[Slowjet]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Why? Plenty of IT companies enforce their unfair bonds all the time. Why will they have difficulty enforcing a fair contract? Is there some labour law clause that will prevent company lawyers from enforcing it?

While I am in agreement with your post not only on this thread but other topic as well but one month notice period is what is required. There is no role / job wherein a person cannot be replaced immediately. If that was the case you wouldn't see departure of employees overnight when the organisation wants it irrespective of whether the person is CEO or a fresher. This is just a "over hype" created by IT companies to support their notice period of 3 months. They tried to make it difficult for the employees to leave and protect themselves from loss of billing but then smart people utilise this time to get multiple offers and there is nothing wrong in it.

It is the problem created by IT companies for which they need to find a simple solution and as said earlier in this thread, simply reduce the notice period to one month.

I know of several cases where the employee resigns and doesn't get on boarded by the new employer. Under normal circumstances, organisations should honour the offers including the joining date. There are companies who have hired candidates in anticipation of winning a contract but if they do not win then these people are asked to leave.

While the argument could be that purpose of business is to maximise the gains but there needs to be element of morality, ethics and trust which seems to be conspicuous by its absence and this needs to be balanced.

[mxx]

Before I start I would like to mention that I am not an employer, not an HR, not even in management.
But I have slightly different perspectives here

Originally Posted by sunilch

This is a Chicken and Egg situation currently prevalent due to large number of openings and unfair notice period (3 months) in IT industry.

Do we see this problem so prevalent in non-IT industry? The answer is a clear No.

Not true. 3 months notice period is prevalent in many industries. In fact as far as I have seen, more strictly enforced.
Eg: few industries that I know have 3 months notice period is manufacturing, colleges/universities, airlines. I know for sure as this is not second hand information, but experiences of my close family members, relatives and family friends.

The reason is NOT to keep the employees from switching jobs (as some posts mention) , but finding a "proper" replacement. On the surface it looks like there are a lot candidates, but the companies need the right candidate to replace the outgoing employee so that the work can continue with little disruption.

I dont see the reason why only the IT folks feel this is unfair. I am not saying that people in the other industries like this, no personally they dont like it. But they also acknowledge that getting the right replacement cannot be easy. But the thing is, most of the time the employees as let go once the company finds right person and knowledge transfer happens, ie they dont always have to complete the 3 months if they are lucky.

Originally Posted by am1m

And frankly, how many IT jobs roles are there where a logical transfer of knowledge and job responsibilities can't happen in 2 weeks?

This is over simplification.
The time for knowledge transfer depends mainly depends on the employee's contribution and some other factors.
eg:
In a mid size company, a developer role (senior or junior) knowledge transfer can happen usually in 10 days time, there are usually redundancies maintained in the team.
In a small firm there is a lot of ownership in parts of code that is worked on and although the team might have a high level understanding, there will still be a lot of knowledge transfer required. Worse, if there is not enough manpower, they might have to even recruit someone new.
In mid or small companies, if the role is that of a system architect who has been serving in the role for some time, consider a time of 4 - 6 weeks of knowledge transfer.

Please note that I have never worked with large companies (like WITCH companies) so I have no idea of that.

[NiInJa]

Originally Posted by Samurai

I think companies should adopt the following strategy in future, after any candidate accepts an offer and expects the new employer to wait 60-90 notice days.

The candidate should accept one of the options:

• The candidate reserves the right not to join after notice period. In that case Employer also reserves the right to withdraw the offer if they find another suitable candidate in that time.
• The candidate commits to join at the end of notice period, failing which he/she will pay a penalty (promised salary for the duration) to the employer. The employer also commits to hire the employee on the promised day, failing which the employer pays a penalty (promised salary for the duration) to the candidate.....

I can predict how this will pan out after few years once such options become a norm: People will always choose option 2 and when they get another better offer, they will ask the company to 'buy out' the penalty amount of the first company. This is prevalent even today where companies offer a buyout if there is any bond involved in the current job. My cousin brother's bond amount was simply paid by Accenture when he left CTS. Think of people doing this in thousands and we see penalties 'balancing out'.

The first option has an inherent problem of 'trust', if any candidate chooses that, for me as an employer, it immediately becomes a 'maybe' and I have to keep the process of hiring going on till I find people who choose option 2, but then again, people choosing option 2 cannot be trusted as another company can buy them out by paying penalty. So lets take a case where the first candidate (say A_1) who chose option 1 keeps his word and joins, and the second candidate (say B_2) who chose option 2 joins too, I end up with more resources than required, or I reject candidate A_1, which is fair. BUT it cannot be generalized until salary or other conditions are considered. If candidate A_1 has accepted a lower salary and is say, ready to come to office, compared to B_2 who has been offered higher and will work from remote location, I as an employer, can weigh my options and reject B_2 by paying him the penalty as A_1 looks more profitable and visible to me in the long run. Moreover, rejecting people choosing option 2 will give rise to some unofficial trust rating, where company's rejection rate for option 2 will be compared against other companies.
Extrapolate such cases to 100s of people leaving and joining and it starts becoming a headache for Project Managers and HR to get the right people.

Another case, A_1 calls the HR one fine day and says I can join immediately as I was released early, I have an immediate requirement on my project, so I say OK, let's get you onboarded, we will cancel all other people, I end up paying B_2 the penalty (B_2 might feel betrayed but again, it is fair by agreement), 6 months down, I see A_1 is not performing and still under probation, so I ask him to leave immediately, now I want to hire, so usually HR reaches out to candidates that were interviewed earlier just to speed up the process, and in many cases, such candidates who are re-invited to negotiation table ask salary 'muh khol ke' and depending on the urgency, employers give in. I as Project Manager will potentially end up losing more money than I had allocated for a project, so there is a risk involved from a cost perspective and I will have to play my cards carefully, keeping my client and the company happy at the same time.

Yet another case, A_1 and B_2 both don't join, I get some money but where does that leave me with the client whom I am serving ?

In my opinion, IT industry is too vast and complex to be generalised or simplified into common solutions or opinions that will apply to all 'techies'. I have seen cases where I thought 3 months notice period was too much, whereas in some other cases, 3 months notice period was absolutely necessary for a smooth transition, especially at solution architect or senior consultant level who have been working with multiple clients.

Coming to the issue of fresher's offers not honoured, this has been going on since long time, and people should consider 'postponing' of joining a definite red flag and start looking elsewhere. I was fortunate enough to have a placement officer in our college who allowed students to hold multiple offers during campus recruitment. Sadly, that is not the norm.


Off Topic: Some comments in IT industry related threads mention that IT people cry a lot and its about "I, me and myself". Well, if some things are clearly wrong and are being highlighted as a problem why does it have to come under category of 'whining'? there has to be some context somewhere to such comments which may not be presented.

For example, when I joined a certain 'Z' company in 2009, their leave policy was absurd, if you were taking leaves on Friday and Monday, the Saturday and Sunday coming in between were also considered as leave and hence 4 leaves were deducted. As expected, lot of young people like us made a huge cry over this and the policy was changed in next one year. There were some old timers who had been around since inception of the company who termed our outrage as being too 'self-centered' and arrogant and considered this policy 'normal' and were following it without challenging. It was exactly same sort of forum like team-bhp, just limited within the company where this debate happened back then.

[v1p3r]

From experience of being on both sides - jilted hirer and jilted joinee - I will still side with the candidate. Sure, some are unethical, but at the end of the day it's still a single person making career-changing choices. It is the org's responsibility to make the offer and workplace attractive, and build talent acquisition and retention strategies that may involve redundancy. And let's not forget, these 'ethical' WITCH clowns and various other bodyshoppers make it seem like it's ok. If you begin your career with a withdrawn offer letter from an 'ethical' company, why should you consider shopping offers to be unethical or immoral?

Originally Posted by Samurai

Why? Plenty of IT companies enforce their unfair bonds all the time. Why will they have difficulty enforcing a fair contract? Is there some labour law clause that will prevent company lawyers from enforcing it?

If companies try to take everyone who breaks the hypothetical bond you've proposed to court, their legal teams will be larger than their bench + onsite strength. Not feasible.

Originally Posted by Latheesh

Worked in the tech education sector as faculty, broke the bond, and paid bond amount ~ 12x of my monthly take home salary. Notice period was 1 month.

As Samurai pointed out, the bond is unfair and I'll add that it's actually illegal. If you had the energy, you could have filed a case locally and wreaked havoc. No employer likes to be in the news for their HR manager arrested for trying to enforce slavery-like bonds.

Interesting that this topic is such a big deal in India. I have worked across the world and I haven't heard this gripe anywhere else. Maybe we, as employers, are used to treating employees with a feudal mindset - how dare s/he want 100% more, or not show up after I've made an offer. Maybe 'ethics' trickle down across industry, and no one's word is worth a damn - because no-shows are rare in the developed world. Or maybe it's both.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by mxx

The time for knowledge transfer depends mainly depends on the employee's contribution and some other factors.

Fair enough and actually I held the same view over most of my career.

But over the years, what I observed was very different. At no job of mine did I see any actual knowledge transfer happen before the last week, in my case or in the case of several teammates at different levels of seniority when they resigned...if knowledge transfer happened at all!

Also, if a notice period is that crucial, how come almost all US offices of the same companies, that are doing the same work, developing the same product, etc. manage with 2-week notice periods, again for employees across seniority levels?

I've had my manager's manager (at a VP level) in the US quit with 2-weeks notice because he got a career-enhancing opportunity with a much bigger company and everyone was happy for him, while I had a 2-month notice period at the same company that was strictly enforced in all cases. It's flattering to think that the knowledge in my head is more important than a VP's and I'm less easily replaceable but fortunately, I'm not that egoistic or naive. The notice period in our India office was in place just to make it harder for employees to leave. I agree with Samurai San that this will probably never change, but at the same time, while acknowledging that working conditions in the IT industry are much better than most and we should be grateful, I don't think it's wrong or "entitled complaining" to see through these obvious illogical inconsistencies.

[akkosetto]

The company that I work for is based out of US and India.

Notice period in the US: 2 weeks
Notice period in India: 3 months (was 1 till COVID)

US has similar roles here but bit more higher up roles, so logically it would seem knowledge transfer there would take more time than India, but no. I believe this would be true for most companies.

Essentially the 3 months notice in IT is just to make switching difficult for employees and because firms can get away with it.

PS: Fun fact is many of these companies ask lateral hires if they can join in 1 month.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

I can predict how this will pan out after few years once such options become a norm: People will always choose option 2 and when they get another better offer, they will ask the company to 'buy out' the penalty amount of the first company. This is prevalent even today where companies offer a buyout if there is any bond involved in the current job. My cousin brother's bond amount was simply paid by Accenture when he left CTS. Think of people doing this in thousands and we see penalties 'balancing out'.

Thanks for analyzing the idea deeply with examples, instead of just dismissing it without giving any reasons. Obviously, what I gave was a starting point, it should be finessed further to suit the needs of each organization. It would be rather simplistic to apply it without such customization. My position regularly gives me opportunities to try new ideas and see how it works. What works gets added to my process repository, and failed ideas gets thrown out. However, if one doesn't try new ideas, one is doomed to live with a bad status quo.

Originally Posted by NiInJa

The first option has an inherent problem of 'trust', if any candidate chooses that, for me as an employer, it immediately becomes a 'maybe' and I have to keep the process of hiring going on

Is it too different than the status quo? If you are hiring for one position, can you stop searching after making one offer? In many companies, they are forced to keep looking until someone actually joins. Option one at least removes the guilt element from both sides. Right now, the trust is implied, but not guaranteed. With the first option, the trust is neither implied nor guaranteed.

Originally Posted by NiInJa

I have to keep the process of hiring going on till I find people who choose option 2, but then again, people choosing option 2 cannot be trusted as another company can buy them out by paying penalty.

I didn't say they can be trusted. But they will have to pay a price. This introduces a certain hesitancy on the entity that doing the paying. If a candidate has two offers on hand, the second offer must overcome an additional barrier in the form of penalty. The option two creates a higher chance for the first offer.

Originally Posted by NiInJa

So lets take a case where the first candidate (say A_1) who chose option 1 keeps his word and joins, and the second candidate (say B_2) who chose option 2 joins too, I end up with more resources than required, or I reject candidate A_1, which is fair.

Yes, this is the correct understanding.

Originally Posted by NiInJa

BUT it cannot be generalized until salary or other conditions are considered. If candidate A_1 has accepted a lower salary and is say, ready to come to office, compared to B_2 who has been offered higher and will work from remote location, I as an employer, can weigh my options and reject B_2 by paying him the penalty as A_1 looks more profitable and visible to me in the long run.

Yes, you can. without any guilt or liability.

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Moreover, rejecting people choosing option 2 will give rise to some unofficial trust rating, where company's rejection rate for option 2 will be compared against other companies. Extrapolate such cases to 100s of people leaving and joining and it starts becoming a headache for Project Managers and HR to get the right people.

This is where we are getting into less probable situations, the 2nd order implications as in IF these options were used, and IF rejection rate via option 2 is high. You are looking at negative, now look at the positive. B_2 just got 3 months pay for doing nothing, and he is free to start looking for other jobs with zero notice period, which makes him very attractive to employers. A guy who can join same day!

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Another case, A_1 calls the HR one fine day and says I can join immediately as I was released early, I have an immediate requirement on my project, so I say OK, let's get you onboarded, we will cancel all other people, I end up paying B_2 the penalty (B_2 might feel betrayed but again, it is fair by agreement), 6 months down, I see A_1 is not performing and still under probation, so I ask him to leave immediately, now I want to hire, so usually HR reaches out to candidates that were interviewed earlier just to speed up the process, and in many cases, such candidates who are re-invited to negotiation table ask salary 'muh khol ke' and depending on the urgency, employers give in.

Now you are going for 3rd and 4th order implications.

3rd order: IF these options were used, and IF you pay off B in favour of A, and IF A turned to be bad...
4rd order: and IF the previously rejected B asks for more money.

I am not saying so many negative IFs will not align. But what is the probability of it? If each IF has a 50% probability (let's say for lack of data) of occurring, after 4 IFs, you are down to 6.25% probability of your scenario. As you are aware, one doesn't give up an idea if the success rate is 93.75% or even 87.5% (3 IFs).

Originally Posted by NiInJa

I as Project Manager will potentially end up losing more money than I had allocated for a project, so there is a risk involved from a cost perspective and I will have to play my cards carefully, keeping my client and the company happy at the same time.

Let's say you calculate the probability of each IF and end up with less than 25% chance of losing any money, would you take it?

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Yet another case, A_1 and B_2 both don't join, I get some money but where does that leave me with the client whom I am serving ?

Again, let's look at probability instead of possibility. The chance of A ditching is 50%, and the chance of B ditching is 25% because of the penalty. The probability of both ditching is 12.5%. However, in today's scenario, the chance of each ditching is 50% and both ditching is 25%. Which is better? Now plug-in the right probabilities from your HR data, and you will know if it is worth considering.

I know many will not accept this logic, because mathematical calculation make it sound theoretical for most people managers. However, statistics is a powerful tool that squeezes out information when instinct cannot. Our company products are based on advanced mathematics, so I know math is not theoretical. It puts food on the table for my family.

Originally Posted by NiInJa

In my opinion, IT industry is too vast and complex to be generalised or simplified into common solutions or opinions that will apply to all 'techies'.

So customize. It is an idea, to be considered, modified, tried, accepted or rejected.

Originally Posted by NiInJa

Coming to the issue of fresher's offers not honoured, this has been going on since long time, and people should consider 'postponing' of joining a definite red flag and start looking elsewhere.

I am not even going to address fresher placement situation, because it is terribly rigged against candidates, with all the power lying in the hands of the big employers. The fresh candidates are not allowed to even try for another company if they get one offer. And the companies are free to withdraw the offer after 3-6-12 months later without penalty. It is just disgusting. It needs a central government law to put a stop to this and make the process fair. I am not holding my breath on this one.

[RGK]

Originally Posted by padmrajravi

I No one should be able to hold an employee hostage for 3 months. There is nothing that can not be transitioned in one month. Even now the real transition happens only in the last two weeks.

Especially true is the last line . Even with a thirty month notice period, people start to show up in the final two weeks to examine the transition plan for signoff.

No contract is foolproof as long as there is a lack of mutual trust between the employer and employee.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by RGK

Especially true is the last line . Even with a thirty month notice period, people start to show up in the final two weeks to examine the transition plan for signoff.

Is this for service or product company? I always had 1 month notice period, and would release them earlier if the handover is completed faster. When seniors with multiple responsibilities leave, I have found 1 month not enough. That is mainly because there is no one free enough to take over so many responsibilities. Often 2-3 people have to take over partially. For people with 3-5 years experience, with others available to take over, 1 month is usually enough. This is for smaller product company though, which has limited bench strength.

Originally Posted by RGK

No contract is foolproof as long as there is a lack of mutual trust between the employer and employee.

Contracts exist because one cannot depend on trust. If you say contract requires trust, then it becomes an oxymoron.

If the trust is good, contract is not required.

[Samurai]

Facebook may quietly sack 12,000 employees, 15% of its workforce: report

That's a huge layoff. How much of that in India though, does anyone know their strength in India?

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com...w/94676424.cms

[IndieGooner]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

...because no-shows are rare in the developed world. Or maybe it's both.

Not always, as i happened to find out. I work for a WITCH company and was posted in US during the height of Trump's H1B crusade. To mitigate the wrath of USCIS, we were tasked with hiring few fresh US college grads. HR's directions were explicit - we are here for US citizens or green card holders; no immigrants, no interns and nobody who cannot join in next few months.

We interviewed and selected a bunch of US kids . Offers were rolled out (good offers too, I heard). Many rejected, many others did not turn up. Best was one of the guys i personally interviewed - he joined but walked out from client's office by lunch time on day one!

These guys were not crème de la crème by any means. Many of them had graduated 6-8 months back and were either jobless or doing unrelated jobs. None of the guys who joined and stayed are with us anymore. Most managed to join tech giants (including MAANG companies) during the great resignation by their own efforts.

[Mustang_Boss]

Originally Posted by NiInJa

I can predict how this will pan out after few years once such options become a norm: People will always choose option 2 and when they get another better offer, they will ask the company to 'buy out' the penalty amount of the first company. This is prevalent even today where companies offer a buyout if there is any bond involved in the current job. My cousin brother's bond amount was simply paid by Accenture when he left CTS. Think of people doing this in thousands and we see penalties 'balancing out'.

Sorry for hopping on...
The whole debate was never about "who is liable". Its all about making both parties equally liable so no one has to suffer.

In this case, i agree that the new hiring company will help in buyout. But, If the agreement is for say 6 months, then the company might offer to pay only for 2 months and the employee should shell out for the remaining months. If the employee is still with his parent company, he will have to shell out for that too.

There can never be a win-win situation, but, by not fixing the system, we are at a bigger danger. Emigration is one i can think of. Burn out / Hatred towards the industry. We all already know how good and efficient the appraisal system is, do we need another nail in the coffin?

[v1p3r]

Originally Posted by IndieGooner

These guys were not crème de la crème by any means. Many of them had graduated 6-8 months back and were either jobless or doing unrelated jobs. None of the guys who joined and stayed are with us anymore. Most managed to join tech giants (including MAANG companies) during the great resignation by their own efforts.

Without meaning to offend you personally, I wonder how bad the culture at WITCH is, that people would rather not join. The same cohort (who did join) ended up at MAANG soon after. This shows the lack of trust in a WITCH career, especially if you have options as most people in tech in the US do.

I would wager that WITCH has been unable to hire from India's top colleges similarly over the last half decade or so. I'd be very surprised if an IITB comp sc grad joined WITCH as a fresher.

[DigitalOne]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Facebook may quietly sack 12,000 employees, 15% of its workforce: report

15% of the workforce is really big. As recession looms worldwide, the shift of power from employees to employers is happening rapidly. Employees who are not in very specialised roles or not having very specialised skill sets need to be wary.

[IndieGooner]

Originally Posted by v1p3r

Without meaning to offend you personally, I wonder how bad the culture at WITCH is, that people would rather not join. The same cohort (who did join) ended up at MAANG soon after. This shows the lack of trust in a WITCH career, especially if you have options as most people in tech in the US do.

I would wager that WITCH has been unable to hire from India's top colleges similarly over the last half decade or so. I'd be very surprised if an IITB comp sc grad joined WITCH as a fresher.

No offence taken. TBH most of the folks we interviewed had bare minimal knowledge about our company (most likely gleaned from Wiki the night before). One intresting observation i made was that these kids were a lot aware of what exactly they wanted to do. Our usual strategy of hiring freshers in bulk and then shoe horning them into teams/technologies that had open spots was what failed this endeavour. Ask a guy who wants to develop mobile apps or work on AI to do something like SAP Security or SharePoint administration and you are bound to get rejected. These guys were.not.encumbered in the way that their Indian counterparts are and they simply exercised their freedom.