Some of us are lucky enough to have worked in great companies. What makes those companies great is not what are their written values are, but how ingrained those values are within the company. I am sure each one of my fellow Indian tech engineers works in a company where at least one of their core values talks about ‘looking after their people’, but I’ll let you in on a secret. It’s all for show. They don’t really give a damn about their people.
Over the last 12 years, I have had the opportunity to work in multiple companies in different teams with people from various cultural backgrounds and geographical locations. On 2 separate occasions, I had escalations targeted at me. In both instances, what surprised me most was the way the escalations were handled.
On 2 separate occasions, I had escalations targeted at me. In both instances, what surprised me most was the way the escalations were handled.
My first ever escalation
To my surprise, I wasn’t even informed about this escalation. One fine day, I was told that my client had decided to remove me from the team. It didn’t bother me, as it seemed like a regular Human Resources issue. Later that day one of my team members mentioned that there has been an escalation, and that the client was getting feedback from everyone about me.
My team member was kind enough to let me know about this, and that the whole team had supported me in their feedback. However, the decision was taken to remove me from the team before gathering feedback from the team or from me, and I felt it was most unfair.
I confronted my Team Leader, who escalated the matter. As expected, there was no constructive outcome.
I reached out to a more senior level manager to complain about the incident, and he assured me that he would look into it. 2 days later, when I did not get any response, I decided to leave the company and submitted my resignation straight away.
By leaving the company and not calling out his actions, I felt that I was enabling the Team Leader to carry on and ruin someone else’s life. This was something which bothered me a lot, so I mustered up some courage and gathered all the evidence around how my Supervisor had prevented me from performing my work.
I was pretty young at that time with just about 4 years’ overall experience. As a QA I would not pass a story unless I was satisfied with the quality, as it was a question of integrity, but I was forced by my Team Leader to cut corners. I have always been cautious about this, so I make sure if I’m passing on something I consider low quality I have a written (i.e. recorded) conversation with my Team Leader about it.
I was pretty young at that time with just about 4 years’ overall experience. As a QA I would not pass a story unless I was satisfied with the quality, as it was a question of integrity, but I was forced by my Team Leader to cut corners.
After gathering the information, I shared the whole story with the client and asked him if everything could have been avoided if he had given me the chance to explain my side of the story before taking any action. The gentleman was kind enough to tell me he regretted his decision, assured me the issue would not be ignored and said he would take action regarding what he considered an abuse of power.
2 days later, the Team Leader was removed from the team with a stern warning to everyone not to play politics in that way. The client made me believe there are still good people out there who can take decisive action, unlike the Indian managers. 3 months later when I had my exit interview.
I recounted the whole episode and the response I got simply said, ‘Thank you for your feedback. We have recorded the same in our notes.’
My second escalation
I’m passionate about the work I do and invested a lot of time and energy in a team I worked in for well over 5 years. I filled major roles when people moved out of the team, took charge of deliveries, but when a company restructuring happened the client introduced a new guy to the team to oversee everything.
I made sure that he got to know all the processes and functionalities that we worked with. However, on a few occasions we clashed because I questioned his decisions (which was well within my rights) and sought explanations, challenging whether his decisions were in the interests of team.
One fine day, I got a message from my manager saying there had been a major escalation involving me. I was not shocked per se about the escalation but was shocked to see how my manager failed to carry out due diligence while investigating the matter.
The escalation email lacked actual examples or justifications and referred only to general claims that described me as someone who ‘creates a lot of chaos’, needs pushing to complete designs and fails to complete work without explicit instructions. The email even suggested I wasn’t working in the right role and that I didn’t like being in that role. All based on no actual evidence. I wasn’t consulted once in the process or given a chance to respond. I was simply informed that my superiors “needed to take action” and that my manager was given “the courtesy” of speaking to me before I got fired, in order to prepare for a smooth exit. I was, like, WOW!
When I was approached by my manager, I asked for additional information as to the basis of the negative feedback, including any examples to back up the claims that had been cited. My manager just said that they were not able to question the client about the case. Instead, they asked me to respond to the email directly.
It was 3 days of mental torture, and I even took leave to respond to the escalation email. Again, going through the mental anguish of trying to work out which incidents they were referring to and providing proof about how sincere I am regarding my dedication to my work.
What particularly pained me was that I’d consistently had the highest ratings back-to-back within my department for the level of dedication I show towards my work.
Nevertheless, I relentlessly spent around 3 days of leave searching through all the incidents in order to rebut each of the claims, reaching out to my supervisors to ask them about their reasoning on multiple occasions where they had blocked my workflow and asked me to drop working on certain things, without any explanation whatsoever. I felt unfairly attacked, totally unsupported, and my company’s core values around PEOPLE and INTEGRITY that they proudly showcased felt very hollow indeed.
I felt unfairly attacked, totally unsupported, and my company’s core values around PEOPLE and INTEGRITY that they proudly showcased felt very hollow indeed.
Next, I was informed that my manager had discussed the issue with the person who’d sent the escalation mail and he was fine with me continuing to work on the project. Bravo!!! But I was not happy and I lost interest in work at that time. How could they so easily and casually excuse the person who created this huge ruckus without any basis (i.e. the client) and ask me to go back to working as usual? As If nothing had happened?
I put in a request to my management to investigate the feedback and any political agenda behind this escalation. Their response made it clear that they did not want to lock horns with the client. Well, maybe my company should have put up a condition next to their core values of PEOPLE and INTEGRITY, that these values hold no meaning when it comes to serving the client.
I requested a transfer from the team and was lucky enough to find a better team where I hoped I’d be able to grow. Everything was going smoothly, but then one fine day someone from the People Team decided to call me up, asking for feedback about how the company was doing, and if I had any issues. I was sceptical at first, as sharing the truth about what had happened and how it contradicted the company’s values regarding looking after its PEOPLE, not just the client.
The person from the People team was at least honest and told me to drop the matter, suggesting that I should learn to live within the system in India and avoid working with such folks if I could.
Do company values have any value, or are they just slogans? My experience to date in India suggests it’s all about style without any substance. Slogans copied from Western clients, jumping on the bandwagon but failing to bring them to life in meaningful ways. Is this the case everywhere? I don’t know, as I’ve not worked abroad yet. My experience to date is that company values have no value.
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