Why Are Indian Owned IT Companies Cheap

I received some e-mails on this topic, but I had been ignoring them. Now it's time to talk about it. Some people were venting about working for Indian managers or Indian owned companies. More specifically, they had stories about how cheap they were when it came to American standards.

OK, so to give you an example of the types of e-mails I receive about Indian companies, the following is one pertaining to travel.

Reimbursement After I What?

One follower writes that their IT American based company owns another IT location in India.  They utilize those workers to save money, which makes sense because a lot of companies outsource to save money.  Instead of outsourcing, their company was smart enough to set up shop in a cheaper country to handle more American based projects.  The owners of the company are the actual day-to-day managers.  An Indian owned company based in America with an office in India. Awesome.

At some point the India team starts performing badly on a project.  Management decides they need to travel to India to address the issues.  For some reason, a simple conference call or e-mail won't do.

It's an internal problem - right?  The staff of the IT firm is screwing up, so they need to fix it, but management forces their PM (project manager) to write a proposal to the client stating that they need to travel to India to better service their project. And they want the client to pay for it...

The client should NOT have to pay for this, but somehow they convinced them to agree on sending a team of four to India.  Even with endless amounts of money, there's no way in hell I would have paid for another company's problem on a project I'm already paying them for.  That indeed is being very cheap and the nerve to even ask of such a thing is mind-numbing.

For medium to massive projects, clients pay in installments.  Companies performing the work will receive a set amount every week or biweekly.  For massive projects, they receive large amounts monthly instead, which was the case here.  Sometimes that installment will be increased for legitimate purposes or for unforeseen issues with the behavior the client requested.

OK, get ready for this.  Apparently the installment agreed upon was so low that management didn't account for any reserves.  Reserves on a project are crucial.  Especially on large projects because shit will happen.  Basically, management was bringing in just enough to cover salary costs.

OK, so without reserves, how will they pay to send four people to India including their hotel stay?  The client certainly isn't going to rush over money because they pay on a schedule and can't afford to break that cycle.

The company does the unthinkable... They have the four employees pay for their own plane ticket and hotel stay with the promise to be reimbursed from the next installment...

WAIT... WHAT...

No... really... WHAT THE HELL IS THIS???

These plane tickets are well over $1,000 (USD).  Not all employees used credit cards, so management told them to use the credit cards of those that had them...

WHAT...

CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP ASS BASTARDS

You never know what type of financial situation a person has.  Just because someone seems as though they're well-off or should have money, that doesn't mean it's true... To ask employees to pay for such a thing is unthinkable. The nerve...

For this particular follower, there are other countless acts of cheapness, but I'll save you the details.  It's a lot.

What Should Have Happened?

What should have happened was management solving their issues for free using Skype, Google Hangouts, the phone or by e-mail.  They should have set aside reserves to pay for unforeseen issues.  They should have never asked the client to pay for their internal management problems.

Are All Indian Companies Like This?

ABSOLUTELY NOT! It has nothing to do with being an Indian company.  There are a lot of IT companies around the world that are this cheap.  In certain cultures, however, that's just the way it is.  In this case, the managers were raised by a particular culture in India that are extremely frugal.  Their class of Indian were very poor, but learned how to rise to the top by being frugal.  Even when they're wealthy, they still have a frugal mindset when it comes to business.  It is not their fault.  That's their culture.

The clash is that American business travelers are used to certain perks and that's our culture.  At the root of American culture, a company is supposed to take care of their employees.  If we're traveling international for you, then our flight better be First Class and our hotel room better be decent.  American business travelers are even given a daily allowance for food, so they don't have to use their own money.  That's our culture and it's not our fault.

So Who's Right?

When you visit another country, common sense tells you to adhere to the way of life in that country.  If you're supposed to wrap your head, then you do so.  If you're supposed to where pants, then you do so.  If you're supposed to bow for greeting, then you do so.

If you're going to set up a company, then you'll be well served to adhere to the common culture of that country if you want to be truly successful.  Being frugal is great, but it is very limiting.  At some point, every cheap company will hit a wall and the business will fail with no means to escape.

If you're greedy and don't take care of your employees, word will spread.  Eventually, all the high quality employees will find a better company.  Even the mid or junior level employees will find better companies.  Once word gets out that you're a terrible company to work for, people stay away.  The employees you do manage to keep are just there for a paycheck and care nothing for your business because they don't respect your methods.

Unfortunately, there is no right or wrong. You either want to be a great company in the eyes of your employees and the public or you don't.  My advice is to research what the standards are and adhere to them.  If you see a way to surpass those standards, then go for it.

Thanks for reading. Keep this blog relevant by leading IT managers and actual workers here for laughs, insight, and further debates. Continue to submit your management stories to stupid.it.managers[(at)]gmail.com. Your identity will be kept private. Also, you can now follow @TheRealMrLogic.

Disengaged Employees

Someone asked me, "How would you build a high performance team in an organizational culture that cares nothing about the employees' feelings?" My response, "I believe you answered your own question." I'll explain because this is common.  Employees are people, right?  Every person wants to feel appreciated.  People are complex life forms.  What motivates one, may not motivate the other.  Talk to them.  Really get to know your employees.  How can you claim to be part of a team and not even know what their real interests are?  You're probably thinking, I really don't care.  I just want them to perform better so I look good...  Jump in front of a moving train, if that's your mentality.  Team members are fully aware that gaining true appreciation from the organization is like winning the lottery.  It most likely will never happen.  That's fine.  They don't need the organization as a whole to single them out and appreciate them.  They only need someone from management to appreciate them.

You cannot fake being interested in building a high perform team.  They will see right through your fake ass grins and still not produce more value.  If you are truly interested in building a high performance team, get to know them.  Ask them to be honest about their feelings.  Ask them to be honest about what truly motivates and inspires them.  Ensure them that you will not judge their answers.  Share with them what motivates and inspires you.  Create a family unity.

Ok, I'm done talking about this so let's wrap it up with two more hints.

1. Have you ever had a waiter so good that it's always a pleasure to visit that restaurant?  Think about that question and then transform it in the context of management vs. employee.  Which one is the customer?
2. Last hint, checkout this video by Sally Elatta.

Thanks for reading. Keep this blog relevant by leading IT managers and actual workers here for laughs, insight, and further debates. Continue to submit your management stories to stupid.it.managers[(at)]gmail.com. Your identity will be kept private.

Teleworking

Oh boy, where do I start with this topic…  It appears that teleworking is governed by the same old wrinkled assholes that control the Oscars Voting Club.  In other words, they are managers that are against change, higher productivity, and the mental wellbeing of people that actual do the work.  If a company provides the teleworking infrastructure, then they should allow employees or contractors to telework as much as possible.  Especially, in high traffic cities that only increase the stress of commuters.  To name a few, Atlanta, Detroit, and Miami are well known to be pure hell for commuters.

Just so we’re clear.  Teleworking depends on the context of your job.  If your job doesn’t require a computer and all you needs is a phone, then a phone is your only requirement for teleworking.  If your job requires you to build products using a computer with private access to network resources, then that’s your requirement.  The latter is true for most IT projects.  Software engineers, whether building web, mobile, desktop, or service applications, use expensive and specialized software to provide needed value to the company.  The security model of these companies is typically setup so that work can only be produced by using internal machines.  That logically makes a lot of sense.  For a person to truly telework in this environment, they need the ability to remote into these internal machines.  Companies like Citrix make this extremely easy.

With that out of the way, let's get on these stupid IT managers that are so resistant to an obviously good thing.  Find any manager that is against teleworking.  Have them explain why they are against it.  They sound like complete babbling idiots because they can’t give you any logical answer to why they are against it.  Now, does that make any damn sense?  No, it doesn’t.  The reason it doesn’t make sense is because they are not telling the truth.  The truth is they DO NOT trust you.  Why?  They’re stupid IT managers that are insecure in their leadership ability.  A quality leader trusts their team.  A stupid one wants to believe they can control them, yet that control is only an illusion.  In their hearts they know this, yet fight to deny it.  To be honest, they were most likely poorly raised as children and didn’t receive enough love.

Managers need to burn this next statement into their brain with a blowtorch.  Companies pay for performance, NOT for office butts-in-seats (BINS).  I dare you to argue that stress free workers do not perform better than stressed workers.  I dare you.  Do you honestly think an employee that spends an hour in traffic coming to work is excited to be there?  They come in stressed and leave stressed because it’s an hour of stop-and-go traffic back home.  That’s 2 extra hours they could spend teleworking.  If you have 5 people on a project and they all roughly spend 2 hours in traffic a day, that’s potentially 10 extra hours that could have been used towards a project.  Teleworking isn’t the enemy; it is a gift of tremendous value.

Why companies spend money to setup a teleworking infrastructure if they are barely going to use it is beyond me.  That is a total waste of IT investment that could have been better served elsewhere.  Some companies only allow employees or contractors to telework 1 day a week.  Wow, that’s total bullshit.  What a great way to slap your workers in the face.  You’re basically telling them that you only trust them to telework 1 day a week and the other days, well, you know.  If you’re one of these managers that believe it’s the employees fault for taking the job, how dare you?  You may have been fortunate enough to find a job close home, but you certainly have no right to judge.  People have their reasons.  Being able to work close to home is a luxury that not many have.

How to manage a teleworking software development team?  It’s so easy.  Are you ready?  Don’t be a douchebag.  Allow the team to telework 90% of the time.  The other 10% should only be for meetings where face-to-face is actually needed.  Trust that your team will produce quality work.  Track their performance like you normally do.  Ensure that they are willing to come into work for emergencies.  A good example would be cases where the teleworking infrastructure is down or extremely slow.  Don’t be a douche if they do not respond to your email within 5 minutes.  Simply call them if they are taking too long and don’t be a douche about it.  People are allowed to take breaks just as they do in the office.

Teleworking could allow employees to appreciate the company more.  Being managed by douchebags is a horrible feeling.  I have been there plenty of times, which is why I refuse to be a poor leader to my team.

Thanks for reading. Keep this blog relevant by leading IT managers and actual workers here for laughs, insight, and further debates. Continue to submit your management stories to stupid.it.managers[(at)]gmail.com.  Your identity will be kept private.