HCL's back-to-office plan: Come in three days a week, or forget about holidays

HCL Technologies has devised a measure to make sure its India-based employees change out of their pajamas and head into the office: making on-premises attendance a condition of eligibility for leave. Indian union Nascent Information Technology Employees Senate (NITES) told The Register HCL Technologies is mandating employees …

[b1k3rdude]

India always seems to be in the headlines for the wrong reasons...

Indians are hard workers, but why do you think most of them GTFO of India as soon as they can.

But then we have indian companies operating out in thr world, takin with them, the indian brand of employee abuse. Take Accenture (aka Anderson Consulting), I have contracted for this company 2x but never again, they way they abuse the perm Indian and non-Indian employies, I am suprised they havent faced multiple tribunals at this point. The salasry rate is well below industry average and they take the royal piss when paying expenses, as in they take months to pay, so the employee ends up incurring interest rate costs.

[Mishak]

interest rate costs

I know a UK person working for a US company who had to put up with this.

They had a corporate credit card to use, but were personally liable for all expenditure and had to claim back business costs through expenses*.

Expenses always took months to be approved and paid, so he (and the other staff) were effectively providing a zero-interest cash float to the company.

He just waited until he received the funds before making anything more than the minimum card payment, adding the interest that was then charged onto the next month's expense claim.

* the claim was this allowed the card to be used for personal items as well (which would not be approved as expenses, of course).

[ecofeco]

Re: interest rate costs

This is now common practice. You either wait months for a simple purchase approval or you wait months to be re-reimbursed on an expense claim. And there are far too many stories of being stiffed on expense claims.

It is exactly an interest free loan to the company. And why I no longer do it.

The former "P-Card" and petty cash is long gone.

Meanwhile, the problem you want to solve with a simple purchase grows bigger.

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: interest rate costs

BT do (or did this), though once your manager approved expenses they were pretty good at paying promptly.

[Pascal Monett]

COVID really threw a wrench in things

During COVID, we were all locked down, nobody was in the office, and yet companies not only survived, but many thrived.

Now, management is desperately trying to get back to before, but there is no going back. We proved that we could do the job with suffering the commute. Stop with the threatening, we know this works.

[simonlb]

Re: COVID really threw a wrench in things

But those companies still have to pay for those big, flashy, fully managed office spaces they have under a long-term leasing agreement, and they need bodies in there to make it look like they have staff. We were promised remote working decades ago and finally got it, so unless you really do, definitely need to be present in the office, working from home is the obvious, logical choice. Pity these companies still don't get that.

I know of one company whose UK based call centre staff moved from office to home based when the first lockdown started (18th March 2020 - seems so long ago), and they've never changed back.

[Mockup1974]

Re: COVID really threw a wrench in things

>But those companies still have to pay for those big, flashy, fully managed office spaces they have under a long-term leasing agreement

Sunk cost fallacy

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: COVID really threw a wrench in things

Mine has closed all of ours apart from a test lab. If you need to go to an office to swing your dick about, we have a WeWork now.

[elsergiovolador]

Landlords

It's all about landlords being worried their property portfolio is going to lose value.

[Uncle Slacky]

Re: Landlords

Where's Mao when you need him?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Landlords

There's another knock-on effect of the lack of need for office premises....a lot of investment funds, including company pensions, have significant holdings in the commercial property sector. I know that the value of my personal pension took something of a hit back in 2020 when the value of shares in commercial property firms slumped (to the point that funds were suspending trading of those shares.

[IGotOut]

Re: Landlords

But even a half decent fund will have divested away, into something more long term and reliable, such as AI.

Sigh...

[UnknownUnknown]

Re: Landlords

My pension shitting bed Mar/Apr 2020 has nothing to do with Commercial Property.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Landlords

Yes, let's make people waste time commuting and polluting because gamblers, sorry traders, placed wrong bets...

[ChoHag]

So you're saying the two days of the week spent at home ARE the holiday?

[Dan 55]

14 hour workdays + return to office + commute time

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

[Julian Poyntz]

laugh

Makes me laugh as a lot of their clients are not on in the same continent, so why bother if the person I am working with / talking to is at home or in an office ?

All intents and purposes, they are remote

[Michael Strorm]

"[Dell] workers below a certain pay grade would have the option to choose to be fully remote – at the expense of career advancement opportunities"

That's probably not the threat they'd like it to be- it's already well-known that the quickest and most efficient way to advance or get a pay rise in the IT field is to jump ship to another company rather than jumping through hoops to do so internally when there's vested interests, internal politics and a general attitude against paying more to someone they already employ working against you.

Most likely it'll be least effective against their most valuable employees who already have the greatest leeway in that respect.

And as an excuse to force out older, established, better-paid workers, they're the ones most likely to be higher up in the first place.

[ecofeco]

Facts.

[renniks]

My idea would be to take a days leave from those who were in the office, and give them the names of the people who didn't show up, as the reason they were losing a days leave

[Dan 55]

Are you Elon Musk?

[doublelayer]

Why this method

This seems like a really bad method to get people into the office, even if we assume that we want the goal. For a moment, skip whether getting people into the office is a good thing and just assume that you're in management and for some good reason, you want the people there and you're going to get it. The workers probably don't have a contract that states they can work remotely for as long as they want, meaning that management can, by fiat, just tell them that they have to be in the office. This might not apply to certain groups, for instance if they hired remotely during the pandemic and hired some people in a place where they don't have offices, but anyone who was in an office before the pandemic or could get to one now probably would be subject to such an order. Anyone who refuses can be penalized for not doing what they were told to, up to and including firings. If the company doesn't want to fire them, they can also use a number of smaller sticks against them. Why, when all those levers are available, would they pursue something complicated and potentially illegal with the leave policy?

[Mishak]

Why?

Because management.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why this method

Well I have a contract that states my office location … but they closed it …. and HR refuses to amend it to remote/flexible.

[Kernel]

Correction?

Surely, when referring to India, that should read "change into of their (kurta) pajamas and head into the office".

[Stevie]

Bah!

I'm really confused by companies that are blowing a gasket over remote working.

Pre-Covid The Register was alive with tales of "Hot Desking" and down-sizing offices to cut costs.

Post-Covid businesses are bleating about the need to fill those same offices they couldn't afford three years before.

Baffling.