Mphasis: six months pay for sitting at home
By Jonnathan Rose

In times of recession, when most companies see sacking as the only alternative for those on bench, Mphasis, a software application & business process outsourcing (BPO) company, has requested its benchers in Mumbai to report from home for six months. The EDS acquired Mphasis has also assured those reporting from home that this will make no difference to the salary drawn

Talking to Techgoss, a source who wished anonymity said, “The Company has asked all those on bench to apply for a long term option (six months) of working from home”. When asked, if that means a cut in salary or no salary at all, the source said that a lot of benchers had feared a cut in pay after hearing about this, but the Mphasis HR (Human resource) has confirmed that the company has no such intention. During this period of six months, the employee will continue to be on the payroll of the company and the fear of losing their job is also not an issue.

In case the company has no hidden malicious intention, then this move certainly can be called the most human way of dealing with the current economic gloom. A lot of cost is incurred on a tech employee when he/she reports to the office, such as transportation cost, electricity per unit, bandwidth used etc. By asking employees on bench to report from home, the company will be saving on these unnecessary expenses.

Global IT services giant, EDS acquired Mphasis in 2006 through an open offer at the cost of Rs 1,748crore.  EDS was merged into HP in May, 2008.

*Bench in IT and BPO industry consists of those employees who are in that specific period of time not involved in any project.  When Indian IT and BPO companies were growing at 20-30 percent a year, they built up staff buffers (aka bench) to be quickly prepared for new clients.  Also, if an IT project finished in Jan and the next project was in April, staff would be put on a ‘bench’ for the intervening months.