All not well at Honeywell, Accenture

Green shoots? Honeywell and Accenture don’t appear to be seeing any. The former has announced that its employees will have to take a mandatory 10 days off in December-January without pay. And the latter has just issued a statement that it will lay off 7% of its senior executive workforce.

Honeywell employees in India said that Krishna Mikkilineni, president of Honeywell Technology Solutions, conveyed the decision at a public gathering in Bangalore recently. When contacted by TOI, a Honeywell spokesperson declined to go into specifics, but issued the following statement: “Even as Honeywell continues to grow its businesses in India, our employees have agreed to participate in a voluntary and temporary reduced work schedule, in consonance with their colleagues elsewhere.’’

In the case of Accenture, the company’s global CEO William Green said in a company release issued on Thursday: “We are acting boldly to position Accenture better for both short-term and long-term economic improvement growth and profitability.’’ The 7% workforce reduction would mean over 300 senior executives would be laid-off. The company globally has about 177,000 employees, of which 4,800 are senior-executive employees. The Accenture release said it will also reduce excess office space globally.

Till the time of releasing this story, Accenture had not replied to a mail from TOI asking about the extent to which its Indian operations would be affected by the move.

The technology sector in general is still some way from a recovery. Most companies around the world have tightened their tech budgets. Honeywell, which makes products like aviation electronics , car turbochargers and temperature control systems for buildings, has been hit badly by the global recession in all of the key businesses it supports—aviation , auto, and property. In the second quarter ended June 30, its profit plunged 38% and revenue dropped 22%.

The company has taken a number of cost cutting measures. At least for some employees in the US, Friday is now a half-day without pay. In India, where it has 10,000 employees, benefits like cafeteria subsidies and vacation rewards at the end of five years of service with the company have been withdrawn.

But there are indications that the downturn in technology , like that in many other sectors, is bottoming out. One evidence of that is the re-emergence of recruitment advertisements. In recent weeks, prominent companies like Infosys, GE Healthcare, Infotech and even Accenture itself has issued ads seeking to fill varied positions.