently installed at client locations. A person working on an obsolete technology will be a fresher once that technology goes out of the market.

Better hikes to pull people
Using attractive salaries, IT industry lure people to jump jobs frequently without thinking about people’s long term career. In a recessionary phase, what kind of job a person with total 5 years of experience with 14 months in each of BFSI, BI, storage, and telecom domain will get?

On-Bench
IT companies keep a large number of employees workless in anticipation of getting a new contract. I know few experienced people who are on bench from last 8 to 9 months. This is as good as a paid career gap.

We need companies to take the responsibility of educating ingenuous workforce about their sustainability in the industry. Some companies do have career development programs but the goal of these programs is not to develop careers but to retain “crucial” employees. I seriously doubt that companies will close their eyes to self interests (low attrition) and educate employees about careers which will keep them employable forever.

Dear IT professionals, wake up! You have to take care of yourself.