IT Survivors - Staying Alive In a Software Job
Written by Harshad Oak
Before I started working for myself, I spent some years in some of the top IT companies in India and still have many friends working in various software companies. I wrote a blow recruiting like crazy, about the same time last year about how Indian companies are recruiting like there's no tomorrow and the possible consequences. However I was avoiding writing this particular piece as it seems like an unpatriotic thing to do, to tell the world how bad the working conditions in software companies in India have become. And there's always the risk of excerpts being used out of context to bash up IT in India .
I am now writing this because I just keep hearing horror tales from the industry and it doesn't seem like anything is being done in the matter, so I thought I will do my bit and write.
First and foremost, before stereotypes about India kick in, I would like to clarify that I am not saying that Indian software companies are sweat shops where employees aren't being paid and made to work in cramped uncomfortable places. The pay in software companies is very good as compared to other industries in India and the work places are generally well furnished and plush offices. India being a strong democracy, freedom of expression is alive and well and Indians are free to express their opinions and voice their concerns. Yet, I say that the software industry is exploiting its employees.
IT work culture in India is totally messed up and has now started harming the work culture of the nation as a whole. Working 12+ hours a day and 6 or even 7 days a week is more the rule than the exception.
Consequences:
·A majority of IT people suffer from health problems. As most of the IT workforce is still very young, the problem isn't very obvious today but it will hit with unbearable ferocity when these youngsters get to their 40s.
· Stress levels are unbelievable high. Stress management is a cover topic in magazines and newspapers and workshops on the subject are regularly overbooked.
· Most IT people have hardly any social / family life to talk of.
· As IT folk are rich by Indian standards, they try to buy their way out of their troubles and have incurred huge debts by buying expensive houses, gizmos and fancy cars.
Plush offices, fat salaries and latest gizmos can give you happiness only if you have a life in the first place.
The reason I feel this culture has emerged, is the servile attitude of the companies. Here's a tip for any company in the west planning to outsource to India. If you feel that a project can be completed in 6 weeks by 4 people, always demand that it be completed in 2 weeks by 3 people.
Guess what, most Indian companies will agree. The project will then be hyped up as an "extremely critical" one and the 3 unfortunate souls allocated to it will get very close to meeting the almighty by the time they deliver the project in 2 weeks. Surprisingly, they will deliver in 2-3 weeks, get bashed up for any delays and the company will soon boast about how they deliver good quality in reasonable time and cost. Has anyone in India ever worked on a project that wasn't "extremely critical"?
I was once at a session where a top boss of one of India’s biggest IT firms was asked a question about what was so special about their company and his answer was that we are the "Yes" people with the "We Can Do It” attitude. It is all very well for the top boss to say "We Can Do It "... What about the project teams who wish to say "Please....We Can't Do It” to the unreasonable timelines...I was tempted to ask "What death benefits does your company offer to the teams that get killed in the process?". I sure was ashamed to see that a fellow Indian was openly boasting about the fact that he and his company had no backbone. The art of saying No or negotiating reasonable time frames for the team is very conspicuous by its absence. Outsourcing customers more often than not simply walk all over Indian software companies. The outsourcer surely cannot be blamed as it is right for him to demand good quality in the least cost and time.
Exhaustion = Zero Innovation
· How many Indians in India are thought leaders in their software segment? - Very few
· How much software innovation happens in India? - Minimal
· Considering that thousands of Indians in India use Open Source software, how many actually contribute? - Very few
Surprisingly, put the same Indian in a company "in" the US and he suddenly becomes innovative and a thought leader in his field. The reason is simple, the only thing an exhausted body and mind can do well, is sleep.
I can pretty much bet on it that we will never see innovation from any of 10000+ person code factories in India.
If you are someone sitting in the US, UK ... and wondering why the employees can't stand up, that's the most interesting part of the story. Read on...
The Problem
The software professional Indian is today making more money in a month than what his parents might have made in an year. Very often a 21 year old newbie software developer makes more money than his/her 55 year old father working in an old world business. Most of these youngsters are well aware of this gap and so work under an impression that they are being paid an unreasonable amount of money. They naturally equate unreasonable money with unreasonable amount of work.
Another important factor is this whole bubble that an IT person lives in.. An IT professional walks with a halo around his or her head. They are the Cool, Rich Gen Next .. the Intelligentsia of the New World... they travel all over the world, vacation at exotic locations abroad, talk "American", are more familiar of the geography of the USA than that of India and yes of course, they are the hottest things in the Wedding Market!!!
This I feel is the core problem because if employees felt they were being exploited, things would change.
I speak about this to some of my friends and the answer is generally "Hey Harshad, what you say is correct and we sure are suffering, but why do you think we are being paid this much money? It's not for 40 hours but for 80 hours a week. And anyway what choice do we have? It's the same everywhere."
So can we make things change? Is there a way to try and stop an entire generation of educated Indians from ending up with "no life".
Solutions
1) Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week.
Recently, in an awards ceremony at a software company, the manager handing over the "employee of the month" award said something like "It's unbelievable how hard he works. When I come to office early, I see him working, when I leave office late, I still see him working".. These sort of comments can kill the morale of every employee trying to do good work in an 8hr day.
Companies need to stop hiding behind the excuse that the time difference between India and the west is the reason why people need to stay in office for 14 hours a day. Staying late should be a negative thing that should work against an employee in his appraisals. Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week .
2) Estimates:
If time estimates go wrong, the company should be willing to take a hit and not force the employee to work crazy hours to bail projects out of trouble. This will ensure that the estimates made for the next project are more real and not just what the customer has asked for.
3) Employee organizations / forums
NASSCOM (National Association for Software and Services Companies) and CSI (Computer Society Of India) are perhaps the only two well known software associations in India and both I feel have failed the software employee. I do not recall any action from these organizations to try and improve the working conditions of software employees. This has to change.
I am not in favor of forming trade unions for software people, as trade unions in India have traditionally been more effective at ruining businesses and making employees inefficient than getting employees their rights and helping business do well. So existing bodies like NASSCOM should create and popularize employee welfare cells at a state / regional level and these cells should work only for employee welfare and not be puppets in the hands of the companies.
If the industry does not itself create proper forums for employee welfare, it's likely that the government / trade unions will interfere and mess up India 's sunshine industry.
4) Narayan Murthy, please stand up
Top bosses of companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, etc. need to send the message loud and clear to their company and to other companies listening at national IT events that employee welfare is really their top concern and having good working culture and conditions is a priority. Employee welfare here does not mean giving the employee the salary he/she dreams of.
Last word
I am sure some of my thoughts come from the fact that I too worked in such an environment for a few years and perhaps I haven't got over the frustrations I experienced back then. So think about my views with a pinch of salt but do think about it.
--Harshad Oak
How to Lose Your Fear of Being Fired
The risk of being fired is the biggest axe a company or a manager holds over an employee’s head. It’s a well-known fact that if an employee gets too far out of line, they will be fired. We have tacitly accepted as fact the idea that being fired is a terrible thing which should be avoided at all costs. For this reason, many of us will accept untenable conditions at work and go to extraordinary lengths to keep our jobs.
Steps
- Refuse to live under the threat of being fired. Fear is oppressive and threatening, and it may cause one anxiety over every action or thought. Anxious employees are less productive, because they fear making the wrong decision or saying the wrong thing. They are less productive because they avoid complaining about any problems they encounter. Make a resolution that being scared at work is unacceptable.
- Learn not to feel as if being fired is such a horrible or embarrassing situation. Do not walk around with your head hanging down, fearful that someone will find you sitting in the park instead of being on the job. Many are fired for reasons other than their job performance or ability to function in the office environment. Often being fired is a blessing, as it actually enables you to get out of a rut and find a job more to your liking and better suited to your abilities.
- Understand that the most common reasons people get fired are not solely the employee's fault. The only exceptions are people fired for harassing or abusive behavior, or people who have a history of being fired for reasons that are never their fault. If you get fired for one of the following reasons, would any of them reflect badly on you?
- Personality mismatch - You remained because of the money, but actually you were not happy with the surroundings. The attitudes of the people around you were not compatible with yours. The work was repetitious and became boring, the staff were not friendly and the entire environment was not comfortable. Being fired is probably a blessing, as it frees you to search for employment that is a better match for your experience and personality.
- Skill mismatch - When you applied for the job, you were not aware of the full responsibilities of the job, or the person who hired you did not accurately judge whether your skills and experience would match the job description. It did not work out, but at least you tried.
- Refusing to go along - Standing up for your beliefs, refusing to be dishonest or to overlook faulty business practices and being fired for it is not a slur on you; you should be proud for standing up for what is right.
- Downsizing - Thousands of people are downsized every day. It's not their fault.
- Unreasonable - If you became pregnant or needed to take time off to tend to a sick child, and if you put in a request for a short leave of absence and were fired, it had nothing to do with you. Do not blame yourself. You might even be able to sue the company in this case for job discrimination.
- Make being fired less of a problem even though it creates problems. Economic uncertainty is the most difficult result of being fired. Not knowing how you will pay the bills or how to tell the kids you cannot buy them the new computer they wanted can cause many sleepless nights. Suddenly your mortgage payment seems even larger, and you are concerned about your kids' college savings.
- Increase your employability by keeping your personal and professional skills up to date and cultivating a solid network.
- Keep your private expenses as low as you possibly can, so that you’re not 100% dependent on that pay check every month. That means not eating out or going to the movies for awhile. You may even have to give up smoking. That probably would be the best thing that could come out of being fired.
Tips
- Explaining to a prospective employer that you were fired is always a concern. If you are ashamed of losing your job or believe that having been fired reflects badly on you, it will come out in in your job interviews. Hold your head up high and explain the circumstances exactly. Convey an attitude of: “Yeah, I was fired. So what?” Some employers will care, some won’t - provided you explain it correctly.
- It is not smart to be willing to spend your work life going along with just about anything simply to hang on to a job that isn’t good for you in the first place.
Warnings
- If you're miserable at work, don't wait to be fired. Do yourself a favor and quit! There is a better job out there for you. Free yourself to find it.
