Bangalore Tech centre: 25% Salary cut
By Arundhati Kumar

Bangalore-based Kennametal Shared Services Private Limited (KSSPL) is a captive unit set up to provide Information Technology support to Kennametal Inc., one of the leading manufacturing organization and provider of Metal Cutting solutions. Kennametal Inc. is based in Latrobe, Pennsylvania in United States and is the market leader in providing Metal Cutting solutions.

The operations of Kennametal are spread across most continents and it has offices in around sixty countries. Kennametal also deals with tooling solutions for aerospace and automobile manufacturers, mining and highway construction industries.  Its total head count is 13,000 and it had revenues of $2.3 billion last year.

There are about 140 employees working for KSSPL and about 1000 employees for Kennametal India Limited- the manufacturing unit.

During these tough economic times, Kennametal Shared Services Private Limited, like other tech organizations in India, is concentrating on cutting costs. In the process, the management of Kennametal Shared Services Private Limited has decided to give out forced vacation to the employees and deduct twenty-five percent from their salaries. This will be implemented in May and June 2009. Techgoss has learnt that the situation will be reviewed again in July 2009. The employees are being encouraged to be on furlough (a week off, without pay) in a planned, phased manner so that the internal customers are not affected, and there is no setback in the support provided to Kennametal Inc. worldwide.

There are mixed feelings in the employees of Kennametal Shared Services Private Limited regarding this decision. There is a group of people that opines a pay cut is better than laying off people and bringing down the morale of the employees, and there is another faction of employees that believes the pay cut too would be detrimental to the employee morale.

These are certainly tough times for most tech companies.