Letter to HR

This is a letter I am contemplating sending to the VP of HR of my company.

Dear Sir,

This is in reference to the "GET Problem" email you will have received from a GET today.

I don't agree to the forum and the means that said GET has used to convey his message to you. However, the message in the email is of pertinence. You will appreciate that Mumbai is a costly place to live in, even for the most affluent of people. For a GET who is earning 15,000 per month [and will probably earn around 18,000 per month after being confirmed] there is no scope for savings / investments. Most of the salary amount will end up in some landlord's bank account and the remainder will serve for daily necessities and miscellany.

I am a PGMT, and considering the fact that I hold a Masters Degree from IIT Bombay, my remuneration is not commensurate with what my classmates are receiving. However, since I like the work I am doing [and also since I have a permanent residence in Mumbai] I see no reason to leave our company. The same may not be true for other new joinees and one really cannot fault them for that.

Our company has introduced a policy of personal bond for retaining "talent" for two years. However, the futility of this will be evident once the current batch of 2007, leaves for greener pastures in 2009. People working here for two years will not serve any purpose. In two years time, we will not be able to recover the time and effort that has been put in the training of a GET.

In the ten months or so that I have spent in our company, I have seen some hard-working and intelligent team members leave. Some have left for higher education, some for higher pay packets and some for convenience. These people could have been retained and their loss is being felt in their respective SBUs. Ready-made replacements will not be available and the additional lag phase while the new joinees acclimatize to our company may turn out to be crucial. Our company is involved in time critical projects. A matter of few days can make a huge impact on our bottom-lines.

I am writing to you with the intention of sharing my thoughts with you. I am sure that you are already aware of these "problems" and have taken measures to counter this. Its just that I feel that these efforts are not being showcased properly. Some more work in this direction is warranted in light of the discontent.

Keeping a person on a bond for two years is not the solution to our problem.

Regards,

Govindraj S. Umarji

Quotas in IIT-IIM and Salaries

Following is a letter I wrote to the Editor of DNA after reading an article on salaries in IITs and IIMs and the so-called inequality based on caste.

Original article can be found here:
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1173139

Below is my letter to Editor, DNA India

Dear Sir,

This is in reference to your article in DNA on the 24th of June, 2008 titled "For SC/STs, quotas are route to inequality at IITs, IIMs"

The report claims to question the quota system, yet it is nothing but an attempt to stoke the quota vs. no quota debates raging all over the nation. As per the article, the RTI act was used to source this information. While the use of the RTI for such a report is commendable, one really wonders about the motives for the same. In representing and comparing the average salaries of general category and reserved category students, you have painted a picture which sends out the following message: general category and reserved category students have different placements in IITs/IIMs. Nothing could be further from the truth.

IITs/IIMs have a very fair and judicious system of placement for students, wherein companies coming to the campus for interviews are allowed to set their own standards in terms of students they want. eg. Company A visiting the IIT Bombay campus for placements might require students having a CPI over 6.0 [which is equivalent to a First Class in other universities, and is a fairly common requirement] Similarly, companies visiting campuses of other IITs and IIMs will follow this routine or slight deviations.

The article however sends out a false message that there is a differentiation on the basis of caste in IITs/IIMs when it comes to placement of students. This is a totally false and baseless claim.

In addition to this, the article does not mention the number of drop-outs every year from the general category. Why limit the article to information about drop-outs only from reserved category students? Why not include your "RTI" data to show general category drop-out numbers? Each and every technical college has drop-outs from all sorts of backgrounds and the reasons for people dropping out are varied and not limited to incapability for technical education. Some students realize that they have different interests and hence choose this way out.

Again, coming back to the salary issue. The article points out the discrepancy between salaries received by all and sundry. Since the peak salary is 70lakhs and the average salary is 15lakhs, it means there are sufficient number of people who are getting a salary below 15lakhs. Why not publish that data?

A very poorly written article, which does not even pretend to be a "non-sensationalist" headline. I expect better from a national daily.

Regards,

Govindraj S. Umarji