Pune KPO:  No jobs.  No redundancy package
By Bala Shah

The US sub prime crisis has now reached India after affecting business in Europe. KPOs, especially in the financial sector, dependent on business from their clients in Europe and US, have started to downsize.  Sadly some ‘respectable’ KPO’s are letting go employees in an illegal and unethical way.  This Maharashtra-based Knowledge Process Outsourcing Company has been particularly harsh.

The contract between the Company and the Employee required both the parties to give two months notice if they decided not to work with each other. However, this particular KPO based in Pune, run by a CEO educated in the elite institutes in India and abroad, chose to go the unethical way.

The CEO asked mostly women employees to leave on a day’s notice, even the permanent ones, as they are usually gentle and would be unwilling to raise the issue as a group, or seek justice in the courts. Well to be fair there was no gender bias because the gentler and soft spoken male employees were also asked to leave on a day’s notice though they were permanent employees. All this was done with no redundancy package offered whatsoever.

It is sad that some managers  who do business with international clients and  have built up public profiles about their uprightness and business practices,  follow the business practices of the last century in their real life.  It is obvious that the management of this company has no idea how to run a business since the KPO started only in 2006,  and have had to downsize a year and a half later.