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On
“Collaborative Academic – Occupational Instruments”
“MS in Software Engineering Program” Offered By
Wipro Technologies Ltd, India
And
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani
Case Study
On
“Collaborative Academic – Occupational Instruments”
“MS in Software Engineering Program” Offered By Wipro Technologies Ltd,
India and BITS, Pilani
By
Prologue:
This case study takes the opportunity to discuss the Social, Technological,
Organizational implications of the new occupational instruments such as
“Collaborative Academic – Occupational Programs” offered jointly by
professional business organizations in tie up with universities. The purpose of
this study was to understand the underlying benefits and opportunities of such
instruments for the business organization and the society. The study take the
approach of dismantle the system to analyze the working of the system, trying
to analyze what all factors in the Indian Legal , Labor system, the Indian
society attribute for such instruments to run successfully .
The case study has been developed based on analysis of one such collaborative
program offered by Wipro Technologies Limited, India and Birla Institute of
Technologies, Pilani, India. The study has been done considering both
management and student perspective. It consists of comparative study of other
contemporary similar opportunities in other organizations like Patni, HCL, MBT,
CTS etc.
The most important discovery of this study was the fact how these powerful
business organizations have been successfully utilizing these collaborative
instruments to disguise bonded labor in the name of education with the help of
the shortcomings of the Indian legal and educational system, and exploit the
socio-economical condition of the society of India. What has come out of this
study is the fact that slavery and bonded labor, exploitation of the human
beings in our modern societies are still prevalent at large in disguise of such
“Collaborative Programs” etc. As a part of developing this study loopholes and
issues of immediate concern in the Indian Education System and Indian Legal
System especially pertaining to Labor laws and Education policies were exposed
and have been brought forward.
On the Indian educational system front one has to appreciate the widely
acknowledge the fact that even thought the Indian education system is one of
the most rigorous systems in the world, its highly under appreciated and under
valued in India than abroad. Indian students have preformed extremely well in
universities abroad. Even with the lack of enabling environment like the funds
and scholarship, lack of infrastructure, lack of educational facilities, prevalent
reservation and quota system and overall scarcity in the terms of infrastructure
to pursue quality; the Indian education system actually breeds out some of the
most talented people in the world. The
“Full – Time Employment”: It’s an instrument spread across a five day working
week, & occasional weekends and other public holidays in which all subjects
perform occupational activity, indiscriminately in accordance to their
respective socio-technical skills. At least 9hrs/Day for 5 days i.e. 45
hours/week of occupational activity directed towards achievement of
organizational business goals in general can be considered as FULL – TIME
EMPLOYMENT.
The Background:
The WASE program from 1995 - 1998 was a four years MS program that gave its
candidate a time advantage of one year over B.Sc graduate with M.Tech from
outside, which they would have completed in 4 Years i.e. 2 Years of M.Sc
followed by 2 Years of M.Tech, while their WASE counterparts were confirmed
employees of Wipro Technologies Ltd at the end of the third year itself. The
instrument is targeted for B.Sc/BCA graduates primarily with specialization in
Computer Science, Electronics, Mathematics, and Physics. Though almost all
candidates joining such a program were from computer science background
only.
The Program Philosophy:
WASE was started in 1995 when the Indian IT industry was developing, so was
the Indian education system with its reforms & revisions, and so was the global
economy & more so Indian economy was changing. Wipro Technologies then was
a small company as compared to as of now, Wipro was growing. It had just
developed a corporate identity for itself; it had invented its corporate
philosophy around principles like Integrity, Value - Value for Money, Customer
Satisfaction and Innovation. These principals of corporate philosophy were
taken more literarily whether they were meant in costumer - organization
context or employee – organization context. Individual’s identity & importance
in a crowd called organization were still existent. WASE was an innovative step,
very close to heart of Wipro strategy. It was what the market/industry
demanded, something unique, something new, and something radical. It then
embodied in itself the principles of empowering its employees with higher and
quality education, cost reduction for its customers, changing industry wide
scenario by making it possible that after completing this collaborative program
even the non engineering cadre would be capable to undertake demanding
higher management roles in the organization. The quality, the innocence and
sanctity of such instrument could & would have been boasted by all i.e. Wipro,
IT industry, the subjects pursuing it, their families, everyone associated with it.
But the times have changed, its 2005, the Indian IT industry has matured, the
education system has seen quantum rise, the graduates are better equipped
both in terms of diversity & depth of knowledge, the job market is booming,
the economy is evolving beautifully and its mature. Wipro Technologies has
managed to grow into a global leader with more than 50,000 people employed
with it, its revenue breaching $2 Billion mark and presence in over 26 countries
spread across the globe, it’s truly a giant Indian MNC. The Wipro’s corporate
philosophies of Integrity, Value, “Value for Money”, Customer Satisfaction and
Innovation are still the same, as they have been the success mantra. But as the
corporate has grown bigger and bigger, what seems like is that the corporate
philosophies such as Integrity and Values perhaps diluted and have become
pretty questionable especially when taken in organization – employee context,
especially when you talk about WASEians. The WASE principles also changed,
they are more about cheap labor for working on legacy systems, testing,
maintenance or anything other than core development, thus leading to cost
reduction for Wipro’s customers. WASE principles like empowering employees
with higher and quality education, empowering them to take on higher
managerial jobs in the organization have become secondary or no existent
entities. The quality, the exclusiveness; the sanctity of the program has diluted
substantially so has its spirit, as the company has grown and the times have
changed. It’s no longer a niche career option, neither does it give you any time
advantage over a B.Sc graduate with a M.Sc post graduate degree followed by a
M.Tech, nor employment experience as one has to start ground zero in the
organization after completing the program.
No longer is WASE a matter of pride neither in eyes of the providers i.e. Wipro
Technologies Ltd and BITS, Pilani nor it’s a matter of superiority -
accomplishments for its candidates undergoing the MS program in hope to
learn, develop and become global leaders, contributors to the community in
form of technologist, innovators, social leaders. And it’s nothing more than a
sham, a deceit in the eyes of their families who sacrifice so much in the hope
to provide for good education for their offspring, feel cheated, extremely
helpless, humiliated and angry. And the community remains deprived of the
great thinkers and innovators who could have been born out of this instrument
only if it was truthful in all its aspects. Although many might still appreciate
the opportunity of being associated with such brands and instruments which
certainly is an achievement considering the whole Indian system, though not
comparatively evaluating and considering that other better contemporary
opportunities exists. Also these questions arises is brand everything, are titles
everything, “How good is an education if its not technically enlightening?”,
“How good is an employment if it’s discriminatory and one’s service is not
acknowledged?”. This kind of behavior/attitude is greatly influenced by the
socio-economic factor of the non equalitarian, poverty laden Indian society. But
then again this shouldn’t be used as a reason for exploitation of the society by
organizations for their own benefits; rather organizations should shoulder the
responsibility to take appropriate initiatives to eliminate such divides and
provide equal treatment atleast inside the organization.
The Batches:
There was even a Gurgaon based batch of 50 such subjects in 2004, but just
within one year the program in Gurgaon was terminated and all of them were
transferred to other Wipro facilities in India i.e. Pune & Bangalore in a high
drama episode that lasted a couple of weeks, without even discussing or stating
the reasons for such orders, resulting in some of the students to quit/abandon
the program due to their inability to relocate to other locations in India. What
remains unanswered is, who is responsible for jeopardizing the careers of 7
such students, who were affected by the company’s decision to abandon the
WASE in Gurgaon, Is It BITS, Pilani, or is it Wipro Technologies Ltd, or the
Government of India?
On bond the program duration is exactly four years not a day less and not a day
more, but in reality the program has been prolonged for many batches. The
program duration is torturous awfully long four years. One might rather pursue
an M.B.B.S and become a doctor which takes equivalently long time i.e. five
years, if one would qualify for it. The program duration is four years and thus
the candidates of this program have no competitive advantage over students
pursuing full time M.S on campus. A B.Sc graduate after three years of graduate
degree, followed by two years of Masters postgraduate degree, can pursue 2
years long M.Tech/M.E./M.S. degree, thus duration of postgraduate studies i.e.
M.S adds up to four years anyways.
The Application:
The whole process of recruiting for this instrument is done by the mixed means
of on-campus & off-campus recruitment. The process includes a written
examination with naïve aptitude and even more naïve technical questions,
followed by a personal interview. The level of the written examination is so
high that even a twelfth standard school kid could walk through it like a cake.
It doesn’t have basic sections like fundamental logic, basic sciences, applied
mathematic and calculus. The drop out rate for 2004 batch selected in a
process in north India was as high as 4 out of 250. The minimum eligibility
criterion for applying for WASE is just an overall 65% all through your schooling
and graduation.
The Selection:
Once the candidates are selected, they are expected to report to the specified
Wipro facilities in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune etc within 15 days. On
landing in new city for joining, for your convenience no arrangements are made
by the organization to accommodate you in the guest house or any hotel,
though candidates would be reimbursed for first 8 days of hotel stay at the rate
of $7/day. Considering the facts - the extremely low stipend received by the
candidate, no settlement – relocation benefits for WASE employees from the
organization, the ever increasing rentals it generally takes a minimum 1 month
to find a decent, pocket friendly abode in a strange city, especially Bangalore.
On contrary in a similar collaborative program offered by Mahindra British
Telecom Limited and BITS, Pilani, candidates have to relocate to an even more
expensive city Mumbai, but the accommodation a 3 star apartment is provided
by the organization itself for whole of their candidature term with the
organization.
The Bond:
On the very day of induction process; the candidates are given a bond that they
are supposed to sign then and there or else loose the opportunity. Unlike most
companies where the prospective employees are given a time frame ranging
from a week to a month to understand the implication of signing any such bond
by consulting a legal authority on such matters, here the bond has to signed
and returned at that very moment.
The bond states that in the case if a WASE candidate leaves the organization
before four years, the candidate is subjected to pay a bond amount of $1,666
to the organization. The bond amount is $1,666 so if the candidate doesn’t
have $1,666 to pay towards the bond in advance i.e. most candidate come from
typical lower- middle class families, in that case for candidates inconvenience
Wipro Technologies Ltd has a tie up with State Bank Of India, which facilitates
such candidates to avail a loan of $1,555 INR against an upfront deposit of $112
(i.e. almost one month WASE stipend) with the SBI. What is to be noted is that
the bond is not just in principles, there is real money involved in the form of a
fixed deposit in SBI. In this case SBI pays an interest of 6.5%/Annum on the
Fixed Deposit of 4 Years. For those who have taken the loan need not pay the
principal amount i.e. 70,000 INR, but will have to pay a differential interest
i.e. the interest you earn on Fixed Deposit 6.5%/Annum - Interest on the Loan
i.e. 12%/Annum which amount to some $9/Month.
The interest paid by the WASEian can be counted as a premium paid towards
the opportunity of working in a World Class firm like Wipro Technologies Ltd or
as a price a candidate should pay for having coming from a not so well to do
family and yet affording to work in expensive organization like Wipro
Technologies.
What is ironical yet again is the bond is signed between the candidate and the
organization but no copy of the bond is given to the candidate? On the contrary
other organizations like HCL Technology, Mahindra British Telecom Limited,
Cognizant Technology Systems Limited which also offer a similar collaborative
program with BITS, Pilani have no such bond for its candidates.
What needs to be paid attention is the fact that most of these candidates come
from a typical Indian middle class family. The legal perspective to the bond
raises another question i.e. “Is it a new phase in evolution of human
civilization, where bonded labor & slavery is reemerging & flourishing in this
form?” apparently it does seem like a new form of bonded labor. Even though
employment bonds are illegal according to the Indian legal system and so is
bonded employment but the failure of social institutes of the nation to
organize employment sectors, failure of labor research institutes to bring about
changes in labor laws of the country have left loop holes in the system. As a
result huge organizations are able to take advantage of such failure of the
system and get away with it.
The Training:
The selected candidates undergo a 3 months full time training. There are infact
two trainings the first one is Fundamental Readiness Program (FRP) which is a 1
month training is common for all candidates, its an elementary training in
Fundamentals of C, Digital Electronics, Fundamentals of Networking and
Telecommunications etc the second training is Project Readiness Program (PRP)
which is of 2 months duration, this training focuses on domain in which the
candidate is deployed for instance Microsoft Technologies, Telecom and
Embedded Systems, Java Technologies, Database, ERP and MIS systems. The
curriculum for most these trainings are pretty decent, though there is a lot of
scope for improvement. Both FRP and PRP have very limited hands on and
practical training.
The training for the 2004 batch is generally conducted in Wipro campus, in IIITB
and in institutes outside on contract bases. The training institutes include some
decent institutes like CMC, and many others ill equipped under staffed
institutes also. Attendance in such training is loosely monitored, and hands on
practical sessions in ill equipped labs are just for the name sake.
Every candidate should complete both FRP and PRP in maximum three attempts
each examination, the minimum criteria for passing FRP and PRP is 80%. On
failure the subject would be entitled to termination of his/her candidature
with the organization. Most of the candidates clear the FRP pretty easily i.e. in
the first attempt itself, while the failure rate of PRP is considerably high. But
the candidatures of the subjects who fail their PRP are generally not
terminated and are allowed to continue in the organization. Which does raise
questions about the training methodology and quality of human resource being
inducted in the organization?
What career path you can expect after completing the MS SE program or rather
what career path you shouldn’t expect after completing this program?
The Curriculum:
The first two semester of M.S. focus on fundamental mathematics necessary for
any computer scientist but the level of these courses are still very naïve. The
courses in Discrete Mathematics, Calculus, Probability, and Numerical Methods
are of the level offered at freshman year in most undergraduate courses which
sometimes are still more advanced than that being offered at M.S. level. As far
as computing skills are concerned the first four semester of the program offer
you fundamentals of computer sciences by the means of subjects like Data
Structure, Fundamentals of C Programming, Object Oriented Programming
Using Java, Fundamental Design and Analysis of Algorithms, Operating System,
Fundamental Computer Architecture, Computer Networking . Most of these
subjects, and sometimes infact advanced studies in these subjects are already
undertaken by most candidates in their under-graduate degree programs. All of
this would really make more sense and be more useful if these subjects are
offered as a refresher program for duration of 6 months to 1 year than spending
2 years on undergoing basic concept all over again that doesn’t help much to
the cause of pursuing higher advanced studies.
The semester fifth onwards to the seventh semester the curriculum is more
about software engineering practices, Object Oriented Analysis And Design,
software quality, software project management.
What is to be noted is there are no practical or hands on sessions for any of the
subjects in the whole program. Its expected hands on experience would be
gathered by candidates through the live projects they are working on. But
again either most of the candidates don’t have a computer at their disposal at
home and don’t have appropriate tools compliers, RAD tools at their disposal in
office either. Considering most candidates are working in specialized domains,
it can’t be expected work experience and on job learning can substitute
practical and hands on classroom sessions. Most engineering colleges and
universities now have Wi-Fi enabled campuses and students are equipped with
laptop, and given access to information highway to for 24/7 access to
information and collaborative learning. Also there are no assignments, no case
studies, no brain storming sessions and no real world applicability and problem
solving sessions as a part of the whole course. The course contents are totally
theoretical, and are not driven towards innovation and finding solutions real
world problems.
The Contact:
The contact sessions on weekends i.e. Saturday consist of 2hrs lectures for 4
subjects given back to back after 50 Hours of hardcore work loaded week. The
floating centre at Wipro Technologies, BDC where the classes for the program
are conducted is architectural marvel. The people who have been around since
August 2004 have seen it dying so many deaths, yet standing tall. It’s suffered
water seepage, followed by degradation of wooden panels decorated with
black fungus on it, collapsing false ceilings on the roof. It’s a centrally air
conditioned facility. On Saturdays generally the strength of employees is
considerably less thus perhaps as a cost cutting measure the air conditioning to
floating centre holding around 400 students is either switched of or kept at a
minimum low perhaps for maintenance activities or as an cost cutting measure.
A class room is generally jam packed with 90 – 110 odd souls. Inadequate
seating arrangement, no air conditioning, no windows, and no fans with
Bangalore’s temperature touching a 33+ °C is the last thing these students
expect after a hard weeks work.
The class rooms are equipped with modern wooden panels, lighting system,
furniture, audio-visual systems, and computers. The computers are never
powered, even if they are they are not configured to access internet, so the
whole concept of having them there is defeated as neither they are used to
perform hands on nor they can be used to access the information highway to
research or explore the subject deeply. The projectors are used to display
lecture and note presentation slides. Even though there is a provision to
suspend the projectors from the roof, they are generally kept on the table in
front row though, leading to a badly illuminated, glary, unaligned display on
the screen. The electronic smart white boards are kept in each class only for
technology demonstration; no one has actually ever seen them working. The
markers are used by the professor to write on the white board instead, and are
not much of help many times they are low on ink, secondly it doesn’t help
when you’re sitting at 10+mts from the board and in a class of hundred
someone has to sit at back. The libraries are ill equipped and under stocked,
even with quantum increase of intake of students the libraries haven’t been
upgraded. The libraries are always severely short on books, leaving only one
option with students to purchase their own books which adds an additional
burden on them by almost $33/semester which becomes difficult considering
the low stipend. The drinking water arrangement is a 25ltr water bottle outside
each class, not even a cold water dispenser, which is supposed to sustain 80
students for 8-9 hrs. The rest rooms are badly equipped with toilet paper, soap,
not even cleaned most of the time. But otherwise on weekdays the whole
facility is rather well maintained, restrooms cleaned and replenished routinely,
air conditioners running, water coolers running.
The Attendance:
BITS, Pilani provides its student an excellent enabling environment both for it’s
on - campus and off – campus students. BITS, Pilani has no attendance policy
for its students, that means students are not subjected to any penalties incase
they don’t attend class. The philosophy is that the emphasis is on learning
rather than how and where. But the whole philosophy changes in the Wipro
campus, it really doesn’t matter what you learn or whether you learn or not
but it does matter where you learn. A Wipro policy states that there is a
minimum 75% attendance per subject is required to be eligible to give the
semester exams, failure to adherence to the policy would mean ineligibility to
give the semester exams. What more needs to be noted is no other factor like
student’s grades, medical reason, and engagement in business activities for the
organization itself, engagement of the candidate in an onsite assignment are
generally taken into consideration while devising new punishments in failure to
abide by this policy. There is a high probability of non adherence to the policy
as practically speaking employees are involved in client projects with deadline
and are at times working onsite in client locations. This policy is practiced
pretty seriously, and has major implications, in the form of reduced onsite
opportunities for WASEians due to high rate of approval rejection by Talent
Transformation Department (a wing of Human Resource Management
department in Wipro Technologies Ltd), which is mandatory for WASEians,
unessicary prolongation of the course. The policy doesn’t make much sense as
BITS Pilani clearly states the candidates undergoing the collaborative program
are full time employees with the organization. Also the only way this policy can
be interpreted is that any hard work or dedication towards work for the
organization would result in penalty levied by the organization itself on its own
employees, this generally a sign of lack of respect, trust in the employees by
the organization.
The Faculty:
The faculty is the perhaps the cheapest faculty available from local colleges, at
times are hardly qualified themselves to take classes for students at MS level.
It’s not very transparent the processes of selection, the eligibility criteria for
the faculty and who recommends and selects the faculty; whether it’s BITS or
Wipro Technologies Ltd. Most of these faculties certainly are nowhere
comparable to the faculty at BITS Pilani campus, IIT(s), I.I.Sc or at any other
world class university, and are generally at maximum as good as the lecturer
any candidate would have experienced at their bachelor level studies at their
local colleges. The faculty hired for WASE is a variety bunch of B.Sc, M.Sc,
M.Tech, B.Tech, taking classes for the students at M.S. level. BITS a world
class university; Wipro A World class Organization, the faculty for WASE not
world class. The question here is why the faculty hired by Wipro Technologies
for conducting classes for MS from BITS, not world class, why not from BITS
itself or other world class academic institution from around the world? What
needs to be understood is as we globalize and understand the importance of
research and development we need an enabling environment to support it? So if
BITS & IITS, I.I.Sc. Can have world class faculty, at times even international
faculty in form of visiting lecturers and guest faculty, why not at WASE?
The Lectures:
The lecture comprises of a line by line recital of lecture notes from
international university by an ill qualified or perhaps half interested lecturer.
The way and by whom the lecture is imparted empowers you with what’s
written in the notes and nothing more it doesn’t create an enabling
environment for you to research the subject, investigate into it, innovate,
invent which typically a MS program lecture should do as it happens in all world
class institutes like IIT, BITS, MITS. Generally MS program around the world are
revolve around research, innovation, intellectual wealth creation. The lectures
are generally a monologue, non interactive recitals and are generally utilized
by many students if not all for sleeping playing computer games, sketching,
catching up with friends, and reading text outside the curriculum and other
much more creative & intellectually enlightening activities. It’s made sure all
of these activities are done discretely to maintain the decor of the class. The
efforts of attending lectures are solely directed towards attaining a minimum
attendance of 75%, which is occasionally maintained by the students by means
of proxy.
The Examinations:
There are two set of examination conducted per semester the mid semester
exams and the end semester examination. The mid semester examination is a
closed book examination and has 40% weightage in the final grades, while end
semester examination is an open book comprehensive examination and
accounts for remaining 60% weightage in the final grades.
Since candidates are full time employees, there might be situation where the
candidates might be unable to appear for the regular exams, so as to be
flexible the organization offers a very inflexible option of appearing in make up
exams for both mid semester closed book and end semester comprehensive
open book examination which are scheduled a week after the end of regular
end semester exams. It’s inflexible as to take make up exam one need prior
approval from the TTD, which involves totally another difficult and many a
times fruitless process of convincing the TTD WASE coordinators.
According to BITS, Pilani policy every candidate enrolled for the program is
awarded a grade sheet at the end of every semester examination and a degree
transcript after completing the program successfully. According to education
policy and directives issued by Department of Higher Education under Ministry
of Human Resource Development, Government of India its illegal to deny the
candidates of the grade sheet, degree transcript, certificate of completion or
any academic status report or academic award dossier issued by the awarding
body i.e. university, college, school or by any intermediate facilitating body.
But according to Wipro Technologies Ltd, policies pertaining to WASE, the
Indian laws are clearly violated as per this policy WASEians are not distributed
any of the grade sheets awarded to them by BITS, Pilani until the candidates
complete the whole program i.e. generally after 48 months. The policy is such
that even incase of WASEians resigning or being terminated by the organization
itself the WASEians are not awarded any certificate of association with the
organization, nor a certificate of association with BITS, Pilani, neither handed
over any grade sheets for completed semesters already awarded to them by
BITS, Pilani. It also makes it hard for WASEians to give their GRE exams
required for enrolling in the MS programs abroad, as GRE requires 16 years of
formal education, which one can be otherwise acquired by pursuing first year
of MCA, M.Sc programs rather than opting for WASE . The implications are
huge; the nation is deprived of the technological, socio economical benefits it
could have gained, if some of these talented candidates who aspire and are
very much equipped to take up advanced higher studies in areas of high
technology in US or any where abroad were not depraved of the enabling
environment. The policy very well depicts the trust, the respect, the
empowerment WASEians enjoy in the organization.
The policies are very discriminating, as these polices deny the respect for
individuals, dignity, to WASEians as compared to normal employees. Another
thing to be noted is there were and are no WASEians ever involved directly or
indirectly in formulation and review of these policies even though they are
directly impacted by them. Almost 1700 WASEians are impacted by these
policies and they have no say in these policies, not even their feedback. A very
dictatorial approach is followed while formulating these policies as no
organization wide employee referendum, open house for WASEians are ever
conducted to get their feedback on these policies. Another thing to be noted is
even the WASE policies pertaining to academic affairs are formulated not by
academicians accredited by superior facto de uno authorities i.e. Government
of India’s Ministry Of HRD – Department of Education as incase of all
universities and other academic institutes, but by the Human Resource
Managers at Wipro Technologies Ltd. What needs to be answered is how does a
MBA degree, or being an experiences qualified corporate trainer makes an
individual equivalent to an academician responsible for university academic
affairs? The integrity, legitimacy, moral and ethical status of these policies is
very questionable.
There are policies which are just face value policies; they have never or rarely
been exercised. Even in cases where these policies are violated in mass. For
example, the policy pertaining to minimum criteria for clearing PRP and FRP
i.e. 80% score in the PRP and FRP examination, failure to which would lead
termination of the candidature has never ever been exercised, even with a high
rate of failure in these exams.
The policies only apply for WASEians, while any small violation of policy by
WASEians attract dire consequences on the other hand any shortcoming or
violation of policy by TTD is ignored and never questioned even by TTD heads
Mr. D. Selvan and HR Vice president Mr. Pratik Kumar. For instance in Bangalore
it was clearly an integrity issue according to WASE policy when almost 70% of
the WASE students of all batches were caught red handed for proxy
attendances in 2006, but yet these students were allowed to continue, it’s a
violation of policy people not satisfying 75% attendance by 2 days were allowed
to appear for semester exams, while students with 3 days short were
victimized and not allowed to appear for semester exams. These decisions
were independently taken by Mrs. Annapoorna Gopal (TTD WASE Coordinator)
and Mr. Kuruvilla Sebi Kumar (TTD WASE Coordinator), yet no penalty was
levied on them for violation of policies, while 22 WASEians were heavily taxed
for working in the interest of the organization.
There are some unwritten policies like denial of Grade sheets to the WASEians
until 4 years i.e. until completion of the WASE program. The policy is not
present in the bond, neither on corporate website, but is widely practiced, the
reason being, explicitly stating such policy could attract major legal
implications for the organization and symbolize bonded slavery.
The policy pertaining to the overtime benefits, client’s performance incentives,
bonuses for WASEians are also not defined are manipulated and reverted soon
after on website in case of status quo. These are practiced on the case to case
basis if the some practices wish to distribute these allowances it does -
unofficially, while other practices might not.
The Employment:
The BITS, Pilani policy clearly indicate that all candidates undergoing Distance
Learning Program or Collaborative Program are full time employees with the
organization and also are full time students with BITS, Pilani. The status of
WASEians in Wipro Technologies Ltd is more of pseudo students and pseudo
employees. The designation of the WASEians in the organization is Student –
Computer Applications. Such an arrangement is made to clearly discriminate
WASEians from normal full time employees. This enables the organization to
extract full time occupation at cheap labor rates in the name of education as
the status given to WASEians in the organization is just that of student. Again
the status of student is clearly misused as WASEians are involved in full time
employment and there is hardly any aspect of studentship in the whole
instrument, as one day of academic contact sessions i.e. Saturday classes for
M.S. makes a WASEian a full time student, while five days of full time work
doesn’t make WASEians a full time employee.
The whole ideology behind this program is so unethical and cheap since WASE is
the only collaborative program in the industry where the organization extracts
full time work from the WASEians and yet label them as “Student – Computer
Application” and treat them as students/trainees when it comes to salary,
benefits, organizational growth and opportunities, professional experience
certificate. On the contrary other contemporary large India and foreign IT MNC
like Cognizant Technology System, Patni Computers, HCL Technologies, and
Mahindra British Telecom all are running the same collaborative program with
BITS, Pilani and yet their candidates are treated, respected, and evaluated as
normal employees in all academic and professional aspects of the program in
the organization.
1. The fact that most of the projects with all Indian IT majors are mostly
Maintenance and Testing projects, which actually account to 70% of the
total projects.
2. Emerging patterns and trends in the job market. Heavy recruitment just for
maintenance and testing projects.
3. Longer time span of the project and commitment between the
stakeholders.
4. The input resources for maintenance and testing projects are cheaper than
that required for development project which requires technically sound &
experienced human resource which is scarce and costly.
To somehow deal with this problem internally, there is a Wipro Technologies Ltd
policy which states any employee engaged in a client project as a non billable
resource for three or more months would be released from the client project.
This policy is utilized by moving non billable resources primarily (WASEians)
from one project to another after every three months. Keeping some WASEians
as non billable resources or on bench for prolonged periods in the organization
doesn’t hurt organizations pocket as WASEians are anyways cheap labor and
bonded slaves.
The policy and its practice otherwise is more or less in place for regular
employees. All the above mentioned opportunities are available for normal
employees as a fundamental right. Even after completing 2-3 years in WASE,
normal employees even if fresher are always given the first preference when it
comes to career opportunities like onsite, managerial – business roles, and
technically rewarding project. The number of onsite opportunities for WASEians
are almost negligible at least not until one passes out, again nothing is
guaranteed even after that. It takes almost another six months after
completion of the four years long course to get an OOC banding for onsite
opportunity in Wipro Technologies Ltd. The technical & managerial expertise
acquired by the most average WASEians over a period 1-2 years after joining
WASE, after being exposed to a very competitive corporate environment makes
them equivalent to their counterparts B.E./B.Tech but the organization decides
to pretend its not so. Acknowledging such a fact would be an organizational
suicide of corporate philosophies and “The Spirit of Wipro” - “feels good, feel
connected, feel cared for” propaganda, as these philosophies claim equality &
respect for individuals, Value & Integrity in all maters of corporate affairs. It’s
totally against the virtue of Integrity, Value, Equality and Respect of Individuals
that WASEians should be denied fair opportunities in the organization,
discriminated and denied the acknowledgement to their efforts which are no
possible ways less both in quantity and quality as compared to any other
employees.
The experience certificate that WASEians receive after four years of the WASE
program, which involved full time occupation, clearly states the WASEians
association with the organization as nothing more than as “Student – Computer
Application”, it’s a plain vanilla certificate stating that so and so was
associated with Wipro Technologies Ltd for a period of four years as Student –
Computer Application and nothing more. These certificates many a times
doesn’t serve any purpose at all as one applies for job or higher education as
these organization and institutes wouldn’t count it as professional experience
as they have no option but go by the language on the certificate.
The question is it ethical and morally upright behavior on the part of the
organization not to acknowledge the services individuals offered to the
organization, no matter what designation that individual had in the
organization? Should designation be used as the criteria to establish the
legitimacy of the contribution/service of an individual offered to the
organization over the years? If that’s the case one could have any title in the
organization and yet no contribution. So by stating this point, are we trying to
say what normal employees perform over a five day week is call full time work
experience, while what WASEians do over a five day week is same as what
normal employees, then on what basis same is not acknowledged by the
organization? These are some very fundamental and important question in any
organization, and if not justified on ethical and morally upright ground leads to
social injustice.
The Onsite:
Onsite Opportunities / Onsite Trainings / Client Interaction and Job profiles like
Requirement Gathering / Analysis, Business Development Practices are core
part of the learning processes of any software professional. It enables
employees to develop a cosmopolitan outlook empowering them to deal with
clients from all over the world, giving them insight about their culture,
business practices. Such exposure helps employees to grow and further capture
more business for the organization.
The Accommodation:
Many WASEian live in shanty houses in the cheapest neighborhoods in the city
like (Audogodi), the rents in even these localities is as high as $65 per Person
per Month on sharing basis for a rented house; others find accommodation in
cities cheapest, insecure paying guest accommodations in the city. Some of
these paying guest accommodations are in form a large room with 5 – 10 bunker
beds arranged sequentially in the same room, resembling an army barrack,
these rooms are generally are not equipped with any cupboards a cupboard
would cost a bit extra, and have shared bathroom arrangements and yet come
on rent as high as $45/bed. Most of these paying guests accommodation also
provide meal facilities which include breakfast, lunch and dinner for its tenet’s
but at an extra cost ranging between $23/Month - $35/Month. The food served
is mostly south Indian delicacies. These paying guest are not the most secure
accommodation in the city, as indicated by many reports of harassment,
violence and violation of privacy by the paying guest management and owners,
theft of belongings of the tenet’s, brawls amongst room mates that have been
surfacing on almost daily basis.
There are decent localities in Bangalore with lower rentals almost as low as
33% - 50% lower rentals than the in city neighborhoods but are generally
situated very far away from the city centre or in the outskirts of the city. These
localities though have decent number market places, and are pretty well
connected to the rest of the city, lack recreational facilities, have limited
number of eating joints, cafes etc. So on an average generally one has to
anyways travel to in city localities for recreational activities etc almost once or
twice a week. Apart most importantly these localities are really far away from
employee’s office, and considering Bangalore’s inefficient and insufficient
public transport system, road networks and its condition and volume of traffic
simply implies awfully long and wasteful traveling time for the employees.
Some of these localities in Bangalore are Hosur, Bannerghetta, Rajaji Nagar,
and Whitefield – Hoodi Village, Thipasandra. These accommodations are
certainly cheap as compared to rental in the in city locations for instance a 1
BHK in these localities would be in the range $77/Month - $100/Month, while a
2 BHK would be in the range $145/Month - $215/Month.
Most of the well settled, well equipped good localities in Bangalore are located
around the city centre and are close to employee’s office and are also pretty
well connected with almost all parts of Bangalore. These locations flaunt
comparatively cleaner and greener surroundings, parks, lots of multi cuisine
eating joints and restaurants, pubs, market places, malls, internet cafes, cafes
and other recreational facilities like multiplexes, bowling joints, clubs, sports
clubs etc but all of this come at a premium price, which is generally difficult to
afford in WASE stipend. Some of such localities are Koramangala, Indranagar,
Jayanagar, J.P. Nagar, M.G. Road and BTM. A decent accommodation for one on
sharing basis in a rented house in these localities costs in the range of
$67/Person per Month - $88/Person per Month, apart from an initial security
deposit cost which is ten months of the accommodation rent. Another problem
is as WASEians are not eligible for a relocation benefits and considering their
low stipends they are not eligible for housing loans at least in first two years of
WASE It is problem since to rent a house in Bangalore one requires to pay ten
month rent in advance which leaves WASEians either to live in cheapest
possible paying guest accommodations or rent a house in localities situated
really far of from the office, sometimes even in outskirts of the city. Living in
distant localities in a city like Bangalore with high volume of traffic and no
metro railway system and buses as the only means of mass transport can mean
a waste of time at least 1.5 Hours – 3 Hours daily.
House $ Security
S.No
Category Rental/Month Deposit
$1110 -
1 1BHK $111 - $200
$2000
$1560 -
2 2BHK $156 - $311
$3110
$2110 -
3 3BHK $211 - $444
$4440
These are 2004 -2005 indicative
Note figures. The true figure might differ
slightly.
The Lifestyle:
The low salary seriously affects the life style of the WASEians which can be
observed in their eating, clothing, leisure activities. The candidates are left
with no savings for the future, no excessive money for leisure and relaxing.
Lets take-up the general not explicit psychology and the economical factors
aspect to something as simple as the dress up of the WASEians. The dress up
which includes not just clothing but also the way one carries himself, the
attitude, the maturity of most such candidates is cheap, naïve and pretty
unprofessional. Generally in the first two years of the WASE program its not
very uncommon to find dressed up college in classics flaunting a jeans and a un
tucked tee shirts, sport shoes at times even floaters all through the week,
which is pretty ok but when coupled with the unprofessional, still in college
attitude, it’s totally out of sync with the business environment. One reason for
that is the attitude, the philosophy that is imposed on the organization by
designating them as students, makes them believe they are yet not out of
college, the professionalism, the maturity which these candidates are supposed
to develop after three years of professional graduate studies is generally
suppressed. Economically speaking such dress up is multi purpose, while just
owning a formal get up which would generally be used only 4 days a week and
only at office would be a little costly option. These implications are not so
explicit and are rather psychological effects that happen in the back of any
individuals mind.
A pattern has been discovered where WASEians shy away from group team
activities in the organization which would require investment from one’s own
pocket. With meager income even the most outgoing WASEians are forced to
transform into introverts, as limited income and stringent budgeting means
heavily cutting down of social activities and hobbies, which seriously hampers
individuals’ growth in life. It’s the period between 18 – 25 age i.e. college
period to early professional career period is when most human beings generally
travel, develop new hobbies and experiment, develop sporting skills this period
is the character defining period, as the habits, skills embodied in this period
become the personally traits of the individuals through out their life. This
doesn’t mean people stop experimenting, exploring and learning after 25, it’s a
continuous process and spans ones life time, but the above mentioned period is
very defining in an individuals’ life. The lifestyle imposed by the WASE program
and its limitations in form of low salary, exploitation of human beings has deep
impact on the personality development process of the WASEians. While normal
employees in the age group 22 – 25 easily afford (in terms of time as well as
monetarily) hobbies like traveling, music, movies, art, theatre, sports, gym,
swimming, photography WASEians generally are restricted to home watching
televisions (if they possess one) owing to their financial incapability as imposed
by their low salary, non enabling environment imposed by bonded slavery like
organizational practices, leave WASEians handicapped to experiment and
explore any opportunities within and outside the organization.
The Compensation:
Salary, Scholarship, Stipend are the synonyms used for the compensation paid
to WASEians for occupational activities almost 200Hrs/Month (i.e. 9Hrs/Day *
5Days/Week * 4Weeks/Month) directed towards achieving business goals of the
organization, as done by any other normal employee in the organization. These
synonyms are used interchangeably by the organization on a day to day basis as
the role of pseudo student change to employees and vice versa. The words
salary and scholarship are used interchangeably by the organizations; it’s a
smart policy as it leaves no room for debates over the compensation i.e. any
demands for hike in salary by the WASE employee or in other words a demand
for raise in the scholarship by the WASE students. It’s hard to believe that any
market analysis was conducted before arriving at the compensation, factors
like inflation, rate of growth of economy, rising cost of living, competitive
market compensation for similar candidates in other organization are not taken
into consideration. The expensive options like saving and investing for a
secured future are unimaginable with such a stipend which is not even enough
to sustain the most modest and basic lifestyle. It actually makes one wonder
whether a career as software professional is such a good idea. In short WASE is
four years of poverty and extreme financial and associated hardship for the
candidates and perhaps also for their families.
WASEians aren’t eligible for any performance incentives, bonuses, market rate
correction compensations, and appraisal. Even the overtime benefit i.e.
reimbursement of $1.6 towards dinner for working beyond 18:00 Hours is
denied to the WASEians while normal employees are eligible for it all as their
fundamental right. What more the benefits from the clients like night shift
allowance, performance incentives, project bonuses, overtime benefits are
generally denied to WASEians, these policies are manipulated in real-time as
and when required, any dispute related to allowances are changed and are
reflected on the organization website immediately and then reversed soon
after. One can say policies and processes are dynamic and flexible. The yearly
hikes which range between 10% – 20% for normal employees is denied to the
WASEians. There is yearly hike of around $22/Month - $33/Month in the WASE
salaries, but considering the inflation and raised purchasing parity doesn’t add
up to anything, and doesn’t really raise the standard of living and lifestyle of
WASEians . But the fact is Indian economy has seen quantum leaps in past 3 - 4
of years 2002 - 2006, resulting in a high inflation rate owing to high purchasing
parity. The inflation rate is averaged around 7% - 8% continuously. The property
prices have changed almost 50% - 100% in years 2004 – 2006. The residential
rental rates in Bangalore go up by almost 10% every year in as a trend. In such
an economy which is growing exponentially the stipend given to the WASEians
and the yearly hikes in the stipend are not sufficient. More so the WASE
scholarship is taxable. In what country of the world scholarships are taxable?
The stipend is not even sufficient to provide for most basic of needs. As a
resort to ending financial hardship most WASEians end up borrowing from their
families, which defeat the purpose as many a time many of these students are
here to get quality education which they wouldn’t be able to pursue otherwise.
Other WASEians who owing to self pride or poor family financial conditions end
up taking excessive loans from bank, higher utilization of credit cards and as a
result many a times end up as defaulters owing to non payment of credit thus
landing themselves into legal problems.
The WASE stipend for the first two years is in range $126 - $166 which is even
less than $179 spent towards sustaining even the basic needs. The indicated
cost towards monthly food budget is the cost of three meals/ Day at
organizations cafeteria, which is pretty subsidized and, doesn’t include cost
incurred for snacks and drinks or a meal in restaurants outside. The budget
doesn’t include expenses incurred by the WASEians for books and reading
material to be purchased by them, considering the organizational library are ill
equipped to cater to 700 odd student from one batch itself. The budget also
doesn’t include any cost towards clothing expenses, leisure activities,
entertainment expenses, and traveling expenses on an average two round trip
to native place. As many of the candidates are from north India and India being
a vast country, and considering only 15 Days/Annum of permissible leaves to
adjust from, traveling by rail is a time consuming means of transportation, on
an average would cut your trip short by 2 -2.5 days short in one direction, thus
leaving only air travel the only suitable option, which again even with no frill
airlines in picture is an expensive option considering the meager stipend and
absolutely no savings.
The Benefits:
The Other Benefits In Other Firms Offering Such Collaborative Programs Are:
The Implications:
The point, the fact that the company is investing money is WASE program; is
the reason for creating disparity between non WASE employees and WASE
employees is unjustified. The organization also invests in the MBA program
from Symbiosis, PGSM from IIMB, MS Microelectronics from BITS, Pilani, but
those employees are compensated on industry standard rates & eligible for all
other company benefits. The cost incurred by the organization in offering the
above mentioned collaborative programs would be in the same range as that of
WASE. But it’ll be an organizational suicide if Wipro Technologies Ltd decides to
treat its normal employees like WASEians. Also to be noted is that the
investment by the organization into WASE is not from its kitty, if one calculates
it’s a deduction from the anyways underpaid WASE stipend. What is also not
acknowledged and accounted for is the business created or accomplished by
the WASEians working as full time employees in the organization like any other
employee. Another thing that needs to be noted is that there is no
transparency in the claims about the amount of investment that the
organization swears on running the WASE program. The transparency of the
whole process is being questioned because of the fact that no Account balance
sheet, exclusively indicating the cost incurred by the organization in running
WASE program, has ever been released. Also, what needs to be thought about is
if the organization claims that it invests for 4 years into the WASE program,
then why doesn’t organization have a WASE retention policy after 4 years, to
reap on the return on investment. Almost 98% WASEians leave the organization
in the 5th year i.e. immediately after completing the WASE program. The
reasons for such an alarming attrition rate have been discussed later in this
paper. The fact is return on investment which is 4.2 times more than the
normal employee which the company reaps during 4 year WASE is never
acknowledged.
(I.e. $494/6Months)
(I.e. $326/6Months)
Considering these are just rough estimates, and the fact that the facilities
are owned by Wipro Technologies, thus the infrastructure rent is
considerably less.
$ $ Total
Batch Students
Salary/Student Salary
2002 70 $344 $24080
2003 230 $211 $48530
2004 690 $167 $115230
2005 680 $144 $97920
Total 1670 $866 $285760
Total Cost to the Organization per WASE Batch (i.e. 4 Years) = $22,406,912
($8.8/Day Average Salary * 365Days/Year * 4Years/Batch * 1744 WASEians =
$22,406,912)
Wipro Wipro
Industry
Charges Charges
Years Of Pay To
From Wipro From Wipro Pays To
Experience Equivalent
Clients Pays To Clients BE/B.Tech/MCA
No. Of Candidate
Average WASEian Average Average Pay
Years Into s
$/Day $/Day $/Day $/Day
WASE (WASE) $/
For For
Day
WASEians Engineers
0-1 $40 $4.5 $10 $60 $15
1-2 $60 $5.5 $12 $80 $20
2-3 $100 $7.03 $14 $225 $31
3-4 $275 $11.4 $25 $300 $40
4-5 $450 $18.15 $51 $450 $48
Note These are 2004 -2005 indicative figures. The true figure might
differ slightly.
The obvious reasons why the WASEians leave the company after the completion
of their program are stated below:
1. Previous accomplishments are not considered and they have to start ground
zero in the organization again. The organization differentiates 4 years full
time employment by WASEians from 4 years full time employment that of
normal employees. So incase one has to start afresh in an organization why
not join a new better organization.
2. What would take five years for a normal employee even B.Sc. graduate to
get a red band in Wipro Technologies Ltd would take WASEians 9 years in
total i.e. 4 years of the WASE program and five years of services.
3. It takes another six months in the organization after completing four years
program to get Onsite Opportunity Career banding, which makes one
eligible for long term onsite opportunity.
4. After successful completion of the WASE program of 4 years, they are
absorbed into B1 as employees. Assessed for B2 in next progression cycle or
six months which ever is later? Fresh B.Tech candidate is absorbed into band
B1 after confirmation i.e. one year of service, for the same it would take 5
years.
5. The compensation after completing WASE program offered to WASEians is
ridiculously low. The compensation offered to an average WASE pass out in
2004 was a mere $6666/Annum in Wipro Technologies Ltd, while for the
same candidate the industry pays $16000/Annum.
6. It makes more sense for WASEians to move out after four years of human
abuse and exploitation, suffering and humiliation in the organization.
7. The policies of the WASE era has adversely impacted and would continue to
impact WASEians in future in the form missed opportunities (onsite,
academic growth, technical and managerial growth) which are widely
denied to WASEians in one form or other in the 4 years of the program,
wastage of time (1-2 years) due to penalties in form of prolongation of the
program, incase of many female candidate unfruitful winding up of crucial
growth period of their life in the WASE program which one expected as a
period of learning, growth and development, as most of them reach an
average age of 25 – 26 years by the end of the WASE program, that as per
Indian standards is the new standard marriage age in urban India generally
leads to a gap in their career life and in many cases even end of their
career life without any major accomplishment just at the time of reaping
any benefits of this four year long program.
To understand the stake of each party involved and responsible for the
corrosion of a novel idea the need for a detailed and independent
organizational study is become an utmost necessity before it leads to any
further degradation of the society, its value system and before any more talent
and young lives are wasted. Though this case study does take the initiative to
suggest remedies and ask questions which need to be answered, but in no way
it’s a complete study as a lot more would go in understanding the social, legal
implication of such instruments. Primarily the remedies would come about
with:
Primary Remedies:
By adopting 3+1 degree structures like [B.Sc (3Years) + (Honors Years) (1 Year)]
BITS, Pilani has done great by expanding, entrepreneuring and making a bigger
presence in industry and reaching out to wider masses. But what needs to be
realized is such expansion shouldn’t be at the cost of brand equity that it has
created for itself in past. The expansion shouldn’t be at the cost of quality of
academic affairs. In case of collaborative program such as WASE, the short
coming of BITS, Pilani are failure of BITS to provide the same standards of
academic for collaborative program as for its on-campus program.
The WASE program needs serious remodeling to bridge the gap what industry
demands, it needs to focus on developing intellectual scientific wealth,
promote collaboration amongst individuals, and promote entrepreneurship
amongst it students. The unique selling point of WASE needs to be redefined, it
needs to be repackaged and remarketed, what needs another look is the
duration of course, content of the course, research and development
components. The course should be future oriented, should be more than just
what industry demands right now, it should have strong research and
development, innovation components so as to become a driver for future
technological revolution. All this can be achieved by following
1. Higher degree of direct involvement of BITS with the students in DLP and
collaborative programs, strictly identifying and implementing standard
invariant policies across all collaborative programs in different organization.
2. Define a process of segregating academic affairs from organization affairs,
all academic affairs like attendance, fees, exams, curriculum, duration of
the programs, faculty selection, timetable, contact sessions should be under
direct and complete jurisdiction of BITS, while organization affairs like
occupational activity, organizational growth, etc should be under direct and
complete jurisdiction of the organization.
3. Implementing check procedures against organization so that collaborative
programs are not misused by organization as an instrument of bonded labor,
slavery, instrument of misusing gaps in the labor laws.
4. Collaborate with students already in the industry i.e. students of
collaborative program, and not just the organizations, to innovate, to drive
a new technological revolution.
5. Same selection process, guidelines and eligibility for faculty as done for on-
campus faculty.
6. Define the maximum number of working hours for students to prevent
misuse of labor laws especially incase the organization designate the
candidates in these collaborative program as students rather than full time
employees, for instance as in Wipro Technologies Ltd.
7. Reducing the duration of the course to three years. That’ll make the course
more intense, more demanding. It’ll increase the turn around time, the
pace of the cycles of sculpting the raw man power into highly technical
readily deployable manpower.
8. Make the course more advanced, basic refresher courses can be compressed
into first year of the course while reserving second year of the course for
management and software engineering subjects and final year of the course
for advanced computer science courses like AI, Neural Networks, Modeling
and Simulation, Computational finance, Computational Science And
Engineering and reserving final semester for dissertation.
9. Also give students the option of completing dissertation at BITS campus, or
other national and international Research and development institutes and
universities. Introduce more research and entrepreneur component in the
program.
10.Provide a centralized resource and knowledge portal for on campus, off
campus DLP and collaborative program students.
11.BITS need to be more responsible and answerable directly to the students in
collaborative program. There should be a grievance and complaint helpdesk
for to address students issues related to corporate abuse and exploitation,
corporate mal practices apart from academic issues.
The international clients are totally ignorant about the labor practices in Wipro
Technologies Ltd. The misuse of labor by terming them as students and
extracting full time work out of them under a bond is totally hidden from the
clients so are the malpractices like non billable WASEians being deployed in
client projects working as shadows, underpaying labor largely by terming them
as students so as in interest of their own profit, misusing the fact that large
pool of talented human resource is available for employment at dirt cheap
rates, thus hurting the national interest. What organization offering business to
companies like Wipro Technologies Ltd can do is come in agreement with them
on the terms and condition of the treatment labor being deployed in their
project according to well defined international standards pertaining to labor
laws, labor wages and benefits. What international firm can do without is
pretending to be blind to such malpractices by them or their clients in the
name of business as the western economies have a rich history and have
already seen rise and fall of slavery and bonded labor and great reforms in
their labor laws.
What these associations like NASSCOM can do is collaborate with labor research
institutes of national and international relevance, collaborate with
international IT associations and organize the IT sector, by defining guidelines
and standards for Indian IT firms inline with international labor laws and best
industry practices. These guidelines should define the relation between the
education, experience, competency and minimum benefits associated with it.
Also define the framework for such collaboration between academic institutes
and industry to prevent any malpractices owing to non existence of laws.
The problem is not with just the philosophy of the program but with the whole
organizational philosophy. The half hearted and hypocritical approach towards
principles like values, integrity, respect for individuals. What lacks is the
universal feeling on the part of the employees that they are honored, they are
respected and it’s shouldn’t be based on what degree you have and from what
school or what rank or title you have. What really matters is you are part of the
team, and what can you contribute and are you doing your job. It’s about
realizing the fact that people’s actions are directed towards achieving their
own aspirations. People should have some part in making the decisions, which
they are going to be involved with, so as they can more effectively implement
them. The top management should set the overall objectives and goals and
then get out of the way and let the people do their jobs. As it’s these engineers
who are involved in the development of products, they should develop qualities
to take ownership and responsibility of their actions, to implement and
contribute more effectively. The decision making should be at the lowest
possible level.
The exploitation of human beings, unethical labor practices under the cover of
education should stop. The only ethically and morally right way around is
acknowledging the fact that WASEians are full time employees contributing in
whole to the business of the organization as any other employee in the
organization and they also undergo full time educations on i.e. officially
holiday i.e. Saturdays on their own free will for which the organization just
acts as a facilitator rather than policing body. Such acknowledgement would
certainly lead to change of status of WASEians from students to full time
employees, revised compensation in line with the industry, revisions in the
banding structure and career growth plans. The WASE program should have an
outcome that 100% of these well groomed candidates take on major technical
and managerial roles in the organizations or else be successful entrepreneurs
outside. They should demonstrate leadership and make global impact,
contribute to the community.
The Training:
Wipro Technologies Ltd can work out a training collaboration with CDAC for
world class advanced training; the training would be then oriented towards a
sought after diploma from CDAC, there by instilling the candidates with
advanced knowledge and making them highly qualified. The trainings could also
be directed towards various certifications like Sun, Rational, and Oracle etc.
A 2-3 months project oriented activity can be introduced at the end of the
training. The projects should be more focused towards research and
development, oriented towards a product. Teams of 50 -100 candidates can be
developed and given an overall goals and objectives, empowered with tools,
delegated responsibilities, allowed to simulate and experience the project
environment. It’ll teach candidates to collaborate, understand team work, and
understand business dynamics. It’ll empower them to make decisions, take
leadership and responsibility, make contribution, and take the stage. It’ll instill
in the candidates confidence, ownership, risk taking and decision making
qualities. It’ll lead to innovation; it’ll lead to a product, as a by product.
The Policies:
The Employment:
The Stipend:
The Cost:
As per the BITS, Pilani policy i.e. the organization is not liable to pay the
candidates fees for the educational program, unless organization feels an
obligation to sponsor the candidates out of its will, the candidate being a full
time employee with the organization is supposed to bear the cost of education,
while the organization is liable to pay the candidate for their services. The
cost of $50 per WASEian per Month incurred by the organization for facilitating
WASE program if calculated and analyzed is actually deducted from the
anyways underpaid salary. Also when the organization is also investing in other
training programs like M.S. Microelectronics from BITS, M.B.A from Symbiosis,
and PGDSM from IIMB for normal employees and there is no disparity between
candidates undergoing these programs and other employees, so morally there
shouldn’t be any discrimination with WASEians also.
Total Cost to the Organization per WASE Batch (i.e. 4 Years) = $22,406,912
($8.8/Day Average Salary * 365Days/Year * 4Years/Batch * 1744 WASEians =
$22,406,912)
Total Income of the Organization per WASE Batch (i.e. 4 Years) =
$481,344,000
($230 /Day Charge from Client* 300Days/Year * 4Years/Batch * 1744 WASEians =
$481,344,000)
I. MS by BITS Pilani?
1. Knowledge being imparted in the course DOES NOT gives us the feeling that
we are doing MS from an institution as reputed as BITS Pilani, that too in
collaboration with Wipro Technologies – which provides an excellent
exposure to the latest practices, technologies and tools available in the
market.
2. The theoretical knowledge imparted by the faculty in the class is
sometimes even below than what we studied at the bachelor’s level.
3. This is considered at par with on-campus program, we at least expect
exposure and strength of curriculum, standard of examinations conducted
and quality of students enrolled to be at par.
4. No practical labs. Expect us to learn programming in languages like C, JAVA,
etc without labs. Computers in the training rooms are switched off or not all
the computers have necessary softwares for people to practice. LAB
sessions should be conducted. We suggest 1 hr theory + 1 hr lab for such
classes considering that syllabus is not too vast and people grab faster
with practicals.
5. Management says it is on job training but does not realize that not all are
working on same technology what they are learning in their current
semester. Some may not even have access to those softwares for practice
and no one is expected to do their course-related practice on client
machines.
Infrastructure?
Quality of faculties?
Quality of students?
a. 2002 – 94
b. 2003 – 264
c. 2004 - 706
d. 2005 – 680
2. Quality of intake has been affected. Eligibility criteria like minimum 65%,
Mathematics in graduation, etc exist only on papers. Many people were
identified failing in such criteria but were allowed.
3. Quality of written examinations, technical interviews and HR rounds had
degraded badly. Earlier it was a pride to be through; now it is anyone and
everyone.
Extra initiatives
1. Earlier system was automated which used to give score on click of a button.
From 2005 batch onwards, the system only mentioned CLEARED/NOT
CLEARED. Marks were announced the next day. (No data available to cross-
check even if a student is sure to be through). Decreases transparency and
gives power in hands of management to decide anything as no one is aware
of anything.
2. Minimum 80% pass-marks brought down to 70%.
3. It was 80% minimum in both independently. Need to pass FRP for PRP
exams. Now, they made it an average of both exams to be above 70%.
4. Earlier when people failed in FRP/PRP, they were asked to leave the
organization. For 2004 batch, they were asked to continue with no
increment for 3 months. For 2005 batch, they were asked to continue with
no increment for 3 months and extended bond period of 6 months.
5. Faculties answers different from answers written in slides/notes provided.
Not sure which one is right choice.
6. At the end of the day, not a single student was asked to quit on basis of
failure in FRP/PRP. The basis of existence of such trainings and policies
come into question.
1. In some of the cases, the level of education imparted by the faculty has
been very low and unsatisfactory. If the contact sessions are so ineffective,
then their relevance is seriously questionable.
2. By consuming our time on Saturdays, these contact sessions waste the
precious little time we are left with for self study after working throughout
the week in office.
3. BITS has no minimum 75% criteria. So, either the quality of contact
sessions should be improved or we should not be forced to attend the
classes.
4. We feel that when we are doing a post-graduation, it is not about reading
slides and scoring marks. As a student of MS, I am expected to cover the
portions for myself. Faculties are there to give brief overview of problem
and explain them in terms of case studies and assignments. Do you think
students, who have been selected as best of graduates from best of colleges
by WIPRO's quality intake policy, aren't capable enough to read
slides/books for themselves and understand the subject? Don't you think
what they want is extra knowledge which they have accumulated by years
of teaching expertise and not what is written in books? Please improve the
ever-falling standard of MS. It is impacting the name and fame of BITS +
WIPRO.
1. The course is expected to be over in four years. Inspite of delays for senior
batches, repeated reminders/queries to TTD on delays, complete statistics
showing that delays are just prolonging instead of coming down, there is no
proper response from TTD except promises that they are in discussion with
BITS on schedule.(for past don’t know how many months) and things should
go better.
2. WASEians are not even aware of policies in affect during extended period
and TTD is failing to provide even that in terms of Bond (which expires in
August, 2008), salary in extended period (as we have defined salary only
upto August, 2008), year and duration of completion in the MS degree
certificate, and any other policies(implicit or explicit) in effect which
affect us directly or indirectly.
1. VI.POLICIES
CONFLICT: Why students, who were asked to refrain from writing 3rd
semester, not allowed to continue the 4th with a Not Cleared cert for 3rd.
(This makes them lose only 6 months. Asking them to continue their 3rd
with juniors assure them a complete one year). What are they going to do
for one full semester when juniors are doing their second semester?
3. BITS Policy says that this program is for employees of an organization where
the organization is willing to sponsor their program. (refer page V-4,5,7,37
of BITS Bulletin 2003-2004)
CONFLICT: WIPRO says we are students and not employees of WIPRO. Thus
we cease to be a part of this program altogether. Who are we?
4. Appointment letter says that we have our study hours from Monday to
Friday.
5. Policy says that if a student is not able to attend classes for official reasons
including onsite travel, he needs the approval of PM/TM and TTD and his
case would be considered on official grounds.
CONFLICT: Why TTD tries all possible ways to refrain WASEians to go onsite
or work on weekends (for releases possible only on weekends)? What is the
basis of attendance issue when we do have a policy in place to take care of
it?
IX. ANSWERS
Most of these queries and problems have already been informed to the TED
and the TT. The open houses were conducted, promises given but the
answers never come out from them. All that we hear is "Have been
escalated", "Things are in Progress", "We will work on the same". In an
organization like ours we expected issues to be resolved sooner and
especially when they are affecting around 1700 people. In the Q&A
session Pratik said they'll come back to us in 2 week's time. Its 2 months
now and there has been no communication yet.
X. WHERE DO WE STAND?
When we compare ourselves to the fraternity of people doing the same from
other companies like IBM, PATNI, HCL, CTS, MBT, Mindtree, etc.. Here are a
few of the major differences we feel.
Analyse for yourself and suggest why would cream-crowd prefer WIPRO to
others for this program. So this would be a short term concern of us WASEians
(that is another 2 yrs) but in the long-term, it’s WIPRO who might lose out on
this concept if corrective actions are not taken right now.
End Of Consolidated Issues.
Voice of a WASEian Regarding The program and the Sessions From A Student
From WASE, HDC .
From: joy
To: P.B. Kotur (WT01 - TALENT TRANSFORMATION & STAFFING)
Cc: 'Vinodkumar Bethi' ; pnr_bits@yahoo.co.in
Sent: Tuesday, February 15, 2005 10:59 AM
Subject: Voice of a 'Wase'ian! Reg. the program and the Sessions.
Dear Sir,
I am a WASE (2003) student. I had a few thoughts and I felt it best to share
them with you. This is obviously regarding the sessions we have during the
weekends. These are no complaints or grievances rather some suggestions
which I felt might generate some enthusiasm and participation during the
sessions. This comes after some exercise we had for the past two weeks during
the “Algorithm Design” classes. We had some of our friends giving seminars on
certain topics, which indeed was a welcome change.
What is happening now is definitely good. But I strongly feel it can be made
much better and being part of an organization, that is open for thoughts, I was
confident you will appreciate these suggestions. But why do I feel change is
needed?
(Please don’t mind the length of the mail. I will ensure I will make sense. First
I would like to express what I/we go through for 5 days of the week before we
step into the classes. Later I shall put forward some concerns and suggestions
regarding the weekend sessions)
1. Program Design:
1. The program is designed in such a way that we have to work (like any
other employee) for 5days of the week and study (like any other
student) for 1 day of the week. Simple math! (71.4% of the week - Work,
14.18% of the week – Student) So we are quickly juggling two roles,
demands of each of which are unmistakably high. Within 14.18% of the
week we need to change our garb because we need to wear exact garb
of an employee (work, talk and behave) for five days. It’s a competitive
environment and absolutely challenging. I swear it’s a great feeling
being a professional and still being called a student. Sincerely, it takes
all our mind, energy and commitment to excel at the place of work.
Most of the managers have expressed their satisfaction regarding our
deliverables. (At least from what we were told, assuming the frankness
of the senior managers who express the same) Now why I said all this is
to let you understand what happens with us when you are not with us
in our cubicles. Now, many good managers shoot ponderous questions.
Some of them:
3. WASE is a unique program. Which manager doesn’t boast about it? But
then, are many doing it?? One of them should be true (Many/unique)!
Well our seniors definitely are a hope for us that we can see it through.
Seniors! Who are they now? I never met and interacted with one until my
third month in Wipro when accidentally one of my colleagues pointed
out. Wipro always documents all it does to look back and learn and get
better. We would love to read their experiences (a living document) to
get some of our inexplicable doubts and problems sorted out. All
problems can’t be sorted out with the managers (trained to be
diplomats) but need some one, who has been through the problem
(he/she knows what it feels like in that shoe) Is it possible to think of a
possibility that our seniors could interact with us. I came to know from
some of my friends that in BITS they have a way to relate to their seniors
(ID pop and ID mom…. ID cousins and ….) Am I asking too much?? It’s
definitely not impossible with such latest technology to get people
together. Simple! You say – “Many have done it before!” I want to know
how they have done it before.
4. Live project/ dead project, what people look for is the satisfaction that
they created something that works. Normal employee or abnormal
employee (called students) will have the same expectations! From what
is clear many don’t get to work on the development projects (5/10% of
all may be lucky lot to be in one) I wish I could give the correct number.
Well the point is that the other 70/80/90% don’t get to be those lucky
ones. Some get to work constantly in development projects and some
are constantly deprived. In all it’s not a very great experience working
with Word and Excel all the 71% of the term in Wipro.
5. Finally we are young blood but still we need that consideration that any
other human gets. Thanks to WISH scheme. A breather indeed that
management realizes that young blood can still fall sick!
6. Session Design:
2. Lecture span: With all the stress we come to class and it’s very difficult
to focus our attention on 120 minutes of endless stream of words. Please
accept the realty Sir! With an attention span of a normal human being
some 30 minutes at most, how can a student be expected to give un-
divided total concentration? There definitely should be some way to
keep the attention of the student for the whole stretch of 120
minutes. I read somewhere – “Most people have an attention span in an
intensive situation such as flight instruction of little more than 10 to 15
minutes at best. Beyond this point nothing more is absorbed, thus
continued instruction beyond this point is wasted. The instructor must
learn to monitor the attention span of each student as each will have a
different attention span depending on many variables, including the
particular student, his disposition on the day, the stage of instruction
and not least, the expertise and behavior of the instructor.” I would
request you to reconsider the new parameter when absorbing a
lecturer for the next semester. The one who can make his point across
and keep the instruction interesting for 120 minutes. Please consider
this request on a very practical level. It is more important than having a
PhD in a subject or 15 years industrial experience. What’s the point if
he can’t deliver the knowledge, he/she has gathered? I am sure you
will not disagree that the lectures should be thought provoking.
3. Course Design: It’s great and well structured but not without a problem.
Let me take an example. We have a course “Object Oriented Design”;
the course assumes the prior knowledge of JAVA, most of us don’t work
with. Definitely when we are graded relatively then all should be graded
from the same base line, which has to be set, at least when making
assumptions like knowing a technology itself. Obviously a person who
knows JAVA is in a better position. Good managers say – “If you have the
drive you will learn it” we have two managers, one at office who
expects me to pick up one technology and one at my classes who asks
me to learn another by myself. Ultimately I need to have two drivers one
to drive me to learn one technology and the other to drive me to learn
another technology. There is a problem here – There are two drivers and
one driven! Consider the work hours in the S/W companies and the
number of hours he/she needs for himself and the time he/she spends
leaning two new technologies.
1. We can’t have all the softwares needed for our course on our systems at
the work place because of license problems. Please consider a Lab/hall
(dedicated for us) so that we can use the same to have any
discussions/practice sessions during the week. Most of our lecturers
expect us to practice but where is the platform to do that?
The chain exhibits the dynamics of the policy, how it is manipulated by TTD in
real-time to avoid confrontation and reverted back as matter becomes a cold
case.
FYI
From: Ashish Goyal (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT)
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 10:30 AM
To: Srilakshmi Kesari (WT01 - TALENT ENGAGEMENT & DEVELOPMENT)
Cc: Gujjari Achala (WT01 - Voice & Next Generation Networks)
Subject: RE: Rejected reimbursement claims for WASE-ians
Srilakshmi/Gujjari,
As per the policy, there are restrictions on the cash reimbursements that are
available for WASE students. If the claims have been allowed earlier, I am sorry
to say those have been infringements of the policy.
Regards,
Ashish
Hi Ashish,
For some guys the claims have been rejected but for some they have
been approved….Pls look into this.
Regards,
Srilakshmi Kesari
Associate -TED[Madhapur]
Ph-30795062/30792247
Hi,
Your claim: 9613011027 has been rejected for the following reason:
As per policy WASE-ians are not eligible for any cash reimbursements.
This is not the first time I have applied for reimbursement. Then, why is the
sudden change in policy? Does this mean WASE-ians are not eligible for any kind
of cash reimbursements further on?
Thanks Sumit,
With Regards
Sumit Agrawal
Mobile: 09886569141
There was a confusion on this. This has been resolved. Concerned processing
group has been advised to revise their stand.
Hello Sir
Till Last month we were doing the same, but today I got some forwarded mail
from our friends stating that there is a change in policy and now onwards we
are not entitled for the same.
Please Clarify.
Nitya,
All WASE students are eligible for reimbursement of expenses under the
early/late/holiday working policy. My apologies for the inconvenience caused.
The processing team in Wividus has been informed, and they will process all
similar claims which have been rejected.
Regards,
Ashish
Hi Ashish,
This is one of the claim numbers 9611048544 which has been rejected.And this
was the reason provided.
FYI
Regards
Naresh Goyal
ph:25502001 - extn:6329
Can you kindly let me know as to when and why was this policy introduced
as I have done cash reimbursements in the past? Also as we might be having
some of our snacks/refreshments bills dated before the introduction of this
policy, Can you kindly assist me as to whehter I can claim these bills?
If yes How? & if no why not?
Regards,
Abhi
From: wividus helpdesk
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 5:41 PM
To: Abhijeet Vinodkumar (WT01 - MANUFACTURING)
Subject: RE: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]
Hi,
Waseians are not eligible for cash claims.
Thank you for contacting Wividus Helpdesk.
We look forward to assist you better.
Have a great day ahead.
Regards,
Wividus Helpdesk
--Original Message--
From: abhijeet.vinodkumar@wipro.com
Date: 11/14/2005 5:09:35 PM
To: wividus.hrd@wipro.com
Cc: wividus.helpdesk@wipro.com
Subject: RE: Query - Cash Claim Policy for Wasians [#189657]
Hi,
Regards,
Abhijeet
We have received your mail. There will be delay in response to your queries as
we are receiving huge number of queries.
Hi,
This is just to clarify as to whether wasians are eligible for cash claims?
If yes, when and why was this policy changed?
Also if the bill dates are earlier to that of introduction of this policy, how could
we get it reimbursed?
Regards,
Abhijeet
Hi all,
Well the policy has changed again, try going to cash claims and submit a claim
it will say no line items found i.e. ( early/late food expenses).For employees
there will be Lunch dinner and breakfast, eligible ammount shows as 75/-.
Thanks & regards
Sasmit Hota
Application Services Team
Global Data Repositories / Worldbase
Office : +91-80-30292242
With Regards
Sumit Agrawal
Mobile: 09886569141
There was a confusion on this. This has been resolved. Concerned processing
group has been advised to revise their stand.
Hello Sir
Please Clarify.
Hi,
As we are taking more WASE trainees and Contract employees and put them on
client projects, the need for onsite requirements will grow.
Immigration Laws differs from country to country and have some restrictions on
the type of visas. Hence it is very important to know the eligibility criteria and
type of visas by which we can depute them for onsite projects.
Some important Country wise analysis of Work permits for WASE and
Contractee’s:
INDEX
Wipro Technologies,
Bangalore, Karnataka,
India,
Thanking you,
Sincerely,
WASE 2004 (BDC).
All the postulates in this draft are neutral in all respects. It’ll be highly
appreciated that the draft be respected and treated as valuable inputs to
enhance WASE; as a part of never ending process of organizational evolution of
Wipro. This is in no attempt to unionize WASE or to bring about some
renegade’s revolution. The cause is larger; WASEians are a part of a great
organization and contribute to a larger cause than WASEians themselves that’s
community, the society at large and even larger the nation. WASEians are
equally responsible to make all the systems they are part of perfect. This draft
is an attempt to make WASE as lucrative choice by default. So as to attract the
best in the industry, so that the ROI for the investment done by the
organization on value creation of WASE is high.
WASE policies and structures were first drafted in 1995 and there must have
been reviews, but considering the fast changing socio – economical
environment it’s been widely felt by WASEian a lot more changes are due long
time. We would be obliged if the postulates mentioned in the draft are
reviewed and analyzed by an independent neutral panel for their validity
and feasibility and required changes be introduced strictly in a timely
approach .
Note:
• Kindly Note Figures / Statements Stated Are Only For Factual References
And Are Not For Comparisons And Should Be Taken In Best Of Spirit.
• Refer Draft On Page Number 2•.
Thanking you,
Sincerely,
WASE 2004 (BDC).
WASE Recruitment:
The number of WASEian being recruited each year is growing, which is being
driven by the business requirements. The Quality of Human Resource is by no
means compromised for the sake of Quantity. The consequence of under quality
WASE Human Resource would reflect in the future in the organization. The
value of WASE needs to be maintained and the bar should be high.
·
Kindly note figures / statements stated are only for factual references and are not for
comparison and should be taken in the best of spirit.
• A rigorous selection and screening pattern should be adopted for WASE
recruitment, to ensure quality.
• Transparency and Exposure to WASE policy during recruitment is
required.
WASE Training:
WASE Benefits:
1 Split WASE Band Into Sub Bands Similar To The Regular Career
Band Categories Like A1 / A2 Etc. Based On Job Profile and Role In
The Company.
2 Adoption Of Regular Wipro Employee Career Band Policy For
WASEians Also.
• It should have a provision for growing up the career ladder even while in
WASE band. For Instance Band B1 after 4 Years of Experience and a M.S
degree from BITS Pilani, sounds unjustified as B.Tech Employees after 1 Year
Of service in Wipro are absorbed in BAND B1.
• Policy pertaining to “6 Months Wait To Travel Onsite after MS Completion
i.e. Banding – OOC” needs to be reviewed.
• Possible Review of Policy Pertaining Allocation of Career Band after
Completion of WASE \ MS and should be transparent and based on
performance.
• Red or Some Alternate Color Band For WASEians After 5 Years Since
Joining. Or Duration for Acquiring Red Band Be Reduced From 5 Years to
2-3 Years.
Considering factors like Inflation rate over past year which has peaked to 8.4 %
and averaged at ~ 6.1 % and also the rise in cost of living primarily in
Bangalore. It has been observed widely that there is a major dissatisfaction
amongst WASEian regarding WASE stipends. The comparatively very low stipend
being offered has lead to poor living standard of the WASE employees; also it’s
hypocritical with respect to TQM and doesn’t justify Software Engineer as a
good career option. A stipend should atleast be enough to provide justifiable
decent lifestyle. Thus following has been widely expected:
• WASEian should be offered if not equal at least a respectful, dignified and
comparable stipend at least after a year into WASE
• W.A.S.E stipend should be reviewed to be inline with the market.
• W.A.S.E stipend should be calculated and reviewed based on comparative
market analysis, considering factors like economical environment
(inflation, cost of living, stipend offered by other firms for similar
arrangement) . For Instance , It sounds totally unjustified to claim 5000 INR
/ PM in hand stipend is rightful and has been scientifically calculated based
on above factors and would be able to sustain even most basic lifestyle .
• For• same kind of arrangement (M.S @ B.I.T.S Pilani + Work) @ C.T.S and
M.B.T offer 13,500 I.N.R and 11,500 I.N.R respectively apart from benefits
starting year 1.
• Policies pertaining to “WASEians Eligibility for Employee / Project Bonuses
/ Production Support Remuneration” needs to be clearly defined.
• Policies pertaining to “WASEians Eligibility for Allowances Distributed By
Clients E.g. CISCO” needs to be clearly defined.
As WASEians it’s an emotional journey as it’s the first break in life for most of
the WASEians, it’s a big break. For Four Years in this organization, WASEians
contribute in all aspects of this great organization from value, to technology, to
business, profits etc. But what has been observed is that WASEians with so
much technological and managerial expertise look forward for a career outside
Wipro after four year, which is well demonstrated by attrition rate amongst
WASEians in 5th Year, is touching as high as ~90 %. This brain drain has never
been addressed. Thus following widely expected considering factors like (4
Years Wipro Work Experience + MS @ BITS Pilani):
·
Kindly note figures / statements stated are only for factual references and are not for
comparison and should be taken in the best of spirit.
W.A.S.E Reforms 2005
TRANSPERENCY, EQUALITY, QUALITY
TED ISSUES
N ISSUES
V: Valid / R : Review / I :
Implement
WASE RECRUITMENT
The number of WASEian being
recruited each year is growing,
which is being driven by the
business requirement. The
Quality of Human Resource
shouldn’t be compromised for
the sake of Quantity. The
consequence of under quality
WASE Human Resource would
reflect in the future in the
organization. The value of
WASE needs to be maintained
and the bar should be high.
Quality cannot be
compromised for Quantity.
A rigorous selection and
screening pattern should be
1
adopted for WASE recruitment,
to ensure quality.
Transparency and Exposure to
2 WASE policy during
recruitment is required.
Solution 1 :
Split WASE Band Into Sub Bands
Similar To The Regular Career
Band Categories Like A1 / A2
Etc. Based On Job Profile and
Role In The Company .
Solution 2 :
Adoption Of Regular Wipro
Employee Career Band Policy
For WASEians Also .
WASE BENEFITS
A benefit gives any employee
another reason to believe and
be a part of a cause i.e. the
company. It’s a gesture of
belongingness offered by the
company; it’s a token of
appreciation for the
employee’s presence and
contribution in the company.
To appreciate the presence
and contribution of WASEian
who equally contribute
towards all causes of this
organization and as a token of
belongingness at least the most
basic benefits must be offered.
A well defined Wipro Benefit
20
Plan for WASEians.
Employee Referral Scheme can
21
be offered .
22 Q.P.L.C can be offered to the
WASE students, as they
contribute towards the
performance and output of the
firm.
Revaluation Of Leave Policy
23
For WASE.
At least 5 Days Of Sick Leaves
24
Annually.
WASEians should be entitled to
25
Maternity / Paternity Leaves.
Bank Loans facilities for
26 WASEians at subsidized
interest rates.
Interest Free Loans form the
27
company up to certain limits.
WASEians Can Be Considered For
28 Relocation And Transfer
Benefits.
Policy Pertaining To
“Compensatory Leaves” for
working on Official Holidays
29
(Sunday, Religious And National
Holidays) needs to be clearly
defined for WASEians.
Category 1 : 16 Years Of
Education ( I.e. B.Tech )
Category 2 : 15 Years Of
Education + 2/3 Years Of
Experience .
Category 3 : 15 Years Of
Education + Enrollment In 2
Year M.Sc / MS / MCA
Education .
Category 1 , Category 2 ,
Category 3 Are Equivalent
Categories Which Are Required
For OOC For Most Countries .
http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/dlp-home/degrees/collab/body_mssewmp.html
http://www.bits-pilani.ac.in/dlp-home/eduprocess/eduprocess.html
Educational Process
1. Educational Process
3. Evaluation Methodology
4. Some Stipulations
Educational Process
For each course offered by the Institute, there would be an Instructor, who is a
BITS faculty, drawn from the relevant discipline who is charged with the
responsibility of the conduct of that course. This will be in terms of preparing
question papers, evaluation of answer papers and answering student's queries
apart from preparing instruction manuals, question bank, supplementary notes,
etc. wherever required in order to strengthen the course.
For each course, there will be a handout, which will spell out the plan of study
and evaluation scheme, prescribed text book / suggested reference books apart
from other details. The evaluation schedule is also announced in the beginning
of the semester itself. All details pertaining to the operation of the course
including grading procedures are shared with the students through this
document. It is the responsibility of each student to acquire textbooks and
other reference materials recommended for each course in the course handout.
Evaluation Methodology
Evaluation for a given course is internal and continuous and has the following
features:
- Assignments, Projects, Case-studies, spread over a semester for making the
course relevant and meaningful to the work learning environment of the
students;
Some Stipulations
- While the students who are admitted to on-campus degree programmes may
be permitted to transfer to off-campus degree programmes, the reverse is
normally not possible since the admission modalities for the two degrees are
not the same. However, all off-campus degrees are equivalent to the
corresponding degree of on-campus and for admissions to the Institute for any
higher degree programmes the off-campus degrees will not be distinguished
from on-campus degrees.
a. The organization is the employer of the student and pays fully / partly the
fees/dues of the student and also provides facilities required for the learning
process.
b. The organization is an employer of the student but does not pay the
fees/dues of the student. Nonetheless the organization agrees to encourage
and actively participate in the special nature of the educational process for the
mutual benefit of the organization and the employee.
Duration
This may vary from programme to programme depending upon the input
qualification, experience requirements, nature as well as the need of the
collaborating organizations including the viability and feasibility of course
offerings. The Semester wise pattern given in the following pages indicate the
currently operational details for various programmes which may be varied
whenever situation warrants.
Wipro WASE Career Website
http://careers.wipro.com/wase/
Wipro Academy of Software Excellence (WASE) program is primarily
designed to suit the manpower development needs of Wipro
Technologies. This program is intended to prepare some of the best B
Sc., BCA and BCM students for the future applications development
environment, by giving them right kind of training. Also, this program
aims to equip students with the platform skills and professional
certifications necessary to applying thought in Wipro, along with
instilling the need for a quality process.
Selection Process
The WASE program is open only (2006 Batch) for fresh science
(B.Sc.) graduates who have opted for Computer science, Who is eligible to apply?
Electronics, Mathematics or Information Technology (IT) as BSC (Computer Science/IT/
subjects and BCA/BCM graduates. The brightest students with Electronics/ Mathematics/IT stream
at least 60% aggregate in there graduation, Plus 2 and 10th only) or BCA
Examinations and with Mathematics as a subject in their +2 With consistent academic record of at-
/PUC can eligible to apply for this four-year program. least 60% aggregate from their 10th
till their Graduation.
The selection process is multi-level with standard aptitude Must have Math as one of the subject
test, Communication & Programming Skills test and personal in +2/PUC.
interview. The aptitude test is similar to the GRE and GMAT
format. Candidates are filtered after each level. Details on the selection process: The
selection will be conducted in
WASE recruitment is done through both Campus & off-Campus Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad,
process. Campus process is restricted to selected colleges of Kolkata, Delhi and Pune.
Students of only these colleges go through the selection Selected candidates are required to
process and are recruited in their third year of graduation. In complete the 4 year degree program
Off-campus process students are intimated through and sign a service agreement for the
Advertisement in all leading National English dailies across all program duration.
metros of the country.
WASE History:- The first WASE batch
All selected candidates have to student service agreement was started in 1995. Since then Wipro
with Wipro for four years. The only pre-condition for students has been recruiting B.Sc / BCA / BCM
under WASE program is that they have to be in Wipro to graduates for WASE.
complete the WASE MS degree. But, there is no condition that
they should stick on to the company once they finish their
course.
Scholarship / Stipend
The company also provides an attractive scholarship / stipend for the selected WASE students which
would take care of their necessary expenses in Bangalore or in other Wipro development centers in
India. Apart from this the full fees of four-year MS program is borne by Wipro.
Program structure
As part of the WASE program, every student registers for an 8 semester MS program with Birla Institute of
Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani (Rajasthan, India). In the first seven semesters, WASE students are
doing their course work and the dissertation in the last semester.
During their MS Program with BITS Pilani, the WASE students are placed in the various Business domains.
Here they will participate in the live projects as the regular employees do.
The schedule and plan will be intimated to the WASE students from time to time. The faculty from the
best Engineering Colleges and IT Industries in the locality are selected through a very systematic and
Wipro Collaborative Program Website
http://learning.wipro.com/talent_transformation/e_initiatives/e_wase_introd
uction.htm
WASE Introduction
Selection Process..
Scholarship..
Program Structure...
Teaching Methodology...
Schedule...
Code of Conduct...
Orientation Training...
WASE Strength...
1
WASE
Selection Process
The WASE program is open only for fresh science (B.Sc.) graduates who have
opted for Computer science, Electronics, Mathematics subjects and BCA/BCM
graduates. The brightest students with at least 65% aggregate and with
Mathematics as a subject in their +2 /PUC can eligible to apply for this four-
year program. Short listing and selection is strictly on merit.
All selected candidates have to sign a bond with Wipro for four years. This is
the only pre-condition for WASE candidates, under this they have to be in Wipro
to complete the WASE MS programme. But, there is no condition that they
should stick on to the company once they finish their course.
Scholarship / Stipend
The company also provides an attractive scholarship for the selected WASE
candidates, which would take care of their necessary expenses in their location
of MS Program (Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune and Gurgoan). Apart from
this the full fees of four-year MS program is borne by Wipro.
Program Structure
During their MS Program with BITS Pilani, the WASE students are placed in the
various Business domains. Here they will participate in the live projects as the
regular employees do.
The schedule and plan will be intimated to the WASE students from time to
time. The faculty from the local Engineering Colleges and IT Industries are
selected through a very systematic and stringent Faculty evaluation process,
for conducting the WASE contact classes.
Teaching Methodology
The teaching is basically Instructor Led Training (ILT) and in some cases it is
through the Virtual classrooms (Video Conferencing) in order to reach the
Wipro employees outside Bangalore.
There will be four courses per semester and classes are conducted as per the
'course plan' prepared by the Faculty in accordance with the syllabus
prescribed by BITS Pilani. The emphasis is given on business integration of
these courses and bring more focus on collaborative curriculum.
All the classrooms in our Learning Center are equipped with flat monitor based
desktops, a smart board and a LCD. These classrooms acoustically designed so
that a student in remote corner can hear clearly.
Faculty use presentations for all sessions. He / She can also use white
board/smart board / Magnetic board/OHP in case of illustrations.
Program Schedule
If required the Faculty may call the students to attend his /her class on some
other day including Sunday. But this will be informed well in advance. He/ she
will seek the convenience of the students before scheduling the class.
Code of Conduct
Students have to complete the assignments and submit the same on time. The
faculty reserves the right of not accepting late work.
WASE students should be punctual to the classes and maintain decorum in all
the classes and during examinations. The Consultant, Educational Initiatives
may, from time to time, call the WASE students to meet him for discussions,
counseling and collecting Clearance letter, Experience letter and
Recommendation letter. The WASE student has to make himself / herself free
and meet the Consultant at his place during the specified time.
WASE student shall not involve directly or indirectly in cheating, falsifying, and
defaming the reputation of the Faculty or other individuals who have been
working in this novel Initiative.
On any event of violation of the code of conduct by the WASE student, the
decision of the Principal Consultant, Educational Initiatives shall be final.
Instructors for this training are exclusively from the Talent Transformation and
if needed for specific training we outsource the external Faculty.
This training is conducted before the WASE students are getting registered for
the MS Program with BITS Pilani and placed in their respective Vertical as well.
Each WASE student part of the Orientation Training Program has to pass the
courses with a minimum cut-off percentage* prescribed by Talent
Transformation from time to time. A retest is given to the student to improve
his/her performance. If the student has failed to score prescribed percentage
in the retests, then the student will be asked to quit the program.
The first WASE batch was started in 1995. Since then Wipro has been recruiting
B.Sc / BCA / BCM graduates for WASE. The following Table depicts the number
of recruits since 1995.
http://learning.wipro.com/talent_transformation/e_initiatives/e_wase_policy
_student.htm
Policy Guidelines for WASE Students
Classes...
Attendance...
Payment of Fees...
Leave...
Examinations...
Scholarship...
Confirmations...
Certificates /Letter...
Certification Examination...
Meeting...
Discipline...
Personal Folders...
Contact Classes
Attendance
Payment of Fees
Examinations
1. There are TWO examinations for each semester: Mid semester exam and
End Semester exam. The mid semester Exam carries 40% weightage while
the End semester Exam carries 60% weightage.
2. Mid semester Exam is a closed book exam and End semester (Comprehensive
- covers all topics) Exam is Open book exam.
3. Both the Mid semester and End semester examinations are conducted on
Weekends only.
4. All exams and dissertation evaluations (Viva-Voce) are held at respective
locations (BDC - Bangalore, CDC - Chennai, HDC - Hyderabad, PDC - Pune,
and GDC - Gurgoan) only.
5. Provision for make up exams only on medical exigencies / onsite
assignment.
6. Make up exam request to be enclosed with medical certificate / letter from
TM / BUH as required and submit the same to the Principal Consultant,
Educational Initiatives.
7. For each course only one Make up exam (for both mid and end semesters)
will be scheduled.
8. Each WASE student has to show a very good overall performance by securing
highest CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point average) in the program.
9. Each course is graded on the basis of relative grading which lead to, A, B,
C, D and E grades.
10. You are expected to maintain CGPA at 5.5 to get MS degree from BITS Pilani
11. Re-registration in case of `E’ grade or CGPA less than 5.5 (as per BITS), fee
will be borne by student.
12.All WASE students who have secured 'E' grade or CGPA less that 5.5 are
called for counseling (conducted only for Low performers at the end of the
semester, schedule will be communicated).
13.Each Student has to attend the counseling meeting, at the specified venue
and time, along with his/her PM and TED manager, without fail.
14.A WASE Student will be asked to quit the organization, under the following
conditions:
15.Any time he/she secures TWO “E” Grades during the WASE Program. Some
of the scenarios are as follows:
16.It can be in the same semester or across two semesters.
b) It can be in the same subject (E in Retest also) or across two subjects.
17.When he/she secures ONE 'E' grade during the WASE Program and gets
Improvement required (“IR”) Appraisal rating by his/her Supervisor
/Manager in the Project.
Leave
1. Each WASE student will get a maximum of 15 days leave during the
Academic cycle starting from 1st January and ending with the 31st December.
No carry forward of leave.
2. For WASEians working days are from Monday to Saturday, therefore leave
request should be made through TEDweb and update the same in the
manual System.
3. Availing leave beyond 15 days is treated as Loss-Of-Scholarship(LOS).
4. For Personal Marriage, a maximum of 25 days of leave will be granted,
which includes permissable 15 days leave. The additional 10 days are
treated as LOS.
Scholarship
Confirmations
Certificates /Letters
Take the print out from HRweb (HRweb->My Data-> Address Proof) and get the
signature from any TED Manager / your TED Manger at your location.
Certification Examination
Meeting
Discipline
Personal Folders
1. Wipro WASE coordinator will maintain the personal folders of each WASE
students till the end of 4 year of MS program (Successful Completion of the
Academic Requirement)
2. WASE coordinator will hand over the same to group TED on the day of
Confirmation.
Guidelines for Faculty
Classes...
Attendance...
Examinations...
Honorarium...
Classes
Attendance:
Examinations:
1. There are THREE examinations for each semester: Mid semester exam, End
Semester exam and Make up exam. Mid semester Exam carries 40%
weightage while the End semester Exam carries 60% weightage. The make
up exam is to help our MS program students who miss their classes and Mid
semester and End semester exams due to onsite assignment / Medical
reasons.
2. Mid semester Exam is a closed book exam and End semester Exam
(Comprehensive- Covers full syllabus) is Open book exam. So the questions
papers to be designed accordingly.
3. All exams are held at Wipro offices.
4. Faculty has to be present on the day of examination and collect the papers
from the coordinators.
5. Faculty has to evaluate the papers within a week and distribute the same
to the MS program students.
6. Rectifying the correction if any and update the students and coordinators
7. Faculty has to evaluate the examination papers and give the relative
grading for the results, which leads to the, A, B, C, D and E grades. A is the
highest grade and E is the lowest.
Honorarium
Supervisor
1. The supervisor has to essentially guide the student throughout the project
and evaluate him/ her on a regular basis.
2. The supervisor should assume the role of a guide and mentor to the student
for the dissertation.
3. The supervisor should set high quality standards for the dissertation work
and motivate the student to work hard and show tangible results.
4. The supervisor should encourage the student to explore various sources and
discover the ideas pertaining to the dissertation.
5. The supervisor is responsible for monitoring the progress of the dissertation
through weekly interaction with the student. A specific time can be fixed
for the weekly interaction with the student.
6. The dissertation students are to be treated as full-time students and full-
time employees at the same time. Hence, no concession on quality or
quantum of work should be made with respect to their work (job
responsibilities) or their dissertation.
7. A full-time dissertation requires a lot of hard work. The student should be
urged to allocate a fixed, but substantial amount of time each day to the
dissertation work, and record the progress made on a daily basis. Hence the
cooperation is very much needed in carrying out the dissertation without
any hitches.
8. The supervisor is responsible for the periodic/ regular evaluation of the
dissertation work and submission of the duly completed evaluation proforma
/ sheet by the due date specified in the course handout, to the BITS
Coordinator.
9. The supervisor has to be present during the time of viva-voce and explain if
queries are asked on the overall dissertation work.
10.The supervisor can be in touch with the Wipro-BITS Collaborative Initiatives
coordinators for any information on dissertation and clarification.
1. Min. BE/ B.Tech/MCA in the relevant discipline but preferably M.E./ MS/
M.Tech.
2. S/he should have adequate experience in the relevant domain- min 02 years
for BE and min 01 year for ME/MS/M.Tech.
Examiner
Onsite Students:
N.B. Students and Supervisors should note that BITS Coordinator will accept
only signed hardcopies of documents. Softcopies of the evaluation sheets or
reports will not be accepted. However, students are requested to preserve
soft copy of the Final Report for Wipro Database.
WASE Policies: Examination instructions and guidelines
1. This is a closed book exam. And hence the usage of notes, text books,
course handouts and other study material, Laptops, PCs, Palmtops and other
electronic equipments, irrespective of their size and capacity, to store and
retrieve the digital information, is prohibited during the time of the
examination.
2. This exam carries 40% weightage.
3. The topics covered in the first 8 classes will be the syllabus for the mid
semester exam.
http://learning.wipro.com/talent_transformation/e_initiatives/faq.htm
What is WASE?
Any B.Sc / BCA /BCM graduate with 65% aggregate and who had Mathematics as
one of the subjects in his/her 11th and 12th class is eligible to apply for WASE.
The aggregate percentage and the disciplines may change from time to time as
per the company policy.
How do you keep track of the WASE applicants? Because there will be
hundred thousand requests / applications for WASE?
It is a good question. We receive applications in 1:100 (Requirement : Requests)
ratio. Each applicant is given WASE application number and his/her resume is
stored on our database. The potential aspirants of WASE are asked to log in and
submit their resume to http://careers.wipro.com/wase.
All candidates who have applied for WASE need to transact Wipro through this
website only.
The answer is NO! Currently, we are selecting only fresh graduates who have
completed their B.Sc / BCA.
As long as they are 3-year degree courses, we treat BIT and BCS on par with
BCA and B.Sc (Computer Science), hence both of you are eligible to apply for
WASE.
At the time of admission to MS Program with BITS Pilani, the candidate should
enclose the following documents along with the application:
Since the beginning of WASE the WASE students are placed in Bangalore. From
2003 onwards, we are allocating the WASE students to other locations in India.
Yes. All candidates selected for WASE have to sign a service agreement with
Wipro for four years. Because all WASSE students will be undergoing a 4-year
MS Program with BITS Pilani (Rajasthan, India), under Wipro-BITS Collaborative
Initiatives.
It is a 4-year degree program (8 semesters) during which the WASE students will
study different courses to fulfill the requirements of the Masters degree. This is
degree is equivalent to any ME/M.Tech degree awarded by any Indian
Universities.
Once WASE selection is over, all the selected candidates are placed into a
mandatory orientation-training program. During which the WASE students will
study various technologies like Basic platform skills, JAVA Technologies,
Microsoft Technologies, SAP, Mainframes, Telecom and Behavioral skills.
This is a highly structured and rigorous program that provides a great learning
opportunity for WASE students to understand more concepts in general and
some Technologies in particular.
I would like to know who would pay the certification fees? Whether Wipro
or the WASE student?
Wipro pays. But, under the policy that "U Pass V Pay". WASE student has to get
registered himself / herself for the specified Certificate Examination and pass
the same. Once the candidate is passed, Wipro will reimburse the fees.
No. Since it is the mandatory program, we take all the WASE students as a raw
input and prepare them to face the challenges of ever changing world of IT.
All WASE MS classes (contact classes) are held at Wipro offices. You need not go
to BITS Pilani.
Are there any exams during the orientation training? If I don't perform well
in these exams, will I be asked to quit the organization?
Four courses per semester. Like this you will study 28 courses in first 7
semesters and doing dissertation in your 8th semester.
In a mandatory training no leave is granted. However, you can get leaves during
your MS programs.
How many days of leave are granted to WASE students per year?
15 days leave are granted to WASE students. This includes both casual and sick
leave. If any WASE student has availed more than 15 days, is then advised to
LOS (Loss of Scholarship)
The calendar year for leave calculations is from 1st January to 31st December of
every year.
It is a four-year full time degree for WASE students. BITS Pilani awards the
degree for all WASE students who have successfully completed their MS
courses.
i) Scholarship
ii) Learning
iii) Getting Master degree at the cost to the company
iv) Finally, a job in Wipro.
Can you elaborate on the scholarship amount that Wipro gives during the
WASE program?
Scholarship
Year Amount (in Rs )
per month
First three Rs. 5,700/-
months
4th -12th Rs. 6,200/-
month
Second Rs. 7,450/-
Year
Third year Rs. 9,200/-
Fourth Year Rs. 15,500/-
On an average, Wipro invests arround Rs. 1,50,000/- per annum for each WASE
student.
No.
The WASEians on completion of the WASE MS course would join in Career Group
A.
More precisely, "All WASE students will be absorbed into the organization
(subject to the organizational policy) with effect from the 1st of the subsequent
month, from the date of the announcement of their final results of viva-voce
from BITS Pilani."
No WASEian can undergo more than one Educational Program during his / her
MS Program with BITS Pilani. Hence you cannot enroll for MBA course through
Symbiosis' Distance Learning Program, Pune.
At least first two years, it is not. After the third year, of course, yes.
During my onsite assignment, will I get salary apart from my scholarship?
The WASE students who are eligible to onsite assignment, and if there are on
long term assignment, would get onsite salary.
Your onsite assignment is an official work. Hence you will be given full
attendance for that period when you are onsite, provided you have taken the
prior approval from your TM and the Consultant, Educational Initiatives.
There are two exams per course: First one is the Mid Semester Test which is
conducted after the first 8 weeks of contact classes. Second one is the End
Semester Examination. This is conducted after other 8 weeks of contact
classes followed by the Mid Semester Test.
The Mid Semester Test carries 40% weightage and it is closed book exam. The
End Semester Examination is a closed and comprehensive examination, having
60% weightage covers the whole syllabus. It is an open book examination. The
WASE students can bring the textbooks, reference books and study material to
the examination, suggested by the faculty.
And, we also have provision for 'Makeup Exam', which is designed for those who
have missed any of their semester exams. The provision is given ONLY to those
who were onsite and had serious health problems.
Suppose if I missed both the Mid Semester Test and End Semester
Examinations for my personal reasons, can I get provision for Make up
exam?
The curriculum for all the 8 semesters is given in the following Table.
I have an ‘E’ grade in one of the courses, can I simultaneously register for
that course and do the dissertation?
No. Unless you clear all the courses, you will not be allowed to register for
dissertation.
No. BITS will offer you registration (repetition) in some course(s) in which you
have obtained a poor grade in one of the earlier semesters. You got to improve
your grade(s) and make your CGPA above 5.5 in order to be eligible for
Dissertation. Registration in some course(s) for improving CGPA will depend on
the availability of courses in a particular semester.
You will be awarded GA (Grade Awaited). However, you should obtain the
required permission for delayed presentation.
Viva can be conducted by you being here and your supervisor / examiner being
abroad, you need to have an examiner locally (apart from an examiner abroad)
to vouch for you. The BITS & Wipro Coordinators should be intimated about
these dates well in advance.
Apart from Video conferencing, is there any other way to conduct the viva/
seminar in the above situation?
No, seminar and viva cannot be conducted through E-MAIL, FAX, TELEPHONE or
VoIP.
Yes! The student should be accompanied by at least one of the three ie either
the supervisor or one of the two examiners. All three together are always
welcome.
If, I'm onsite during some/most/all of the final dissertation period, how do I
go about completing my dissertation?