NOC in Technopark: Who cares?
By Sunil Sharma
 
Couple of years back when the IT Industry was booming, the demand for experienced IT professionals exceeded the supply. The available resources were in premium and everybody over 2 years experience seemed to have multiple offers in hand. With over 140 companies and about 18,000 employees within an area of 300 acres, the Technopark in Trivandrum is a fertile land for job hunting.

Leading companies in Technopark like UST, IBS or Tata Elxsi were on an expansion mode then. So hopping jobs was the order of the day till the companies in Technopark realised the damage because of high attrition. It was at this juncture that they got together to address this issue. They decided to have a mutual understanding not to induce or poach employees from companies in Technopark. A formal NOC (No Objection Certificate) would be required for an IT professional to join a company there after leaving one in Technopark. Effectively, your last company had to say they had no objection to you joining your new company. 
 
“Last year when I was joining E &Y from Alliance Cornhill, they insisted on an NOC”, says Neethu, a Test Lead with over 6 years experience. Since there was no NOC, she took a two months break before taking up the new job. But now companies in Technopark like UST, IBS, Infosys, Tata Elxsi or NeST have found a simple way to circumvent this NOC issue. Since they operate from multiple locations, post them to another city for couple of months and then transfer them back to Trivandrum if the employee wants so. “There is an NOC system in place but when we get the right person for the right opening, we don’t want to loose that resource”, says the HR Manager of a leading company in Technopark who doesn’t want to be identified, “We have our own compulsions, most of the time it is project specific and at times, we are under pressure from the clients. So we have to find some way out”.
 
Apart from making a mockery of the system, it’s the smaller companies who are hit hard. They loose their employees to bigger companies while they cannot recruit from other companies in Technopark. It’s a tricky situation. While our constitution allows free flow of employment opportunities, these small players and entrepreneurs should also have a fair chance.