Several social-media posts by people, claiming to be ICICI employees, seem to suggest that many ICICI staff have lost their jobs during the pandemic. The posts allege that the employees were instructed to join back to their base locations, failing which they would be terminated. Similar allegations have been made by an informal group on Twitter, with the handle @Bankers United. While the Group is not a registered union, it is a platform run by a bunch of volunteers, and has over 38,000 followers on Twitter. Other social-media posts have alleged that apart from being called back to the base…
Author: HRK News Bureau
Employees of Rajasthan State Cooperative Bank and District Central Cooperative Bank in the state have reason to celebrate at a time when most professionals are facing pay-cuts and job threats amidst the pandemic. The officers and employees of these banks will be getting double salary with effect from July, 2020. An official notification has been issued regarding the hike in fixed salary. This increment will benefit all the employees and officers who have been directly recruited. It will also benefit the staff on probation. The increment will be given to all senior managers, managers, banking assistants and Class 4-category staff.…
Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh, inaugurated the IAS Professional Course Phase-II (2018 Batch) of the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA), Mussoorie, through a video conference. The programme has 179 officers of the IAS batch of 2018, three officers from the batch of 2017 and three from the Royal Bhutan Civil Services participating in the Phase II this year. This is the first time that an IAS Professional Course has been inaugurated online. Of the 185 participants, almost…
According to a LinkedIn post by one of Infosys’ employees, the information technology giant has brought back over 200 of its employees and their families in a chartered flight from San Francisco to Bengaluru. The Company organised the flight exclusively for its stranded staff and families, so that they could be back in India. The flight was operated by Qatar Airways. These employees were apparently stranded in the US because their visas had expired and all international flights had been suspended following the coronavirus pandemic. Following the pandemic, many Infosys employees have used the Vande Bharat flights arranged by the…
Voice of Banking, an organisation working for the welfare of bank employees, has urged the Government to treat bank employees on par with health workers, as COVID warriors. A letter penned by the organisation’s secretary, to the Finance Minister, says that the Rs. 50 lakh health cover to which health workers are entitled, should be offered to bank employees as well. As the pandemic continues to spread, making India the third worst-hit country in the world, the number of bank employees testing positive for the virus is also increasing by the day. To ensure their safety, the organisation has urged…
With the pandemic forcing nations to seal borders and ground their airlines, the travel and hospitality sectors have experienced a drastic slump in business. The resultant economic pressure has forced hospitality chain Oyo to reduce its headcount in Japan. Unable to bear the expenses of its employees any longer, the hotel chain, which is backed by the SoftBank Group, had even closed many offices Sapporo, Sendai, Nagano, Hiroshima and Omiya at the end of June. The Company has reportedly been encouraging its Japanese employees to resign voluntarily, offering them a four-month severance package. It has also offered to help employees…
Sandip Ghose, COO, Birla Corporation, has decided to hang up his boots after a five-year stint at the Company. As per sources, Ghose has not revealed his next move yet and is planning to take a break from his professional life for the time being. He will serve the Company till the end of September, 2020. Having begun his career in 1980, with Ernst and Young, where he worked for two years, Ghose moved on to ITC as a finance trainee in 1982. After a year, he joined Unilever as a management trainee. He then worked with Kimberly Clark India…
A day after the Railways sent a letter, asking its general managers to slash 50 per cent vacancies and freeze creation of new posts, it has clarified that there will be no job losses in the near future. A recent online brief by the director general (HR) Railway Board mentioned that certain job profiles of its employees may undergo change wherein the concerned staff will be reskilled to keep pace with technological interventions. The order to the general managers was to surrender non-functional, non-safety vacant posts which would help create additional safety posts for new railway infrastructure projects that are…
If the revisions and suggestions proposed by the Department of Homeland Security in the US are implemented, Indians dreaming of working there may be disappointed. The first suggestion is to revise the definition of H-1B, so that only ace-quality talent can enter the US. This implies a revision of the employer-employee relationship, making wage increments mandatory for H-1B visa holders so that they are the most highly skilled in the true sense of the world. This means, the rate of rejection may go up. The visa process may become really challenging, discouraging employers. Given that about 70 per cent of…
Employers in the UK will not be able to lay off furloughed staff using the financial pressures of the pandemic as an excuse. If they do so, they will have to pay back the money they have received from the Government as furlough support. Apparently, the very purpose of the coronavirus job retention scheme has been reworded to clarify that the money that is granted by the Government has to be mandatorily used by the companies to retain the employees. With this clarification, employers will not be able to indulge in fraud or lay off their employees who are right…
After receiving numerous complaints from employees of the IT firm Cognizant, Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees’ Union (KITU) said it had initiated legal action against the Company for terminating almost 18,000 employees on illegal grounds. As per the e-mails accessed by HRKatha, the affected employees were asked to resign voluntarily, failing which they would be terminated. The reason stated by Cognizant for laying off the employees was their inability to secure projects. As per the official statement by KITU, the mass layoff was initiated in the name of ‘effectively managing workforce utilisation’. Cognizant staff who had been forced to resign from…
After several Tesla employees alleged that the Company threatened to fire them for not returning to work, the electric car company has denied having issued any such threats. In fact, on June 2, the Company announced in a blog post that it had not fired employees who chose to stay at home during the coronavirus pandemic over safety concerns at the California factory. In the post, the carmaker also claimed that after reopening the California factory, it renounced its attendance policy for several weeks and offered employees the flexibility to stay at home until they felt the situation had returned…
Accenture, the multinational professional services company is reducing its workforce in the UK by about eight per cent. That means, about 700 to 900 of its employees will be rendered jobless. Accenture is among the largest employers in the Indian IT space, and the Company has already put a stop to any new hiring in India. The employees in UK have been informed of the decision to downsize and a redundancy programme will be chalked out in consultation with the staff. The layoffs will be carried out in the July to September period, affecting staff across all levels and departments.…
A Black employee at Facebook has formally filed a complaint saying that the organisation does not provide equal opportunities to its Black employees to grow and advance in their careers. Oscar Veneszee Jr has alleged that while Facebook has goals in place to increase diversity within the organisation, it does not actually nurture a culture where people of colour are given opportunities to work and grow. Veneszee himself claims that despite being appreciated by his manager for his abilities and leadership qualities, he never received a promotion, depriving him of a chance to earn a way better salary and enjoy…
Amidst the pandemic fever, many airlines have been grounded across the globe and have been forced to slash their employee base in the name of cost cutting. Air France too has been added new to the list, claiming to cut down nearly 7,600 posts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The French government too has confirmed the same. In the month of April, the French government too had offered a 7-billion-euro ($7.91 billion) aid package to rescue Air France as the airline has been losing out on hundreds of millions of euros every month. The airline has also been forced to…
In view of the coronavirus pandemic, Spocto, the big data analytics company, has decided to make 50 per cent of its staff work permanently from home. This decision to impose a permanent work-from-home scenario on its employees was made after the Company evaluated its growth and employee performance during the lockdown period. The management believes that the WFH model works rather smoothly in providing business continuity without lowering quality or productivity. The move was also initiated by the Company keeping in mind ‘employee wellness’ as a priority. The WFH arrangement will allow the staff to be with their families, within…
After Tesla had resumed operations at the California factory on May 11, several workers who did not join back work have alleged that the Company is threatening to fire them for not having reported for duty. This comes as a surprise because Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla, himself said at the time of reopening operations, that only those who were comfortable returning to work should do so. Carlos Gabriel, an employee who organised a rally at the Alameda County Public Health Department in Oakland, on behalf of these workers, said that Musk should be held accountable for such behaviour. Gabriel and another…
Esprit has announced its decision to lay off 1200 employees, which means, 20 per cent of its workforce. The international fashion house will be rendering about 800 store- and 300 non-store staff in Germany, along with about a 100 employees in its Hong Kong office, jobless. The Company will also close 50 of its stores in Germany within the next four months. The Company had already shut down 56 of its stores in Asia in April. In early June, the struggling fashion giant had closed down all its stores in China in the face of plummeting stocks. Last year, in…
“Government jobs should be reserved only for those who have been educated in government schools,” believes Jagarnath Mahto, school education and literacy minister, Jharkhand state. If Mahto has his way, the state government will soon be bringing about radical changes for the betterment of the education system in Jharkhand. Mahto pointed out that it was unfair that youngsters who have studied in private schools should vye for government jobs. This reduces the opportunities for those who have been educated in government schools. He suggested that jobs in government bodies and organisations should go to only those who have studied in…
Although the month of June had been recording a rapid fall in the unemployment rate, it recently witnessed a marginal increase in the same from 8.48 per cent to 8.59 per cent in the week ended June 28. However, the urban unemployment rate continued to remain close to double digits at 10.69 per cent and rural unemployment rate was recorded at 7.62 per cent as per data from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE). The fall in the rate of unemployment has been almost as dramatic as the rise. After recording at 23.5 per cent in April and May, the rate…
It so happened that an employee of Indian-American origin, working with Cisco Systems, was harassed by two managers because of his low caste, and the Company failed to take any strict action against them. After the lawsuit was filed by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing in San Jose, California regulators sued Cisco Systems on June 30, accusing it of discriminating against an employee based on his caste and supporting the act. Although the name of the victim has still not been revealed, the lawsuit states that he is a Dalit, a term used in India for lower caste…
The impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown it triggered is clearly visible in the aviation industry. The latest to go for downsizing is the largest aircraft manufacturer, Airbus. It has decided to sack nearly 15,000 employees across Germany, France, Spain and the UK. Unable to bear the economic brunt, due to decline in air travel, the aerospace giant announced the move on June 30, calling it the biggest downsizing in the Company’s history. The decision will impact 5,000 positions in France, 5,100 in Germany, 900 in Spain, 1,700 in the UK and 1,300 at other locations. The layoffs…
In response to the global economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft has announced a new global skills initiative, which aims to help bring digital skills to about 25 million people across the globe, by the end of 2020. With the entire world having made the leap to virtual, digital skills are going to be the most in-demand of the lot. In addition to helping people get access to new jobs, it is going to be an important step in accelerating economic growth. Combining existing and new resources from LinkedIn, GitHub and Microsoft, this new initiative will enable…
Karen Parkin, global HR head, Adidas, ended her over two-decade association with the German sportswear company, following complaints by Black employees that the Company’s culture lacks diversity and supports racism. The HR head decided to step down following demands by some employees that her handling of racism-related issues in the Company be formally investigated. Maintaining that she had always been committed towards equality and spoken against racism, Parkin stated that it is only fair for her to step down when she had lost the trust of her employees and her very existence was stopping the Company from progressing. In 2019,…
Vistara, the Indian full-service airline will impose a pay cut of five to 20 per cent from July 1 to December 31, 2020, for about 40 per cent of its 4,000-strong workforce. This move is expected to help the airline tide over the financial pressure caused by the adverse effect of the pandemic on business. However, the remaining 60 per cent of the workforce will not face any pay cut. Staff belonging to levels 4 and 5 will take a cut of 15 per cent; those in levels 2 and 3, as well as licensed engineers in level 1C will…
The pandemic has robbed many people of their livelihood. Even the scooter-rental platform, Bounce, has laid off almost 22 per cent of its workforce, that is, approximately 130 employees, in a second round of layoffs. The co-founder and CEO of Bounce has admitted to the media that the decision was a difficult one and taken after several discussions with the senior management. The Company will offer health insurance to the impacted employees until December 2020. It will also provide a severance package of three months’ salary, and those who possess company stocks will be allowed to redeem them on a…