What’s Wrong With IT?

As seen by a telecom employee and AIITEU member

The Rot Within

Who is responsible for IT employees’ misery today? I work in telecom. I am supposed to work for 8.5 hours a day, but I usually work for 10–12 hours a day. Sometimes, I even work 16 hours a day. There are days where the whole team works non-stop and realises at 4 AM that everyone must get some sleep.

Perhaps we have taken on too many projects. But before we had so many projects, we worked day and night to acquire projects. This is a cycle that never ends. We know that this is not sustainable in the long run, but we don’t really know how to get out of the vice-like grip of unrealistic work targets. There are always dangling carrots to keep things moving, business as usual.

Diagnosing a Malady

We tried complaining to our immediate supervisors, but when it comes to many of these problems it appears they are in the same boat as us. We know that they too work extremely long hours. I think the real problem is the haphazard way in which recruitment takes place in this sector. Our projects demand certain specific skillsets such as cloud-based expertise, automation and data handling. Funnily enough, we do not employ people with these skillsets. This is because of poor planning and the lack of a clear pipeline for hiring.

This fundamental lapse causes a series of undesirable outcomes. The quality of our work suffers, and the work takes longer than it should, because people have to learn these new skills in a rushed manner to finish a project. This makes it clear to me that employee satisfaction is linked to firm productivity, but the firm does not care. If it did, it would make smarter hiring decisions. It would invest in training its new employees so that they can work efficiently and well.

The thing is, IT employees care about working well. We do not want to work half-heartedly or cut corners. We want adequate training and decent work hours. We want to be proud of our labour.

Empty Promises By The State

It is not only firms that have washed their hands of all responsibility. The government, too, thinks it has no role to play in improving the work output and well-being of IT employees. I work in West Bengal. Our government has not thought to subsidise training in these sectors. This is despite the promises to build a tech hub, something which hasn’t translated to basic infrastructure building on the ground. As a result, there are very few technology companies in West Bengal despite our abundant talent. If I want to switch out of this job, I have no other option because the government has not worked to bring investment to the state. At this stage, a government that cares about workers must care about industrial development, which should certainly include IT. If it cannot build public enterprises in IT, it must at least try to attract private enterprises.

I joined AIITEU because IT employees are ultimately workers.

Our employers time and time again display a tendency to give us the bare minimum in terms of rights and facilities.

We can keep venting to management, but it is necessary for IT workers to unionise so that our voice grows stronger than theirs.