[Mr.RaghavDhir]

i voted for no bonus, no increments and pay cut as i feel that layoffs or leaves without pay for long will become a big problem once COVID-19 situation is in control. As these layoffs or extended leave without pays will mean
(1) Further reduction in consumption in the economy thereby delaying the revival.
(2) Defaults on loans and EMIs (both by individuals and business which will suffer from low demand) which will further push the banking system to the brink which has the potential to snowball into something even bigger than the current COVID-19 situation.

Having said that the pay-cut cannot be same across the board as has already been explained by members in earlier posts

[aaggoswami]

Voted for : salary cut, no bonus for a foreseeable future, no increments, reduction in perks

Current global scenario demands unprecedented decisions from all, be it an employee, business owner, literally all are covered. We cannot expect markets to open up and then its normalcy again very soon. And in a globalized environment, even if India emerges from lock-down, its highly probable that few developed nations would still be under some kind or restriction. So free flow of trade/movement of goods/services getting back to normal, regular levels will take notable time. Its time to support each other and in such times, I am in for salary cut, reduction in perks, no increments and bonus can definitely wait. Only with collective effort can we overcome this dark chapter. Huge amounts of layoffs will impact overall consumption and only delay the time required for us all to reaching good old happy days.

[Laxman9192]

The Company I work for is a new group company that is only a year old. Since its inception we have been a core team with just one person with expertise in each of the core fields managing their respective departments. We have had repeated discussions with our Director on possible pay cuts/ delayed salaries but have no concrete advisory yet. We were all up for appraisals this month but I do not see them happening until next year.

[GRAND23]

I work for aviation company. Currently aviation industry is badly hit. Aviation company makes money when aircraft's fly. But now due to lockdown, there is no revenue coming up and it has forced company to take some loans. All employees of company will be going under deferred pay cut of 10% and I am sure there will be impact on bonus in future. Company is willing to pay back the 10% deferred amount at the end of 2020-2021 financial year. The good news is company paid the bonus amount of previous financial year 2019-20.

[gatsby_great]

Continuing the work from home with lower salaries would be okay. There shall be savings on travel expenses, eating out, laundry and other miscellaneous expenses. And these can compensate the reduction in salaries.
However it will ensure the job security and economic output. Isn't the salary cut equivalent to this option?

[ohaak]

Companies that are able to enable remote work should enable remote work and cut down on infrastructure cost. This is especially true in IT and some segments. If organisation is paralysed and short on cash, then partial payment of salaries until operations resume. That is my wish list.

[NiInJa]

I am ready for a salary cut, was not expecting any increment this year anyways as I joined the organization 11 months back, so its fine for not going after any bonus or variable payout too. Its basically going back to bare minimum necessities right now as times are unpredictable. The idea is to keep working as much as possible, learn as much as you can and keep moving without thinking about much about additional rewards.

Whats more interesting is how middle class people like me are going to pay those who depend on us: maids and house-keeping people. My mom is not willing to pay the maid anything for the month of May, but I've already told her that I will be paying her in full, whether she likes it or not, as long as I am paid in full. Would be interested to know how others are managing this.

[aashishnb]

More than the options, I think it is a somewhat culture / mindset / philosophy issue.


In general, every employee would be happy to be employed with no bonus, no perks, lower salary even, etc. In fact, most 'promoter driven' Indian firms and companies would do this and keep even some of the excess staff employed. Many owners would take a lot less, sometimes nothing home as profits and even put in more equity (personal funds) in continue the operations.



From what I'm seeing, the MNCs / Big4 type of consulting firms, with a relative tilt towards the American style (not intended in a bad way) of 'hire & fire', are generally the first to pull the trigger. There are already some instances where they are asking to not pay rent, etc.

[freakmuzik]

I voted for 'Other' and my reasons are:

I'm a musician and have been out of work for more than a month now due to the pandemic crisis. No studio sessions, no live concerts, nothing at all. And there's nothing like 'work from home' for artists like me. But I'm enjoying the stay-home period with lots of peaceful time, reading books, practicing, listening to loads of music and learning some of them, etc. I love being idle and doing my favourite stuff so it is okay. If I am going to think practically, I don't know how the entertainment industry is going to come up soon because the primary focus will obviously be on other aspects of the economy, isn't it? But I haven't found any use in thinking too practical about anything as some things are designed beyond our natural, easy comprehension. So I'm leaving it to life. I can't wait to get into the studio and go perform live as well though I keep posting and sharing music once in a while as a lot of my friends find it helping them relax while at home and are worried/bored/depressed. I'm extremely happy to even know that it's helping them. So yeah, artists will surely have to look beyond the financial perspective at the moment is all I can say.

Looking forward to beautiful days.

[ashis89]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Whats more interesting is how middle class people like me are going to pay those who depend on us: maids and house-keeping people. My mom is not willing to pay the maid anything for the month of May, but I've already told her that I will be paying her in full, whether she likes it or not, as long as I am paid in full. Would be interested to know how others are managing this.

The lower strata of people mostly live hand to mouth. They can barely manage with salary cut, let alone no salary in these tough times. We have to support them as best as we can.

I had a cook but had informed him to stop his services by end of March as I was relocating to another city (which I couldn't). On 23th March, he stopped coming and called saying Police were harassing in their area. I told him to stay indoors. I found some opportunity in the next few days, went to his place and paid his money for March and have assured him similar support this month and the next even though, technically he doesn't work for me anymore. That's the least I could think of doing.

[ARG]

Absolutely.

I'm with a global professional services firm, & expect the immediate fallout, in my sector, to be (1) slashed increments/bonuses, (2) strategic hiring - JIT staffing - bigger opportunities for contract staff, (3) changes in the way we work - less discretionary spending - travel, for instance, will make way for telepresence etc, (4) spend on selling and operational efficiency - AI & automation should get a boost.

In the medium-term, we can expect (1) strategic re-location of certain types of work, from certain geographies, (2) changes in the way we work - beginning of the end for brick n mortar office space, in Ind! (3) if we're lucky, we might even see our cities clear up - as more people wfh, & brick n mortar offices become redundant, people may realize that migrating back to the country, can give them the best of both worlds! - yeah, maybe that's a first-world dream, for now!

Originally Posted by am1m

BUT coming to the present situation I expect my present org to also cut costs. Like shutting that ridiculously expensive office we moved to a couple of years ago. And not having to hire a fleet of cabs to ferry employees there. Especially now that we've proved we can all effectively work from home, it will be wrong if we keep spending on those while laying off employees. Let's see what happens.

[GranvilleDsouza]

Given the nature of the situation, I've voted for - "Lower salary to continue work-from-home"

Reason?

It makes sense. At this point, there will be no new job openings, the market is in a slump and it will just help keep people in a better position, to deal with the ripple effect of the pandemic that will probably continue, right until September.

While a Salary cut, in my opinion, is one and the same thing, it may because of the industry I am in. The agency I work announced a 25% salary cut across the board for the months of March & April (for now). Furthermore, no appraisals until October is something else that has made clear to the employees.
Depending on the company and compensation of employees, a certain % can be kept as arrears until the situation is better, to manage cash flow and workforce, at a time like this.
This will keep companies from laying off people, and of course, people, in turn, will be grateful to the company they work at, along with a positive sentiment that is surely needed, once things go back to normal, for the entire industry to propel forward, and leave this current situation behind us.

Other thoughts that people should revisit are things like, how the company has continued to run, the productivity levels of people while working from home, the rise of "digital" overall at this prevailing times. Waiting to see if some of the big names write off their expensive office spaces while identifying those who can work from home. Who knows, this may be a revolution in the way people approach work-force management and having people "at work". Will save employees a lot of ₹₹₹ with smaller office spaces, lesser electricity bills and lesser consumables.

Just my thoughts I think it's possible!

[vik99]

Originally Posted by freakmuzik

I voted for 'Other' and my reasons are:

I'm a musician and have been out of work for more than a month now due to the pandemic crisis. No studio sessions, no live concerts, nothing at all. And there's nothing like 'work from home' for artists like me. But I'm enjoying the stay-home period with lots of peaceful time, reading books, practicing, listening to loads of music and learning some of them, etc. ..

The lockdown has lead to a tremendous increase in the amount of entertainment that people consume from online services such as YouTube. Perhaps this is a good time to establish an online presence on one or more such platforms if you already haven't done it.

Coming back to the thread, salary cuts should be the last measure (before layoffs) as will be very hard for those with fixed expenses like EMIs etc.

[sunnsood]

Voted for : salary cut, no increments
Invalid: no bonus for a foreseeable future, reduction in perks
Industry: IT

My company has already implemented 12% salary cut across the board. Plus all increments have been put on hold. We don't have bonus or perks as part of the CTC. Everything is fixed.

I think this will get worse before it gets better. All our clients in US, Europe and Australia are asking to release people even from the critical projects and downsize on anything and everything.

[evil_grin]

The reason why someone takes a job as compared to starting a business is because they want low risk and regularity of income. So when a business does really well, the employees get only some bonus while the company gets most of the profit. Therefore, when a business does bad, like now, the business has to have kept aside funds for absorbing losses and only the bonuses of employees should get affected, not salaries or raises.

However, if the company doesn't have enough funds to absorb the loses and has to reduce personnel cost, then the amount they reduce salaries by should be compensated by increased stock options. Since you are asking employees to invest their salary to save the company, they deserve the profits if it does well later on.

Layoffs hurt morale and livelihoods and should be avoided. If there were poor performers, they should have been let go earlier, not when a crisis occurs.