[rakirank]

I don't believe you have a choice here. It is the employer's discretion as far as I know.

I worked for an organisation that required me to do this. Thanks to technical issues I was unable to complete the same. Though initially they were gung-ho about this and made a lot of noise, the whole thing died down over a period of time.

[apachelongbow]

Bumping up an old thread. How is the IT industry as of today? Have the promised counsellers joined companies? Do IT workers get treated better? Has anything concrete in terms of employee engagement happened post these suicides?

[deadguy25]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Bumping up an old thread. How is the IT industry as of today? Have the promised counsellers joined companies? Do IT workers get treated better? Has anything concrete in terms of employee engagement happened post these suicides?

IT industry seems to be same. In some organisations, lay-offs seem to be a quartlerly clean-up. May be, this is what drives people to work more, thereby taking more pressure\stress, which may be resulting in suicidal tendencies.

A lot of big companies have employed counsellers. Although counsellers are available, it depends on individuals to meet one, open-up, and discuss. Else counsellers cannot help much. <- i may be wrong, my 2 cents.

[apachelongbow]

Originally Posted by deadguy25

IT industry seems to be same. In some organisations, lay-offs seem to be a quartlerly clean-up. May be, this is what drives people to work more, thereby taking more pressure\stress, which may be resulting in suicidal tendencies.

A lot of big companies have employed counsellers. Although counsellers are available, it depends on individuals to meet one, open-up, and discuss. Else counsellers cannot help much. <- i may be wrong, my 2 cents.

Thanks for this information. I am pained to see this sad state of India's premier growth engine. I feel I left IT industry to follow my dreams at the right time, about 4 years ago, and never regretted it.
Having worked in this industry for over 8 years, in the best of the IT companies and growing through the ladder, I had seen this coming.
IT industry had the best HR practices in the early part of 2000. It was very people centric and employees were valued (may be because a good programmer was still a rare talent). As we progressed through 2000-2006, I could clearly see the effects of the below
1) Huge multi million dollar offshoring/ODC deals
2) Bigger and bigger teams upto 100 people per project
3) Unbridled hiring, taking freshers, ex bankers, civil engineers etc etc (all who could be billed onsite on H1 or whom the client felt was needed).
4) Increasing outsourcing of coding/testing etc to third party vendors. Simply because we didnt have enough resources
5)Truncated training programs, freshers being churned out within 3-4 weeks, and most didnt know what is a bubble sort algorithm or what is data encapsulation for example.

All this unstable factors coupled with unbridled optimism, comparing IT industry to East India company (on which the sun was never supposed to set), expecting 33% profit margins after tax and minimum of 20-30% YOY hikes in gross salary, eventually pulled this industry down.

By 2006-2008/9 effects of the above were clearly visible. US clients (which were about 60% of overall business), refused to blindly trust 'us intellegent Indian programmers'. Billing rates fell from an astronomical $40/hour for a fresher to a more realistic 18-20$/hour. Instead of T&M projects, clients were increasingly looking for fixed price, putting big Indian IT giants at risk.

Companies which were blindly giving out generous payouts, guranteed promotions 20% YOY hikes, now stopped the doleouts. I have personally known of a couple of freshers who started out in 2000, became project managers by 2006, used to remain unbilled for atleast 6 months a year (by their own careful planning and playing the system), and yet made a cool 10-12lacs per annum (2006). Now its increasingly rare for someone so casual to remain a star performer and get fantastic hikes.

Today the tables seem reversed. Worshipped workers are now at the recieving end of the stick. Its either perform or perish. Payhikes are either non existant or in single digits. Salaries which seemed big during 2005-2010 are now looking increasingly smaller due to inflation. IT folks are now feeling work pressure which was always existing in private banking or advertising for example, and most are not ready for this, having never being exposed to such a life. Hence the increasing frustration, stress, divorces, mental health issues and suicides even.

[anekho]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Thanks for this information. I am pained to see this sad state of India's premier growth engine. I feel I left IT industry to follow my dreams at the right time, about 4 years ago, and never regretted it.

Wow. Really interesting insight.

If you don't mind me asking, what do you work with now?

[devil_klm]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Today the tables seem reversed. Worshipped workers are now at the recieving end of the stick. Its either perform or perish. Payhikes are either non existant or in single digits. Salaries which seemed big during 2005-2010 are now looking increasingly smaller due to inflation. IT folks are now feeling work pressure which was always existing in private banking or advertising for example, and most are not ready for this, having never being exposed to such a life. Hence the increasing frustration, stress, divorces, mental health issues and suicides even.

That was some good points you shared. Adding few points from an article that i read and my thoughts. In 2000 the pay difference between us and India was 100:20. in 2005 it became 100:40(salary in US got decreased) and as per predictions in 1025 it may become minimal and companies will be able to get employes from there it self and the offshore requirements will become less. So now think about the people who are highly paid. They need to find an alternative in India or go to some other countries. Those who took any kind of loan will be under tension and may cause to suicide. IT guys need to have a secondary income or a start up to be on safer side always.

[deadguy25]

The best part is each organisation says "it is important that our employees maintain a balance between work-life and personal life".

[sunishsamuel]

Sooner or later the IT bubble had to burst. Being cynical ! A friend of mine recently went through a bad phase in life, he was unable to cope with pressure at work. Had to go through counseling, therapies and what not. I was worried about his family, he was on sedation for few days as he was really getting mad ! We did stand by him and family, supported to come out of the problem. His problem was simple, he was unable to learn new processes and technology and was adamant on his old style of working, which did not suit the company. And rest is history !

At times i wonder, what's the pressure we are talking about ? Most times its caused unnecessarily either because the employee is not hard working, not meeting committed deadlines or wasting time without doing work till he is on the hot seat. Its a mix of problems:

- Lack of planning or thinking long term. Everyone seems to be in the mode of "this is what my job is" let others take care of remaining.
- Unable to escalate or report issues/bugs before it becomes a major outage. And once outage starts, work long hours to fix them ! No one seems to remember the lines "Prevention is better than cure"
- Work force becoming lethargic. They come to office, browse websites, internet shopping, facebook/gmail chat and watch youtube. Some call it the comfort zone ! Our company was very liberal on internet usage till recently, but started becoming strict because the abuse is rampant. I had to formulate policies blocking access and tracking things. How do i know that ? Being the IT infrastructure support person for the company, i get to see what others are doing. All these employees crib during appraisals about too much work, lack of opportunity and demands fancy hikes.
- Taking everything too personal. If someone gives a feedback, i have seen people getting emotional. And i had men and women crying in front of me when their managers gave feedback. Can't people take the right ones and filter the feedback that's not necessary to them ? At times, i do agree, managers might give incorrect/biased feedback, just ignore it. If you are the good worker and got the skills to survive, it won't be hidden or ignored for too long. Once people get emotional after feedback, the amount of drama they do is amazing ! Had many incidents where i had to take drunk and violent people from different places forcibly !
- Peer pressure -> 3 idiots or in fact similar movies could not change the way people think. if someone gets to know that his friend is earning few rupees more than him, the pressure builds up. How come he is getting this much, when i am not ? People jump jobs, take up jobs that they cannot do just because the salary matches. After few months or couple of years, they would be under tremendous pressure or jobless, unfortunately.
- EMI culture, we already got members posting about the ill effects.

This is not generalizing but i am sure atleast a few would agree with me. And best part ? With all the pressure and other issues IT guys are facing, counsellors, doctors, hospitals, religious guides etc. seem to be making good money ! I'd also want to add, the way parents bring up their children does not help them in facing real life. Parents end up protecting children too much, sympathising every time and blame everyones success on luck factor instead of providing guidance and feedback, the kids just end up getting more frustrated in real life !

[StarrySky]

I think the move from T&M projects to fixed price model is causing big changes in service companies.

With fixed price projects, the service companies are trying to get the work done by relative freshers (less pay) and also tend to under-staff projects (to maintain high margins). The result is high pressure on:
1. Junior team-members who have to deliver with minimal training, with senior members already too busy for any hand-holding
2. Senior team-members who have a lot on their plate due to there being only 1 or 2 such people in a project, surrounded by a bunch on newbies.

Senior technical personnel (even those who perform admirably) are shifted out of projects to maintain profitability and ironically, knowledge and wealth of experience have become unwanted baggage in service companies in an industry that is called "Knowledge Industry".

All this at a time when no MNC is willing to pay any money for simply baby-sitting their code, like they used to do in the past. Customers are increasingly demanding value addition from service companies, which they are incapable to deliver because good resources are leaving.

The result is obviously poor quality of deliverables, missed deadlines etc. This will eventually lead to MNCs taking their business elsewhere or even reducing outsourcing to do work internally by themselves (this is already happening).

[roy_libran]

Originally Posted by StarrySky

I think the move from T&M projects to fixed price model is causing big changes in service companies.
.......

This deserves a thread in it's own right! You are absolutely bang on. I have worked on both sides of the table, and right now my job needs me to work with multiple India Based Service Providers. After a few years of Euphoric FP contracts, we are now trying to better balance the T&M, FP and FC splits.

However, I am not sure, TBHP is the right place to discuss this.

Of course how these dynamics reflect on individuals and their stress levels is pertinent to the subject matter of this thread.

[libranof1987]

Came across this thread when I was searching for the TCS "WFH at 85% by 2025" thread.

Originally Posted by deepakchiniwal

Around 4:30 today a TCS guy in ITPL (Explorer building) jumped from 10th floor and died!

We were coming back from a tea break and this happened maybe 15-20 seconds before we were in front of Explorer. I worked in Explorer, but 11th floor. We were about 50ft away when HR and Admin were scrambling to put a sheet over him.

Originally Posted by deepakchiniwal

Heard he was a fresher and had joined 4 months back. Not a confirmed detail, however overheard people saying so. Heard he jumped off from the terrace, which usually remains locked and access to it remains restricted.

Again, hearsay, but we were told he jumped off one of the windows in the stairwell, that are kept unlocked for ventilation. Some feud with the PM was said to be the cause. Within a few days, all the windows in ODC were screwed shut. Not a word from HR/TAG/Admin/our PM about it of course.