Source: IT Examiner
Allen Mathew, senior director in human resources, Oracle India has ruled out salary cuts in the company.
Mathew said, “We don’t go outside to recruit and we don’t go to consultants for recruitment. We run our own recruitment agency. So we have a very different model. We don’t have requirement at this point of time. We only find people in specific domains to hire, but it is difficult.” He added, “There are no salary cuts or job cuts as of now. Coming to our pay cycle, we have got last year’s bonus. December will be the latest period. And we are still hiring. So far, we don’t have any such move in our company”.
However, he is unsure about the future. He said, “We don’t know what will happen in three years or five years or one year down the line. In the near future I don’t see anything like that.” On an optimistic note, he spoke about the situation in 2004 when Oracle started mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of other companies. At that time everyone said that M&A won’t work for Oracle as there will be a great number of job cuts and layoffs.
Mathew said that difference of culture could be of great significance in M&A. He said that Oracle had acquired multicompanies and was quite successful. He also gave an example of cultural adaptation. At one company they had acquired, the cafeteria had no non-vegetarian food on the menu. Now all cafeterias in Oracle offer non-vegetarian food. Mathew used this example to show that Oracle could adapt to other companies’ policies and merging was not only in business but also in culture.
However, employees of I-flex solutions limited, now Oracle Financial Services Software Limited, have a different story to tell. They said that the vendors in the company were in the process of being sent out. The senior employees in the C and D bands got 10 to 15 per cent salary cut. The company has also cancelled bonus for the year. The company’s staff in the prime sourcing division was given a pay cut of about 50 per cent and was required to work only for three hours a day. The old I-flex management supposedly wanted to layoff the entire staff in the division. However, the Oracle management decided against it as Oracle feared that it would give an impression that the M&A was a failure.
Employees also said that the company had cancelled perks such as transport charges. Earlier, 50 per cent of the employees' transport charges were borne by the company. The company has also cancelled free snacks for the staff in the evening. Free food for its support staff also has been cancelled. The recruitment procedure is said to have become more rigid following M&A. The employees’ version gives a completely different picture to that given by Mathew.