Telecom Majors stop salary bargaining
By Rishi Talwar in Mumbai

Vodafone, Airtel, Reliance, Tata Teleservices and Aircel have entered in a pact, wherein it has been agreed upon that if any of their employees or candidates bargains with the existing or prospective organization, on the basis of offer letters issued by any of these organizations, the organization that has issued the offer letter should be informed immediately, who, in turn, would withdraw the offer from the market.

The telecom market in India is extremely competitive, with just a handful of major players in the industry, hence the recruitment at key positions is always a tussle and a huge amount of poaching happens within the industry. The employees never miss to use this as an opportunity to have their say, in terms of pay, portfolio and a position they have wanted to be at.

Reliance Communications, one of the leading telecom brands, had offered a position as a Circle Head- Business Commercial and Planning to Mr. Bhawani Shankar of Airtel, Orissa. At Airtel, he was not placed in the managerial cadre.  He was offered almost 50% hike too, in addition to such a senior position. On the basis of the offer letter, when Bhawani resigned, his resignation was not accepted, and he was given a higher pay and promotion as head of a different portfolio. Bhawani declined the offer he was made.

The major telecom players  have been facing this situation more often than not now, and as a strategic measure not to loose face, to keep things in their hands and to avoid any kind of foul play involved, they have mutually decided to keep each other informed of the few candidates’ and employees who want a salary increase through bargaining.