Be Technically skilled before becoming a Manager – Infosys new rule ‘iRace’
By Manoj Govindassamy on 14 November, 2009, 4:26 am
Indian IT companies do see shortage of skilled employee to manage projects. So, people with less technical experiences are easily promoted to managerial roles. And, few are even forced to become so to cope with inflow of numerous project. Many of my IT friends, became Tech Leads in just 2 or 3 years and they moved on to Project Manager Role in just 4 or 5 years.
Irrespective of whether you have sound technical knowledge or not, Manager Roles in many of the IT companies are just few years of experience away. Provided you have good communication skills and nice rapo with your senior members/managers, then Manager post is just a low hanging fruit for you.
The situation is not the same for IT Companies in US, UK and many other countries. You got to be technically sound before you can think of managing the project. Employees with 10 or more years of experience are quite happy to continue as a Project Developers in these countries. And to become a manager, you need at least 14 or 15 years of experience.
Obviously, Indian Project Managers lack good technical knowledge (owing to their experience) and Clients find difficult to get these managers in line with their requirements. Seems Infosys is bitten by this, their clients had complained that its project heads didn’t seem to have enough of technological skills. So, Infosys Technologies has decided that its staffers must have at least six years experience in technology responsibilities before being asked to head a project.
Termed ‘iRace’, this new strategy aims to re-map the technology skills of its software professionals and offer them roles based on their current level of experience and technological know-how.
For implementing this, Infosys has created 25 career streams. An employee who does not wish to take up managerial roles but stay focused on technology has to identify positions like technical architect and technical lead till he goes up the ladder to become the Unit Technology Manager (UTO), a position the company just created. And, all business units of the company will have UTOs, who will directly report to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of the company.
Definitely this is a good move. You need to have technically sound engineers as project managers to gain Clients confidence and for a good work execution. Lets hope other IT companies also follow Infosys way and bring in more strength to the industry. What say ?
[...] Infosys already burnt hands with the iRace policy, the new management system which aimed at remapping the technology skills of the employees. Its only after iRace, hundreds of Infoscians started growling on social networking sites venting their anger. [...]
Hi Krishnan,
Am doing my MBA from Pune. and I have a project to be done on Career progression and bands in IT. CAn any of your friends in infosys help me in understanding or giving me an overview of the iRace. Please do reply at avantika_09@yahoo.co.in
An Ex-infoscion thoughts.
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Quite an interested point brought up. Infosys has been going through tremendous change and many things have changed which are leading people to leave.
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1. iRace : Not sure it has been named in iRace. What happened to the Organisation Behavior and People Management courses that Ms Gurjar took? A name like iRace and you don’t Race is in spirit not good for employees. It does not promote healthy competition but confirms the company’s policy of making everybody run.
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2. Policies within iRace: Many people were demoted after iRace was introduced to fit in the new system. Never ever heard of a policy which demoted people who were promoted earlier based on their exceptional performance. The iRace essentially puts everything on number of years of experience rather than meritocracy. So an exceptional performer cannot be promoted or given a salary hike if his/her experience in number of years is less than prescribed by iRace.
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The description above is an abstract level description which ignores the nitty gritty wherein lies the devil.
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Infosys had the earlier policy to make employees manager after 6 years. It was working brilliantly. Where does the argument come from that our managers are not good enough? If not then were the earlier policies bad? Were the projects not executed properly?
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Even the comparison between Indian Managers and Overaseas manager is applies to oranges comparison. The argument that mangers overseas have 10-15 years experience is correct but should be looked with other facts. Most of these managers are graduates. They are not the best people recruited from the best colleges in the country. Best people even in the US/Europe tend to become mangers in 6-7 years.
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Biggest argument: Is the current middle management of Infosys not up to the mark then ??? Are they not at par with thier client counterparts? If yes, then we have bigger problems.
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Further, the economies and work cultures are different. Overseas managers do not work 12-15 hours a day. They earn overtime if they do, which Indian manager do not.
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They have bonus (variable pay) over an above their normal pay, whereas, in India the variable pay is included in the CTC (so no upside).
Overseas managers maintain a work life balance; India no body minds calling employees after 6 pm or on the weekends.
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The only reason iRace has used this argument is because Infosys wants to save the 30% hike that they used to give employees in 6-7year when employees used to get promoted to manager level. Now if they do this in 9th year, they save loads of money !!!!
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3. Compensation post iRace: Good performers used to get a promotion hike (around 30%) in aronud 6 year. Now they will not get this hike. Not able to understand why should star / good performers not get a hike. Counter argument by Ms Gurjar is we will still give hike (but we know that 10-12% is less than 30%)
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We must understand that 10-15% hike over a 2-3 lac salary (most technies draw salaries in this range) is just 20-30 thousand per year, which is very less for star/exceptional performers.
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Also another perspective is that for people who are on client locations overseas. The salaries of these associates are much lower than their overseas colleagues. An US/UK based employee will typically make 20-30% more than an Indian Infoscion posted overseas.
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4. Work Hours: US has 8 hours. UK and Europe has 7 hours. Singapore, Hong Kong have 9 hours. Infosys came up with 9.5 hours in India. Is this not exploitation??? Further, this rule was made last year using the curtain of Recession. Now when recession has passed and infosys has posted good profits YoY, why shouldn’t this rule be rolled back? Its like price rise of Sugar, goes up but never comes down.
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5. Certifications: A good initiative which has been executed very poorly. Certifications are mandatory every year and are meant to keep the employees up to the mark in terms of their knowledge. However, there is crucial exectution error which is intentional to save costs.
The certications are internal i.e. Infosys has designed them. They do not have any value outside Infosys. If Infosys really cares about the knowledge of employees, they must entertain external certifications as well and refund the money (as most US and European companies do) if the employee passes the tests.
Infact, such was the case when the Certification initiative was rolled out. But in order to save costs, they converted it to internal certifications.
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Now, I do not understand why would any employee be motivated to pass a tough certification exam when he/she cannot carry it along with him/her outside Infosys. It does NOT count as transferable skill outside Infosys and does not hold any value.
Ms Gurjar has implemented this without understanding the basic issues with it.
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6. Long hours and No overtime : Anybody who has worked inthe IT industry knows that there are long working hours usually going upto 70-80 hours a week. Technically, the companies have overtime policy. But I have never heard anybody in Infosys getting an overtime compensation. The Project Managers never log the overtime and just force the associates to work long hours by using unprofessional tactics. They just say that if you don’t work you won’t even get your 100% salary (the variable part) or not get promoted or even worse not get good performance ratings. One must note that these threats are even after a person puts 100% time that is as per the contract between employee and Infosys (9.5 hours). I would request any counter argument poser who show some data of any overtime payments. It will be very very minimal.
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Nandita made a whopping 79 lakh salary in FY 2009, when her direct contribution to company topline is zero.
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I was with Infosys for many years and seen Infosys rise from a small Indian company to a large MNC. From its days of glory to the day today when it is being bashed. From its old guard where everything was taken care of to days of Ms Gurjar and MD Pai who will probably write a new chapter in this organisation.
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A chapter of Mediocrity. A chapter of over focus on shareholder value. A chapter of decay of Most Preferred Employer brand to nothing.
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Its time to buy Infosys shares though !!
@Vidhya,
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Excellent info on Infosys and the latest iRace model.
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I agree with most of your thughts. But, there are some points that you touched upon are very general and happening in almost all of the Indian IT comapnies.
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like the Work Hours, Long hours and No Overtime. I know a friend working for TCS, having an experience of 5 to 6 years, working at least 12 to 14 hours daily and getting peanuts salary.
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And, if someone has to get 79 lakhs salary then he/she must be a top notch person in the company and the amount of work done and salary compensated is most of the times not comparable.
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I think, IT companies in general are exploiting the employees citing “recession” reason.
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What do you think ?
Very well said.
I am an ex-infoscion who just resigned due to unnecessary certifications
just before iRace came into picture.
I spent my initial 4 years of my career in Infosys (that was the golden period of infosys).
The new HR policies demotivated star performers like (Confirmation banding A + CRR1 + CRR1) me by loading unfair work hours & no value certifications.
I got CRR2 just because I did not clear my certifications (bad though) and the appraisal before that was my best in my tenure of 4 years. How contradictory it was! This compelled me to quit Infosys.
I heard during the period I quit, many good performers also quit just because of Certifications.
Thanks to Certifications! I quit before iRace came into picture
– though I missed fun of seeing what iRace is doing.