IT Survivors – Staying Alive In A Software Job
Before I started working for myself, I spent some years in some of the top IT companies in India and still have many friends working in various software companies. I wrote a blog Recruiting like crazy, about the same time last year about how Indian companies are recruiting like there’s no tomorrow and the possible consequences. However I was avoiding writing this particular piece as it seems like an unpatriotic thing to do, to tell the world how bad the working conditions in software companies in India have become. And there’s always the risk of excerpts being used out of context to bash up IT in India.
I am now writing this because I just keep hearing horror tales from the industry and it doesn’t seem like anything is being done in the matter, so I thought I will do my bit and write.
First and foremost, before stereotypes about India kick in, I would like to clarify that I am not saying that Indian software companies are sweat shops where employees aren’t being paid and made to
work in cramped uncomfortable places. The pay in software companies is very good as compared to other industries in India and the work places are generally well furnished and plush offices. India being a strong democracy, freedom of expression is alive and well and Indians are free to express their opinions and voice their concerns. Yet, I say that the software industry is exploiting its employees.
IT work culture in India is totally messed up and has now started harming the work culture of the nation as a whole. Working 12+ hours a day and 6 or even 7 days a week is more the rule than the exception.
Consequences:
- A majority of IT people suffer from health problems.As most of the IT workforce is still very young, the problem isn’t very obvious today but it will hit with unbearable ferocity when these youngsters get to their 40s.
- Stress levels are unbelievable high. Stress management is a cover topic in magazines and newspapers and workshops on the subject are regularly overbooked.
- Most IT people have hardly any social / family life to talk of.
- As IT folk are rich by Indian standards, they try to buy their way out of their troubles and have incurred huge debts by buying expensive houses, gizmos and fancy cars.
Plush offices, fat salaries and latest gizmos can give you happiness only if you have a life in the first place.
The reason I feel this culture has emerged, is the servile attitude of the companies. Here’s a tip for any company in the west planning to outsource to India. If you feel that a project can be completed in 6 weeks by 4 people, always demand that it be completed in 2 weeks by 3 people.
Guess what, most Indian companies will agree. The project will then be hyped up as an “extremely critical” one and the 3 unfortunate souls allocated to it will get very close to meeting the almighty by the time they deliver the project in 2 weeks. Surprisingly, they will deliver in 2-3 weeks, get bashed up for any delays and the company will soon boast about how they deliver good quality in reasonable time and cost. Has anyone in India ever worked on a project that wasn’t “extremely critical”?
I was once at a session where a top boss of one of India’s biggest IT firms was asked a question about what was so special about their company and his answer was that we are the “Yes” people with the “We Can Do It ” attitude.
It is all very well for the top boss to say “We Can Do It “.. what about the project teams who wish to say “Please….We Can’t Do It ” to the unreasonable timelines…I was tempted to ask “What death benefits does your company offer to the teams that get killed in the process?”. I sure was ashamed to see that a fellow Indian was openly boasting about the fact that he and his company had no backbone. The art of saying No or negotiating reasonable time frames for the team is very conspicuous by its absence. Outsourcing customers more often than not simply walk all over Indian software companies. The outsourcer surely cannot be blamed as it is right for him to demand good quality in the least cost and time.
Exhaustion = Zero Innovation
- How many Indians in India are thought leaders in their software segment? – Very few
- How much software innovation happens in India? – Minimal
- Considering that thousands of Indians in India use Open Source software, how many actually contribute? – Very few
Surprisingly, put the same Indian in a company “in” the US and he suddenly becomes innovative and a thought leader in his field.
The reason is simple, the only thing an exhausted body and mind can do well, is sleep. zzzzzz
I can pretty much bet on it that we will never see innovation from any of 10000+ person code factories in India.
If you are someone sitting in the US, UK… and wondering why the employees can’t stand up, that’s the most interesting part of the story. Read on…
The Problem
The software professional Indian is today making more money in a month than what his parents might have made in an year. Very often a 21 year old newbie software developer makes more money than his/her 55 year old father working in an old world business. Most of these youngsters are well aware of this gap and so work under an impression that they are being paid an unreasonable amount of money. They naturally equate unreasonable money with unreasonable amount of work.
Another important factor is this whole bubble that an IT person lives in.. An IT professional walks with a halo around his or her head. They are the Cool, Rich Gen Next .. the Intelligentsia of the New World… they travel all over the world, vacation at exotic locations abroad, talk “american”, are more familiar of the geography of the USA than that of India and yes of course, they are the hottest things in the Wedding Market!!!
This I feel is the core problem because if employees felt they were being exploited, things would change.
I speak about this to some of my friends and the answer is generally “Hey Harshad, what you say is correct and we sure are suffering, but why do you think we are being paid this much money? It’s not for 40 hours but for 80 hours a week. And anyway what choice do we have? It’s the same everywhere.”
So can we make things change? Is there a way to try and stop an entire generation of educated Indians from ending up with “no life”.
Solutions
1) Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week.
Recently, in an awards ceremony at a software company, the manager handing over the “employee of the month” award said something like “It’s unbelievable how hard he works. When I come to office early, I see him working, when I leave office late, I still see him working”.. These sort of comments can kill the morale of every employee trying to do good work in an 8hr day.
Companies need to stop hiding behind the excuse that the time difference between India and the west is the reason why people need to stay in office for 14 hours a day. Staying late should be a negative thing that should work against an employee in his appraisals. Never complement someone for staying till midnight or working 7 days a week .
2) Estimates:
If time estimates go wrong, the company should be willing to take a hit and not force the employee to work crazy hours to bail projects out of trouble. This will ensure that the estimates made for the next project are more real and not just what the customer has asked for.
3) Employee organizations / forums
NASSCOM (National Association for Software and Services Companies) and CSI (Computer Society Of India) are perhaps the only two well known software associations in India and both I feel have failed the software employee. I do not recall any action from these organizations to try and improve the working conditions of software employees. This has to change.
I am not in favor of forming trade unions for software people, as trade unions in India have traditionally been more effective at ruining businesses and making employees inefficient than getting employees their rights and helping business do well. So existing bodies like NASSCOM should create and popularize employee welfare cells at a state / regional level and these cells should work only for employee welfare and not be puppets in the hands of the companies.
If the industry does not itself create proper forums for employee welfare, it’s likely that the government / trade unions will interfere and mess up India’s sunshine industry.
4) Narayan Murthys please stand up
Top bosses of companies like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, etc. need to send the message loud and clear to their company and to other companies listening at national IT events that employee welfare is really their top concern and having good working culture and conditions is a priority. Employee welfare here does not mean giving the employee the salary he/she dreams of.
Last word
I am sure some of my thoughts come from the fact that I too worked in such an environment for a few years and perhaps I haven’t got over the frustrations I experienced back then.
So think about my views with a pinch of salt but do think about them. And if you have an opinion on this issue, don’t forget to add a comment to this article.
I hope this article and the comments has been written by a genuinely hard working person who has gone through such a trauma. As I know few people who write on this subject (especially blogs) but have never really worked hard or gone through this trauma, they just want to boasting that they are thinking on this topic and …
Also interesting observation of such blog writers is they are not qualified as software professionals, come into IT field, earn their bread and butter in it, when they hardly have any knowledge about software development.
Hello,
Here are my 2 cents on the same. Yes, I too have been in this industry for 9 years now, and see it happening all around me. However, here’s the punchline: IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME !!!. I have always had good bosses who expected results in the form of work completed, rather than time spent in the office. Hence, now that I am a manager – I have made it a point to incorporate the points that harshad has mentioned. I am proud to say that – in my team – working late and being stressed out is more like an exception (happens only in case there is a genuinely critical issue) rather than a rule. My advice to all folks who have written comments here would be – when you go up the ladder, please dont be the same managers that you did not want your managers to be !!! Will that be difficult? Come on, what are we talking about? Should it be difficult for us humans to be a bit more human ???
Hello,
Here are my 2 cents on the same. Yes, I too have been in this industry for 9 years now, and see it happening all around me. However, here’s the punchline: IT HAS NEVER HAPPENED TO ME !!!. I have always had good bosses who expected results in the form of work completed, rather than time spent in the office. Hence, now that I am a manager – I have made it a point to incorporate the points that harshad has mentioned. I am proud to say that – in my team – working late and being stressed out is more like an exception (happens only in case there is a genuinely critical issue) rather than a rule. My advice to all folks who have written comments here would be – when you go up the ladder, please dont be the same managers that you did not want your managers to be !!! Will that be difficult? Come on, what are we talking about? Should it be difficult for us humans to be a bit more human ???
http://sudhakar.wordpress.com/2005/11/11/exhaustion-zero-innovationso-who-cares-about-it/
http://sudhakar.wordpress.com/2005/11/11/exhaustion-zero-innovationso-who-cares-about-it/
Very good article, and long due. There should be no ‘you’ and ‘we’ and ‘them’. The initiative ideally should come from us all – the engineers, managers, HR, bodies like NASSCOM, and even the clients. It’s true that usually HR departments in IT organisations in India are quite powerless. Also, not much can be expected from organizations like NASSCOM (in a country like India?).
The solution is really one of balance. No one should be pressured into putting in long hours for the sake of deadlines. Managers and Engineers alike have to realize that there is more to life than spending 80 hours a week in one’s job. For those who have nothing else in life, it’s really their prerogative to spend most of their time in the office, but that should not be taken as a reference for others.
A two-pronged approach should be used. On the one hand, Time Management should be encouraged. Companies should actively sponsor seminars and workshops to foster good time management and efficiency in employees. On the other hand, there should be more public discouraging from the top management about working late hours or coming in on weekends. The respective supervisors should be pulled up if employees’ time-cards show them working ungodly hours.
An additional necessity to deal with this is to simply say ‘no’ to clients who expect these kind of time/effort estimates. IT companies who provide quality work should do so, and this actually builds their image as responsible employers who give credence to Human Values.
Cheers,
Rajath.
Very good article, and long due. There should be no ‘you’ and ‘we’ and ‘them’. The initiative ideally should come from us all – the engineers, managers, HR, bodies like NASSCOM, and even the clients. It’s true that usually HR departments in IT organisations in India are quite powerless. Also, not much can be expected from organizations like NASSCOM (in a country like India?).
The solution is really one of balance. No one should be pressured into putting in long hours for the sake of deadlines. Managers and Engineers alike have to realize that there is more to life than spending 80 hours a week in one’s job. For those who have nothing else in life, it’s really their prerogative to spend most of their time in the office, but that should not be taken as a reference for others.
A two-pronged approach should be used. On the one hand, Time Management should be encouraged. Companies should actively sponsor seminars and workshops to foster good time management and efficiency in employees. On the other hand, there should be more public discouraging from the top management about working late hours or coming in on weekends. The respective supervisors should be pulled up if employees’ time-cards show them working ungodly hours.
An additional necessity to deal with this is to simply say ‘no’ to clients who expect these kind of time/effort estimates. IT companies who provide quality work should do so, and this actually builds their image as responsible employers who give credence to Human Values.
Cheers,
Rajath.
if a company has CMM level 5, how come the developer still has to put in 12 hours a day? or did they get it just because they are wipro and infy?
if a company has CMM level 5, how come the developer still has to put in 12 hours a day? or did they get it just because they are wipro and infy?
Hi,
I think the employees are also responsible for this culture. Generally what happens is that most of the bachelors want to stay late because they don’t have anything else to do at home. They might not work but still they want to stay to pass time, to chat or even free dinner. This then gives the manager the impression that he/she is working hard and others must follow suit. And only when the bachelor gets married, he realizes he has a life… which by then is too late as you have set a trend/culture of working till late now… So, basically the employee is also responsible to some extent!!
Hi,
I think the employees are also responsible for this culture. Generally what happens is that most of the bachelors want to stay late because they don’t have anything else to do at home. They might not work but still they want to stay to pass time, to chat or even free dinner. This then gives the manager the impression that he/she is working hard and others must follow suit. And only when the bachelor gets married, he realizes he has a life… which by then is too late as you have set a trend/culture of working till late now… So, basically the employee is also responsible to some extent!!
Let me digress. I found this article really terse yet comprehensive. Can you people comment on quality of code and work by an IT worker as compared to that from a westerner
Let me digress. I found this article really terse yet comprehensive. Can you people comment on quality of code and work by an IT worker as compared to that from a westerner
as
as
Hi,
I agree to your points mostly, but I would like to stress here that Infosys, TCS, Wipro, and the likes are the real culprits – not that we don’t wish to get exploited though.
Indian Software organizations have screwed up the entire thing for the following reasons –
1. They have too many mid-level managers’ – jamindaars’ – the biggest irony is the engineers sweat out to meet the ugliest schedules created, and the benefits are passed on to the manager.
2. Managers’ acutely lack technology understanding – if you can manage a motor car production does not mean that you can manage a software project.
3. HR is the *most* corrupt and botched up arm of any software firm (at times they actually try to `buy’ you out.) Matching the candidates’ career plans, and the company’s objectives – is something that they just can’t think of.
4. Software, being intangible, it is not possible to fix a schedule at the beginning of the project and then try and stick to it. The schedule should always be in a process of modification as the project progresses. *This* is what managers’ just don’t understand. How can you predict when this project shall end, when so many undefined variables are there?
A manager estimates the schedule this way –
Total time = thumb rule time for project tasks + some buffer time.
It is assumed that all slippages can be (and should be) covered in this buffer! 🙂
5. We, the engineers’, are are also *equally* responsible for it. The knack of `pushing back’ or saying NO should be known to all, and practiced by all. Why can’t you stand up and say a plain NO? WHY??
The choice has to be made – whether you “Work to Live’, or “Live to Work’ – and it should be made NOW.
Cheers,
Amarendra
http://www.livejournal.com/users/amunix/
Hi,
I agree to your points mostly, but I would like to stress here that Infosys, TCS, Wipro, and the likes are the real culprits – not that we don’t wish to get exploited though.
Indian Software organizations have screwed up the entire thing for the following reasons –
1. They have too many mid-level managers’ – jamindaars’ – the biggest irony is the engineers sweat out to meet the ugliest schedules created, and the benefits are passed on to the manager.
2. Managers’ acutely lack technology understanding – if you can manage a motor car production does not mean that you can manage a software project.
3. HR is the *most* corrupt and botched up arm of any software firm (at times they actually try to `buy’ you out.) Matching the candidates’ career plans, and the company’s objectives – is something that they just can’t think of.
4. Software, being intangible, it is not possible to fix a schedule at the beginning of the project and then try and stick to it. The schedule should always be in a process of modification as the project progresses. *This* is what managers’ just don’t understand. How can you predict when this project shall end, when so many undefined variables are there?
A manager estimates the schedule this way –
Total time = thumb rule time for project tasks + some buffer time.
It is assumed that all slippages can be (and should be) covered in this buffer! 🙂
5. We, the engineers’, are are also *equally* responsible for it. The knack of `pushing back’ or saying NO should be known to all, and practiced by all. Why can’t you stand up and say a plain NO? WHY??
The choice has to be made – whether you “Work to Live’, or “Live to Work’ – and it should be made NOW.
Cheers,
Amarendra
http://www.livejournal.com/users/amunix/
You have written the truth, undiluted.
You have written the truth, undiluted.
Mr Harshad,
You have written an excellent article.hats of to u for writing it. I would say we employees are responsible in a long way with the management for sitting long hours.We think wat people will think if we leave on time.A person leavng at 6 is told that he is going early….This kind of culture is killing the management. They encourage people to sit. Since guys say wat is the work after going home, the same saas bahu serials to watch, so might as well sit and do some R&D at work…
Rashmi
Mr Harshad,
You have written an excellent article.hats of to u for writing it. I would say we employees are responsible in a long way with the management for sitting long hours.We think wat people will think if we leave on time.A person leavng at 6 is told that he is going early….This kind of culture is killing the management. They encourage people to sit. Since guys say wat is the work after going home, the same saas bahu serials to watch, so might as well sit and do some R&D at work…
Rashmi
Here are my views on the entire article,
1. Indian IT professional has been pampered with high salary so plans to spend more time in the office as if he/she is reporting to his master. I totally agree that indian managers who deal with clients cannot convince the clients to relax schedule. Outsourcing doesnot mean fast development. It is development at lesser cost with quality and i donot know how quality works here when person is working 15-18 hrs.
2. There is also routine to exploit freshers by giving them gym, food, snacks. I would think why not bed and then expect them to work for 18hrs.
3. Innovation is possible in India, if indian corporate too supports such creative solutions. It works in US as corporates too are eager to become guinea pigs. I have my own company in to mobile computing and provide domestic solutions and what i have seen is that corporate are not keen to support innovative solutions.
4. Lastly CMM etc is all crap. Most of the top cos have it and still employee works 15-18 hrs. I think IT professional spends 8-10 hrs atleast per week on this quality initiatives and ends up putting pressure on himself due to project deadlines.
5. Also Top CEOs of the cos are making IPO at whose cost ..
Here are my views on the entire article,
1. Indian IT professional has been pampered with high salary so plans to spend more time in the office as if he/she is reporting to his master. I totally agree that indian managers who deal with clients cannot convince the clients to relax schedule. Outsourcing doesnot mean fast development. It is development at lesser cost with quality and i donot know how quality works here when person is working 15-18 hrs.
2. There is also routine to exploit freshers by giving them gym, food, snacks. I would think why not bed and then expect them to work for 18hrs.
3. Innovation is possible in India, if indian corporate too supports such creative solutions. It works in US as corporates too are eager to become guinea pigs. I have my own company in to mobile computing and provide domestic solutions and what i have seen is that corporate are not keen to support innovative solutions.
4. Lastly CMM etc is all crap. Most of the top cos have it and still employee works 15-18 hrs. I think IT professional spends 8-10 hrs atleast per week on this quality initiatives and ends up putting pressure on himself due to project deadlines.
5. Also Top CEOs of the cos are making IPO at whose cost ..
Hi..
This is a indeed nice article and it explains clearly what is the reality behind the glamour of IT. I wish such a realization could dawn on the authority and some good decisions are taken.
I also work in a reputed IT company and for last 9 years I have seen this. It is everywhere. IN fact I can assure you, that if a deadline is missed and though a valid explaination exists, it is considered a crime, a punishable crime. And if at all missing is allowed, then that approval has to go through ‘prove-it-to-me’ kind of convincing sessions.
However I feel that such realizations are only limited to such blogs and sadly no corrective action exists.
I have actually decided, no one from my family would use a PC more than necessary !
Thanks,
Please post your opinions people
Mandar
Hi..
This is a indeed nice article and it explains clearly what is the reality behind the glamour of IT. I wish such a realization could dawn on the authority and some good decisions are taken.
I also work in a reputed IT company and for last 9 years I have seen this. It is everywhere. IN fact I can assure you, that if a deadline is missed and though a valid explaination exists, it is considered a crime, a punishable crime. And if at all missing is allowed, then that approval has to go through ‘prove-it-to-me’ kind of convincing sessions.
However I feel that such realizations are only limited to such blogs and sadly no corrective action exists.
I have actually decided, no one from my family would use a PC more than necessary !
Thanks,
Please post your opinions people
Mandar