[visu03]

I worked in IT industry for over 10 years.

i have worked on projects that are 10-12 hrs a day, 5 days a week for 6 months.

It is like that because the customer pays for the time spent on developing his product. But being a CMMI service organization we have has to generate reports (Code quality, defect density) and then attend the QA review meetings, assist in preparing demo's for new customers, prepare proposal, participate in recruitment, performance reviews etc.

Now customer does not pay for all this, so it results in couple of hours extra work every day.

Bottom line: In service oriented organizations employee spend personal time to achieve/ keep up the CMM level certifications.

[kuttapan]

My sis-in law works for Accenture BPO and they were made to sign an agreement saying they voluntarily agree to work for 12 hours and that there is no coercion on Accenture's part. Worst thing is that 12 hours were the norm before signing, and now that they have signed it, Accenture feels it is OK to push the envelope to 14-16 hours.

Similar is the case with another cousin sis working with Deutsche bank. Insane working hours. Both are afraid of quitting during recession, and anyway, it will be a case of jumping from the pan into the fire.

I do not kno why people refuse to take names of the companies of this forum, except for some? It is a known fact that WIPRO has mandated office hours strictly, reduced 50% of salary of non-billable resources etc. Let's hear the name of the companies, guys, instead of saying IT-major, Tier-1 company etc.

Half the answer of why the exploitation happens, is explained when the company names are not taken. Go figure !!

[Technocrat]

Bottom line: In service oriented organizations employee spend personal time to achieve/ keep up the CMM level certifications.

LOL Thats just an excuse, CMM activities do consume time but not as much as to be working extra hours on continuous basis.

Anyways what you have mentioned is all managerial & QA\QL \TL\PL stuff not everyone does that.

[greenhorn]

It can happen techno. My project used to be a 20+ operation, and at that time, we jumped into a bunch of quality and what not initiatives. We've ramped down to 5, and out of it, it takes 100% of my manager's time, and 50% of my TL's time to ,um, make the data look good .
I've worked with them on getting these metrics ready ( when its just 3 other people, you HAVE to), and can safely say that there are scenarios where these activities can consume a significant overhead.

But no, we don't have the overtime issue since we're kind of a support project, and half of the time we're twiddling our thumbs, so nobody complains

[Technocrat]

I know green but for six months & all the team members?

[greenhorn]

his point was

Bottom line: In service oriented organizations employee spend personal time to achieve/ keep up the CMM level certifications.

I've seen the same people(from one particular overworked project) spend personal time for these things, every day since I've joined work, and its been a few years now.


If your company mandates that you work for X hours, and X hours are billed to the client, The client certainly does not want you working spending an hour or so every day (as is our case) reporting project metrics which help only our org and not the client ( before you say the client can benefit from those metrics, we have to report a seperate set of metrics to the client, which needs to tally with the metrics we have to send to the org. Both client and org keep a tight leash on metrics like productivity and things like that , so if we log the actual time it takes for these processes it will reflect in the numbers - in a bad way, and we'll get grilled on why exactly so much time is being spent. And no, the truth is not accepted by the org as an answer, why? because "other projects dont have this issue".

Everyone fudges it. Even if you make an honest attempt to present the truth, you will be branded a liar, and the real liars have the last laugh.So most people just give up. If losing a few hours more of your job makes the difference between having your job or not, it is well worth it to most

[kpbhatt]

Originally Posted by Spitfire

I would blame the employee here. Why does one in the first place agree to work long hours?

Whenever my manager asked me to stay back. I would say fine, send me a mail why i should. No mail came i never stayed back.

@Rocky_Balboa: What you wrote is exactly what i went through... IN IBM... They even falsified my signatures on forms saying that i agreed that i was in Performance Improvement Plan. I was a 1 rater for the 3 years i worked there. The next company i joined rubbished the claim as personal enemity. IBM HR swept the case under the carpet.

If anyone from IBM HR is reading this. You guys have some real third grade scum among you.

I left them while still on probation within 5 months for reasons similar to above

[Technocrat]

LOL so IBM is still the same, around 4 years back The HR head of IBM Pune took my brother on terrace & gave him an offer to join another IT company. My brother was shocked, no prizes for guessing that he left THE IBM in just 3 months.

[ajmat]

My company makes people accountable for what they do, not time spent!

The focus is on work-life balance. If you have an issue, you escalate. A lot of us have evening con-calls so you are given the flexibility to go early for come late. You can even work from home but there are key guidleines on this (to avoid goofing off)

If you have a personal problem or sick. Discuss it and the team stretches where possible, Ladies are not allowed to work beyond 8pm in office. Only time when people slog are during "tape outs" and releases.

Let me give you example of the difference between our company and the one founded by the person who cleans his own toilet

A cousin's (who works there) father was dying of cancer. They kept deliberating about leave and this poor guy had to also care for his dad. This guy used to go to office at 5.00 am, clock in 6 hours (half a day) return at lunch time and nurse his father. If it was my company, it would be "stay with your dad", get a broadband set up and stay connected and come in/ call in for key meetings.

Again this company insists people clock 9hours 15 min in the campus. Of which 1hr 15 mn are for your breaks. You need to swipe in when you enter your respective building. Any log out from the building is considered your break so imagine walking across the large campus and you meet that boring senior manager

thats why we are No 2 this year in the Great Place to Work survey - Work-life Balance and Strong WorkEthic

[DriverR]

The key is identifying the root cause. Until then we will just be talking about attacking the symptoms.

Try to identify why people work for over 10 hours consistently?
Possible answers:
1. Wrong estimations
2. Backlog of work
3. Rework
4. Sudden/unexpected Client requests
5. Lack of other resources
6. Office policy is like that
7. Boss says so
8. Boss does so
9. Love of the job
10. Office colleagues are better than than what one sees at home!
.
. and so on.

Next, ask why you gave that particular answer(s) and carry on this process till you come to a root cause. Each company may have different root causes or (more likely) there may be similar root causes for a majority of the companies.

The bottom line is taking actions without identifying the root cause will not help the issue, and may cause even more problems.

@Ajmat: +1. At the end or the day, the company's policy matters, and even more than that, the reporting Manager matters. I've had some fantastic Managers and some not so good ones. A good manager and company policies will make the team enthusiastic and motivated, even if they have to stay for longer than the normal working hours.

[vivekiny2k]

Originally Posted by Stig

Infy was reprimanded for failing to follow labor laws in California and China

I didn't think they learnt anything from that. Although I have seen some manager being sensitive to the possibility of "lawsuits".

In texas, a whole account from infosys is barred from taking any leaves while at onsite, unless it's a "REAL EMERGENCY". no vacations till you stay in US, and work upto 18 hrs a day. that's the price of staying at onsite, else you can be set home. If you have a green card or family in US and don't care about being sent to india, it's a different story altogether.

EDIT: I should clarify, it's not because of mismanagement. These guys are very smart and hard working. the work culture comes down from the client who squeezes every drop of blood from spineless infy team. and then it trickles down to offshore.

[greenhorn]

Originally Posted by ajmat

this company insists people clock 9hours 15 min in the campus.

So many folks posting about this particular company, I wonder what's happened to their "values"

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

So many folks posting about this particular company, I wonder what's happened to their "values"

All that hoopla about their so called values came from their need to boost stock prices. Even now an average stock holder won't sell that stock because it is a nice company with values. Their PR machinery ensures that no bad news about them ever gets out in the media. Building that aura about the greatness of the founder & wife was the most brilliant PR scheme ever pulled in India corporate history.

[ravibhat]

In many of companies in India be it MNC or indian company employees suffer a lot when it comes employee friendly rules because of lack of unity between them and non supporting government and rules.

Having worked in multiple companies in Bangalore before starting my company 9 years back I have had very interesting experiences. Such experiences helped a lot to set rules/regulations in my company.

Being Software Engineer without any management skills I still managed my company much better than any big companies in India even in recession times(2001 or 2008).

We work 5 days a week from our 2nd year of operation and employees get leave as much as they want (however there is limit which no one could cross it till date). Keep always extra man power. Always give best respect to employees. It works much better than keeping a distance with them. Daily spend 1-2 hours in workplace with employees. If anyone sufferring from health issue give extra days off which make it won't get transfered to others in office.

I know few employee friendly rules make company earn less profit but it would be around 10% less from the profit (i,e, 2 lacs less if company made 20 lacs profit in particular year) which is nothing when every well planned business make handsome profit.

Such strategy make workplace more efficient and If government brings better law I am sure things will be much better.

On the other hand there are many employees who have no ability to dilver the product efficiently and few ones even with good ability are careless. Such people should be terminated after multiple warning.

In general answer to this thread is YES, it is very high time IT companies must be under preview labor laws.

Regards,

Ravi.

[pypkmsrikanth]

What surprises me is how project managers get away with such poor resource planning the more I read here am sure its a deliberate way of running business "efficiently". Though have had passion for technology for long and at times felt bad for not being part of the digital divide I doubt I would have survived long with my inclination to questioning.