BPO:  Not paid for 2 months
By Mahesh PV

“Abandon Ship - All on your own” is a very well known sailor’s distress call. The cry comes when a ship is sinking, so everyone can save themselves the very best they can. Something similar seems to be happening at Gurgaon based BPO Saffron. Our recent story few days ago detailed how 250 agents logged out for a few hours to protest their salaries not being paid on time.

The situation is escalating much beyond that. According to sources in the HR Department, a highly regarded Senior Floor Manager, UK Financial, Rajesh Khaneja, a veteran with the company for over 3 years, has put in his papers.  According to the HR Department having worked for the company so hard and so long, Rajesh must have felt like a jilted lover when the company held his pay for over 2 months. Just for the record the pay for July and August have not yet been credited to employee accounts. For a senior manager it must total to around Rs 1.4-1.6 lakhs combined for 2 months’ pending pay.
 
According to the same HR sources, senior managers are also miffed about the fact that company management has not done much and left them to bear the brunt of employee ire. The rumor is that Rajesh quit not because of the pending pay but since he had a serious difference of opinion with none other than company Director Kush S Kumar. With nothing working right and worsening terms with management he chose the path of least resistance, and has resigned. He is currently serving his notice period of one month.
 
The company had earlier promised to settle pay on 20 Aug 08 but now they have issued a future date of 29 Aug 08. Talk to any employee and the lava seems to be flowing freely. Many of them are just waiting to collect salaries before they leave too.
 
Important Note: 2 years back Saffron had a strength of more than 1500 people. During that time they had created ripples in the UK Telecom Skills market by issuing half page placement adverts in national dailies offering Rs 27000 as joining salary to people with as little at 8-12 months of good calling experience in UK Mobile. They had virtually sapped the talent dry that time since no other competitor could afford to pay that much to agents. In fact the pay was far greater to what most paid to their Team Leaders. To see the company fall to 250 employees now, with unpaid salaries pending for 2 months in a row, is such a shame.

(Techgoss had run the following article on Aug 16, 2008)

BPO: No pay no work
By Mahesh PV

August 13, 2008 at BPO Saffron was a momentous day.  The shop floor witnessed an unprecedented form of protest. Not one happy face among 250 agents working for Saffron at 113 Udyog Vihar, Phase 1, Gurgaon. This was the third month in a row when the company had failed to give salaries on time. And the agents had enough. They reported to work but something was wrong on the Shop floor and their Team Leaders could feel it. Everyone had decided that that the delayed salaries could not be ignored.
 
So they all revolted together. For 2 hours, approximately between 2:30 pm and 4:30 pm, they all decided to log off in protest, en masse. They demanded that someone senior, at the level of a Vice President or more come and talk to them with some explanations. What they did not expect was a silent response from the management. The management was huddled on one side of the office trying to figure out a response, and the agents were huddled in groups all across the building trying to figure out what the management was unto. Neither budged, so no one acted. Work remained suspended almost till the end of the shift at night. Meanwhile Team Leaders managed to convince a few agents to log on for the last half-hour of the shift.
 
From rumors of the company (HQ in UK) closing down to the client vanishing, everything did the rounds. Agents discussed every scenario they could imagine. The management did not react leading to a bizarre cold war situation. Many are believed to have decided in favor of changing employers. What has left the Agents really miffed is the callous response from the management. They all expected someone to come forward and talk to them and resolve issues in a mature fashion. Many of the employees live away from their homes and 1st of every month its time to pay bills. With salaries delayed it becomes tough for them. Besides many of them send money home to support their families. So families have to suffer in silence too.

BPO News tried calling senior management but received no response.  No one was willing to give the management perspective to the media

(By arrangement with BPO News)