Re: Infosys, TCS & Wipro suffered 25% attrition last quarter I think I have written this in some other thread but here it is anyway. Leaving out Government employees (who have job and pension for life), Private Employees/Salaried are also like business person/traders and have to look after themselves. They are deploying their knowledge and time instead of capital. No wonder they settle for lesser but predictable and more stable returns. When the right time comes, they too bet on the future with job change for more returns maximizing their profit. Will all of them succeed? Answer to this is whether all businesses succeeds. Some will inevitably fail. And do not forget that they are giving interest free credit of 30 days for their services to the employer. So there is nothing wrong in getting huge hikes or multiple offers. I will leave out the ethics part as it varies widely across the spectrum of employers and employees.
Post COVID is a unique situation for both capital markets and job market in IT. There is a huge spike and no one knows whether it will hold for a bit longer or bust soon. So people who take calculated bets (aligned to future skill sets) will emerge stronger in long run. Others will fall back and the salaries will normalize in the next few years. So job market is like a pendulum and this time, the swing is in favor of employees and a bit extreme triggering reactions everywhere.
Now coming to the notice period, for any type of companies - Service (IT) or Product based companies, I believe it is unjustified to have 60/90 days notice period in India and this KT stuff is over rated. I have worked in both types but as a non software engineer and entry level management jobs - One long term in a Product based MNC for 12 years and another a short stint in the Engg services of Indian IT company (WITCH) for Indian clients.
For the first category, product based MNCs, most often the teams are geographically distributed across the globe and layoffs and/or site closures at high cost developed nations were common (shipping the jobs to India/China/Eastern Europe). People with domain/product/manufacturing experience of 25+ years have gone within a week or two or worst case may be a month even in Europe (where it is more tough to layoff). Most of the work will be taken up in India with a small KT sessions. So there will be a period of discontinuity and instability but will settle down. These companies are mostly process driven and two areas stand out to minimize disruption.
1. Related to management personal - the global rule is from mid management onwards, there will be a mandatory succession planning in place which is not limited to retirement/job change but even covers moving up the ladder or different roles. So the show goes on with that identified person who is mostly closer to the market (Europe/USA). I have seen many teams including my own vanished with varied degrees of notice period and it is the responsibility of the entry to mid level management (both local and global) to deal with it. The top management focus is on P&L. Non compete and Garden leave clause contracts were at the top management. As I look back, those product lines still exist.
2. Related to technical personal - There will be periodic quarterly resource reviews to remove 'Single point' failure risks for technical people. Even most projects will have a risk assessment to eliminate this failure. Only con is there won't be much proactive hiring in these companies as there is no concept of 'Bench'. Knowledge built over the years will be lost but these companies reinvent themselves into new spaces and are okay with the churn of older technologies in the long run. Project planning takes into account of general attrition of 10% for short term. I have not seen any projects stopped due to attrition.
All of this makes the 60 day notice period prevalent in Indian Engineering centers of global MNCs a joke. In my own case, I served the 60 days notice period whereas the KT of 12 years just took a week or two. Only reason, I believe these long notice period exists is billing as all these captive design centers are cost centers and due to the nature of the Indian job market. After all, Be a Roman in Rome.
Second category is the Indian IT/Engg services companies where the equation of client/customer comes which adds complexity. Bigger companies purely operate in numbers whether it is Resource augmentation mode or managed service delivery mode.
For resource augmentation mode, as long as there is demand and supply, the churn will be there. Here customer needs to reduce his risk by spreading the work across people and across service providers. Service company top management don't bat an eyelid as even before COVID the attrition levels were at 30% to 40% even in long term accounts. The advantage of these companies is their 'bench' strength to reduce the turn around time for replacement. I have seen how company and even engineers treat the 'bench' time with very poor accountability and don't use it effectively for replacement.
The other mode - managed service delivery model is a bit tricky because the customer contracts will be more stringent with penalty clauses and affects direct monthly billing due to non performance (reduced margin). Most projects I have seen have ghost resources as margins are built by accounting them. So this will also be absorbed with a period of disruption. I wonder what a 1 year or 2 year employee transfers the knowledge for 3 long months. Most of the KT is just a couple of weeks overlap that is needed. With the advent of so many software tools from code to documentation, KT for so many months is a overkill.
At the same time, I have seen much pressure applied to relieve people early without pay to save cost (overhead employees). When it comes to money, no one is a Saint and everyone will look after themselves first. Finally, the one that was not covered in this thread and the biggest malpractice is the notice period pay during this long notice period. Several big companies still stop a month's pay and will give it only on Full and Final settlement. This is downright unfair practice as I have never seen this written in the employment contract. |