New Employees Get Rs. 200,000 More For Same Job
By Simrit

Its been nearly Six months since I moved to the USA, and when I look back on my experience with a leading BPO in Mumbai, where I was handling middle and senior level recruitments, lot of memories, good and bad come flooding.

Trust me when I say, Mid & Senior level recruitment was more difficult than entry-level recruitment. When your dealing with freshers, they don’t throw attitude and unreasonable demands, but dealing with those who have an experience of 2 years or more, you would think they were all CEO’s or Vice presidents drawing 30-50 lacs, going by the way they act during the interview process.

Although the number of positions that arise in this level are not as many, the process is much more complicated, strenuous and tiring. Yes, I say tiring, because by the time you have organized and carried out a couple of interviews, you are exhausted (physically and mentally drained out and on the verge of going over the edge). The amount of time I’ve spent talking to these guys- about the position, the growth they can expect during their tenure with us (in terms of money and designation), the appraisal cycle, the cafeteria facilities, the transport system (will the cab pick him up at my door step or does he have to walk 2cms?), the hierarchy (to whom will they be reporting to and how many people will report to them, etc), you’d think I was trying to sell the Kohinoor diamond or something priceless. Heck, its just an Assistant manager or Manager’s position.

I’ve also noticed that, after working in a company for about 2 years, sometimes it happens even before the completion of 3months, the urge or craving for change happens among the Middle & Senior level employees. Some of the reasons that have been stated during the exit interview (carried out when a person resigns their job) are - unhappy with the company (is it the name? or the location?), the pay structure (primarily, its the variable components, namely incentives), the environment, work culture, company policies (it says the employee cant take more than 3 days of unauthorized leave), the process is going down, wants to leave before shown the door (this is very rare, could be on grounds of morale or sexual issues), to name a few, but the 1st claim by them is that it is not the money factor (who are we kidding, right?).

There will be those selected few who would be close to some of the members in the HR Department, who’d come and ask us about how much to ask in the other company they are targeting, or would we help them redo their pay slip so they can use it to get a better package.

But, there are also those who have been with us for about a year or longer but drawing a salary that is about 20-30% lesser than what is offered to a recruit on the same level. For example, there are Assistant Managers drawing CTC (Cost to company) of 4lacs, who have been with the company since its inception, and we would recruit an Assistant manager, with same kind of experience and pay him about 6lacs or 6.75lacs. This causes disparity among the employees, things go haywire in the process and at the end of the day, it’s the HR who are blamed, even though the Top management, not the Executive whose job is just to coordinate interviews and act as a go-between, decides salaries.

And the reason why another company would want to hire them can also be clubbed into any of the following reasons – Open positions, lack of capable manager/leader, someone to turn things around, start of new operations.

So at the end of the day, our company loses the good ones for a matter of 1-2lacs, and we are back to looking for more people.