[Samurai]

Originally Posted by mallumowgli

@alpha1 & Samurai : I would bull-headedly stick to my point

You say you are not from the IT industry. Why are you not willing to trust people who have spent decades in IT industry?

Originally Posted by mallumowgli

Weren't the clients equally big or even bigger companies? Wouldn't you attribute this to a difference in culture?

They were small divisions of large companies (like HP), who had created their own sub-culture in India. When I worked in HP abroad, it was pathetic.

Originally Posted by mallumowgli

A big company, if it thinks that for a particular job the best talent can be got only with the appropriate change in their HR policy, will be willing to do that.

You wish... larger the company, more draconian HR will get. They will expect employees to adapt to HR policy than otherwise. The human touch goes away.

Originally Posted by mallumowgli

Again depends on the individual firm's culture. But if it wishes, what it can bring to the table will be much more than what a smaller company of the same kind/same business model offers

Looks like you are not aware of what scale can do to culture of a company. As a company grows bigger and bigger, it loses touch with the employees. I have seen it happen to many companies in the past 25 years.

Originally Posted by mallumowgli

Another problem is if you are looking at giving good relaxed life style to people - you may end up hiring people with laid back attitude to work itself. Though that will turn out to be a individual case by case issue to be sorted out - generally this will turn out to be the case!!

Why are you assuming laid back attitude is a problem? I want them relaxed and stress free. I know there are IT managers who will faint if they see people working only 40 hours a week. The kind of work we do is stressful to the mind, and nobody can keep it up for long. So I keep it in waves, I try not to keep somebody working at 100% all the time. We even have a scheme where employees can work on their own projects on Fridays. Also, we don't disturb them on nights or weekends unless there is a production problem. And we never refuse a leave or long vacation. We plan the work around their vacation plans.

[VW2010]

Just my two cents on the Salary survey - The biggest insight is that you have to change companies if you want to be above the median salary band.

Consider your personal growth as a critical factor and that comes with compensation. Gone are the days when people were worried about time with a company at least in the tech sector. If you are a techie and can prove your worth with cross skilling and up skilling yourself you are better off jumping few companies to actually earn your worth.

Staying longer in an IT company in this time (if you have the right skill and have been investing in upgrading them) is only going to harm you where you will invariably see less qualified and less skilled employees joining at higher comp reporting to you.

The best option is to build an exit strategy every 2-3 years. This is what i advice my friends to build a strategy and not rely on managers and their good will. You have to be self-reliant and self-motivated to go after what you want and stop trusting the management or your managers to be there when you need for they are bounded by the policy and budget of your organization (If it’s already big).

In a growing start up, it’s better off to stay with the startup if you see rapid growth of the organization itself. When an organization hits the stable curve with linear growth you are not going to get major benefit.

With respect to compensation, if you can up skill yourself in every availability opportunity you can easily build an exit strategy and make good inroads in the industry with respect to role and compensation. If you have a lazy attitude like many others, you will be struck at one place or another.

Change is always good and i personally encourage people to at least test their worth to get a feel of what the market offers for their skill set. Unless you attend an external interview once every two years, you will not realize your worth or worthlessness.

Long timers are always taken care by this Industry but they were long timers at the right time. If you were not part of organizations up curve, there is no point believing as a long timer you will be taken care of as the organization is already on the correction mode and what you will receive are the peanuts in the flight and not the full meals.

[rm_arjuna]

I am not from IT industry ,in my own experience I moved from a industry leader to a much smaller company yet with not so fancy designation, however I am enjoying my stint here than most of my previous companies . IMO salary or designation or big swanky office is state of mind and once we have crossed the barrier we will value the association with an employer.
I wanted to experiment and was very sceptical and was mentally prepared for 2 year stint and it has been 8 yrs since I am with my present employer and enjoying everyday of my work .

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Samurai

These are intangibles that can't be provided by larger deep pocketed companies. ...intangibles that bigger companies can't even dream of providing. For such people money isn't primary as long as it is sufficient for a good life.

This does not compute. It depends on culture and not the size of company. Even in a large company someone can opt for work-from-home (or reduced working hours) and choose their own working environment / work timings. Quite a few members of my team choose to stay in Midwest instead of east or west coast. They work from home and only fly to office couple of times a month.

If India had good net connectivity, 24/7 electricity, good medical care in small towns; it can work here as well. Some of my team members can't stay in home towns since a family member requires medical care only available in metros.

Quite a few product companies have specific programs to cater to these aspirations:

http://careers.autodesk.com/home-residence-jobs or Adobe or Google or Microsoft.

As for barbecue here is a Googler doing it in office :



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ome-perks.html

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

This does not compute. It depends on culture and not the size of company. Even in a large company someone can opt for work-from-home (or reduced working hours) and choose their own working environment / work timings. Quite a few members of my team choose to stay in Midwest instead of east or west coast. They work from home and only fly to office couple of times a month.

Unfortunately in India we do not have california or midwest. In India large companies usually mean a rigid culture. Even the western giants which come here often adapt the rotten work culture. An European company had to turn of the office lights to stop managers from forcing their employees stay long hours.

Sharath's article is very valid for Indian scenario. In the west, its not usually the size of the company, but the culture of its founders. For example, a leading online retail giant is a sweatshop, while a big retail store is a great place to work.

Culture usually depends from country to country, and somebody from the Nordic countries would have hard time wrapping their head around what Sharath says.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

This does not compute. It depends on culture and not the size of company.

I am mainly talking in the Indian context. Sustaining a healthy culture as the company grows is extremely difficult. Think of Infosys in early 90s when they had the same rep as Google. Compare that with current Infosys. That is what happens to most companies as they grow.

You seem to work for a large company that allows people to work from home. How many of your colleagues work from home in Mumbai and show up at work only couple times a month?

[VW2010]

You seem to work for a large company that allows people to work from home. How many of your colleagues work from home in Mumbai and show up at work only couple times a month?

How many can? The information security does not even allow such a facility in major IT sweat shops. The so called knowledge industry is in a way a sweat shop. In fact the point of having development centers is to convince the clients that their data is safe.

Non client related functions like HR, Finance, and other support functions; even they don’t get a chance to work from Home.

Sustaining a healthy culture as the company grows is extremely difficult

Yes and No to me.

NO - That goes in line with sustaining the old employees within the organization. The culture is a reflection of managers we create. The early investment on people managers is no longer there. There is no manager in current context an employee can trust and believe will take care of that employees career.

It’s gone to a point where everyone works for their own good and their own selfish cause and i don’t blame them.

Trust me there is a new brand of managers and leaders forming in this space. I call them Arnab style. The manipulative narcissistic bosses are starting to show up more with higher management having no clue to differentiate between leadership quality and self-obsessed goals.

YES - This i would simply say because of operational inefficiency and inability to create that pipeline of revenue and margin by pure mismanagement of operations.

So every time they have to correct these operational inefficiencies they end up hurting the people related sentiments if i put it that way. I say inefficiencies because of the inability to bill at the right amount.

I know data modellers as independent consultants would cost close to 200+$/hr while the same is charged as a developer. Most of the IT majors are now worried about losing a deal than taking a stand on what they deserve to get by providing a service.

The dog fight is such that i have seen instances where there is no profit doing a project, yet a company hopes more new project will off set that trend from the same client.

Quite a few members of my team choose to stay in Midwest instead of east or west coast. They work from home and only fly to office couple of times a month.

This is applicable to even those big IT companies i am talking about. Its not just the culture but the need for that revenue and the type of work they do. When you have to work with your client, sitting with their IT team i am pretty sure the company would rather want someone local who can engage more effectively sitting with the client. If not they client is better of getting an even cheaper resource from the global model.

When time comes to reduce cost, these flyin fly out will be the first to get a cut and you rather lose the revenue position than bleed it out by travel cost in many cases.

The kind of work we do is stressful to the mind, and nobody can keep it up for long. So I keep it in waves, I try not to keep somebody working at 100% all the time. We even have a scheme where employees can work on their own projects on Fridays. Also, we don't disturb them on nights or weekends unless there is a production problem. And we never refuse a leave or long vacation. We plan the work around their vacation plans.

We have very few managers who think this way unfortunately. I just wish every manager think that way and spend few minutes in people aspect. These days i get a feeling manager think its MONEY that can solve all people issues.

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by VW2010

These days i get a feeling manager think its MONEY that can solve all people issues.

These days I get a feeling that employees think it is MONEY that can solve all their issues!

[mallumowgli]

Originally Posted by Samurai

You say you are not from the IT industry. Why are you not willing to trust people who have spent decades in IT industry?

Lol!! I will let you in on a secret - I myself am enjoying the benefits of being in a tiny set up after working for the big, bigger and the biggest firms (apart from a start up) in my field (Industrial valves manufacturing)

Originally Posted by Samurai

I am mainly talking in the Indian context.

This context matters a lot - as does the sector, the market etc

What am saying is that a company (small or big) that is into mass production dependent on volumes for their business will not be able to able to offer much in terms of quality for their employees - the talent they require is focused towards more output for less input. And a small company in this field will be forced to ensure less pressure on employees (after all they are chasing the same volumes) because if there is the same pressure the employees will think they are better off working for a better pay with same pressure in a bigger company - UNLESS the smaller company tries to compromise on the quality of manpower. These employees stand no chance in a bigger company due their limited talents and hence are stuck there. And this is what usually happens

But a company at the cutting edge of technologies or innovation or having special expertise in catering to a niche or with high entry barrier (whether big or small), will be forced to offer more to the employees - the quality of manpower needed here is high

And the above is generally not applicable in India. In India, most companies, big or small, think that the personal benefits given to the employees are a kind of charity. An employee who goes on vacation, enjoys his personal life is considered to be wasting company's resources

(Am talking from personal experiences and also from the experiences of my friends - the majority of whom are in the software sector)

Hence until till someone from somewhere like a Google or Tesla comes and tells me he had the same shoddy work quality as he had when he was working with say, Infosys, I will stick to my opinion

I think I am saying the same thing again and again - so let this be my last post on this issue!

Originally Posted by alpha1

These days I get a feeling that employees think it is MONEY that can solve all their issues!

That was a good take

[bluevolt]

In most service based companies, increment usually max out to 10% for freshers. While for experienced it may go upto 18-20% (also depending how important that person is for the project).

While increment in startups is much higher, they simply don't offer job security.

[belvaisudheer]

Thanks to Samurai for creating this thread.

Originally Posted by bluevolt

In most service based companies, increment usually max out to 10% for freshers. While for experienced it may go upto 18-20% (also depending how important that person is for the project).

While increment in startups is much higher, they simply don't offer job security.

I feel it is not fair to compare salary hikes and slabs of a service based company to start ups which are most of the time product based. It may even be vice-versa. I do agree with the second point about the job security. But those 'cake walk' days are already gone even with the MNC's in the services sector. The non-milking cows face the slaughter house without any delay. The reason is simple: The job market is flooded with umpteen number of job seekers who are ready for the job immediately (without any notice) and even even at lesser salaries than their previously drawn ones.

I have seen companies which have bench policy of mere 7 days even before one completes his KT he is ready for the slaughter house.

[Samurai]

Fresh news... Infosys hands out 6-12% hike.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/51839293.cms

What does this mean? Worst performers get 6% and best performers get 12%?

How are the hikes this year in product and services companies?

[BB311]

A very interesting discussion. I don't think their is a fixed salary range, it all depends on the scarcity of talent in the market for the position you are looking at. Also, you get paid only when company wants to keep you. I joined at 5k PM 5 years ago as a .Net developer in a small firm and made a switch to another small firm after 6 months for 8k.

I loved my college, so took 5 years to complete my engineering.

In this new company, after working for 3 months I realized I will be a better consulant than a developer. I switched to Business Analyst profile in the same company. I was very instrumental in getting appropriate solutions for some hi-fi clients and as such with my companies growth of 10,000% in these 4 years my salary too grew by about 1000%. For me, It's not the salary that has kept me from resigning, but the pride of seeing the products that grew from small babies to Hercules challenging warriors in front of my eyes. It has been the PPT's of designs that got implemented, It has been the joy of looking at the result of correct decisions I made with the management after every iteration.

It's not money always, self satisfaction is the biggest factor.

[devil_klm]

Originally Posted by Samurai

How are the hikes this year in product and services companies?

Wipro announced hike as 9.5%. And those who got average rating got it in the range of 4-30%(30% for those who got some other offer on hand . and the poor souls who worked hard to meet deadlines got 4%).
So where this 9.5% announced in all media goes is still unknown.

[adimicra]

In my organization, we are having a hard time hiring junior developers with 2.5-5 years of experience. People with 2.5 years of ex asking for 12 lacs + and 4+ years asking for 20 Lacs+. I think there is a huge surge in demand of good quality junior developers as every company is trying to hire them