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Indian IT, “You're Fired”
31–40 of 175 posts
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#32I've never understood the ways that modern companies handle layoffs- call people into a meeting room one by one, tell them they're being let go, then escort them out of the building. It's not just that it's cold, but it builds a huge cloud of oppression for everyone else. I just watched this happen to a friend, and the guy who was sitting next to him is now saying "I could be next, better start talking to recruiters"…
Immediately escorting fired employees out of the building is an extremely aggressive signal, and I don't know if it gets used much outside of USA.
It's possible to do layoffs in a completely different way, but it takes time and management patience. When Nokia fired thousands of employees back in 2011-13, they created a program called Bridge that offered former employees seed money to create startups, and even the possibility to negotiate for a spin-off license of IP assets created at Nokia:
https://www.google.fi/amp/www.zdnet.com/google-amp/article/i...
It seems that the program was a success by any measure. Nokia is still around and doing better than in a long time, after shedding the mobile phone albatross to Steve Ballmer for an inflated price.
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#33As someone who worked for a team at IBM where we were forced to train our replacements in India, it seems odd that anyone in outsourcing would be surprised when those roles are further reduced by automation with little regard for the wellbeing of employees.
I don't know if this is your intention, but it is petty to blame someone, who is seeking legal employment, of conspiring to take away your jobs.
The decision to use labor arbitrage was taken by managements in developed economies. The workers didn't position themselves in a way that created the arbitrage.
It's silly, to say the least, when your reaction is "what did you expect would happen, when you decided to steal american/british/whatever jobs".
This is just the way the world is right now. The Indian IT labor market is only just catching up to the global reality.
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#34Pretty unfortunate to see lot of comments with an undertone like Indian IT workers deserved this situation. It's not just a problem which can plague Indian workers alone. Lets focus on what can be done to mitigate this issue.
#1 Firing is an inevitable process but it should be a transparent process and employees should be treated with dignity. Firing an employee for cost cut shouldn't be any lesser than 30 days notice period.
#2 IT service industry costing method is flawed. Head count is inflated to increase project cost. Need to adopt a better costing model.
#3 Any form of automation which would result in job cut should be a board decision and not by the lower rung. The team which will get affected by the decision should be informed so they can be well prepared.
Jobs are getting fewer since we are optimizing and automating(don't forget AI) - all good but this shouldn't be at the cost of sustainability.
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#35Many comments here are laughing about the irony of the outsourced labor becoming irrelevant, but it should kind of be worrying. Organizations are lowering the number of jobs to the point that only the most skilled and experienced workers get jobs. If there are no lower level positions for people to take on, how will the masses work their way up and improve? How can our local and global economies improve for everyone…
I don't see that. What I do see is a recognition that only in specific cases with well defined product boundaries does outsourcing development work reasonably.
On the other hand we see many companies recognizing that telecommuting and remote work, especially with things that have no end date (keep the servers running, fix the bugs, add these new features) have hidden costs. Those costs are often exasperated by time zone differences.
In areas where I have worked for the past decade, outsourcing is not looked fondly on because of the recognition that it means a loss of institutional knowledge and unending support costs.
There are many entry level positions open, just you need to be able to be in the chair.
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#36Many comments here are laughing about the irony of the outsourced labor becoming irrelevant, but it should kind of be worrying. Organizations are lowering the number of jobs to the point that only the most skilled and experienced workers get jobs. If there are no lower level positions for people to take on, how will the masses work their way up and improve? How can our local and global economies improve for everyone…
That's kind of the issue with automation in general. Its funny to see the 'fuck you we're automating jobs/art/literally everything' coming from a subgroup of an industry that is apparently now cannibalizing itself through automation.
Of course you can make a very strong argument that they should have never hired techies for things so easily automated. I suspect we don't see this in the west because there is a tendency to simply automate from the outset due to the high cost of labor.
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some valid reasons for it. It's sad the way that it happens, but I've been there on occasion where they didn't do that. One stats guy decided he was angry that it happened . . . . he started deleting all the loss curve data we needed off of the network. There was a hurry to stop him which resulted in the network staff having to unplug all the cables from the routers. Hours of having to put the cable back in…
What you need to do immediately before informing an employee that you are letting them go is revoke their access to critical systems and/or disable their accounts. That way, you can allow them to go back to their desk and say their goodbyes to their coworkers without risking them doing silly stuff like delete data.
Or, you just ghost people. Walk in one day and your badge doesn't work. Or you somehow get in and you can't log on "sorry ma'am can't find you in the system here".
Didn't Twitter do something like that recently?
Although, begrudgingly I agree that it's something that should probably be done if you know somebody is being let go.
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#38I've never understood the ways that modern companies handle layoffs- call people into a meeting room one by one, tell them they're being let go, then escort them out of the building. It's not just that it's cold, but it builds a huge cloud of oppression for everyone else. I just watched this happen to a friend, and the guy who was sitting next to him is now saying "I could be next, better start talking to recruiters"…
> I don't know what a better way would be, but I'd sure like to see some innovation in that space. Something less cold, something more human.
It might help to remember that fundamentally, modern corporations are top-down totalitarian regimes, and adjust your expectations accordingly.
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#39As someone who worked for a team at IBM where we were forced to train our replacements in India, it seems odd that anyone in outsourcing would be surprised when those roles are further reduced by automation with little regard for the wellbeing of employees.
I don't know if this is your intention, but it is petty to blame someone, who is seeking legal employment, of conspiring to take away your jobs. The decision to use labor arbitrage was taken by managements in developed economies. The workers didn't position themselves in a way that created the arbitrage. It's silly, to say the least, when your reaction is "what did you expect would happen, when you decided to steal a…
Are you sure you're replying to the right comment?
Or was the thread poster's comment edited?
Your comment seems to add a little context that isn't there.
Re: Indian IT, “You're Fired”
#40From the page: At the meeting, Mr. Sikka also described how the company “released 11,000 jobs due to automation.” Many small shareholders appealed to the board to consider the “human cost” of layoffs in the software sector. That quote made me chuckle, since I have witnessed first hand the IT industry in the West face massive job cuts through Out Sourcing and that has been going on for decades now. Now I don't blame O…
I agree with your comment. The author seems taken back by the callousness of the cuts, but this is nothing new in the United States or even in other western countries. I think Indian IT firms have gotten a free ride for many years using labor arbitrage. Now that there's a whiff of protectionism in the air from the United States and cloud computing is surging things aren't so easy anymore.
These jobs would have been automated regardless of whether it was in India or US.