Madhapur: Techies told not to lose heart

Madhapur: A Telangana IT Association (TITA) team and several speakers have advised software employees not to lose self-confidence, and asked them to face any problem with courage. TITA has conducted a round-table with a 16-point agenda in the city.

Sundeep Kumar Makthala, the TITA founder-president, presided over the round-table. He requested the companies to have humanitarian approach while firing the employees. He said that the employees should have a grip on Artificial Intelligence, 3d Printing, Robotics, IOT, Block chain Technology, Cyber Security, Serverless computing, VR/AR, Drone technology as these technologies are changing the pace of the IT sector.

Psychologist Dr C Virender, IT industry representatives Ashwin Chandra, Naveen Chintala, Srilatha Chintala, Venkat Vanam, Pradeep Nilagiri, Ravichandra Modem, Vaman, Ramya Sharma, Vivek, Nirmal and Vidyadhar participated in the conference.

The conference started after condoling the suicide of software employee Pogaku Harini. 'How to face the issue of firing of IT employees in the wake of recession' was the topic of round-table. Speakers reminded that Harini, who committed suicide, requested that her organs be donated and had not blamed her company.

Speakers requested the IT employees not to lose heart. Usually 45 to 60 days of time is being given to that employee to improve himself and, if not, companies are implementing rules to terminate them. But, speakers felt that this type of firing is unfair. IT people are going into depression because of this type of firing, they said.

They suggested that if the companies have any issue with project agreements to fire the employee, they should tell the same but not show under performance as the reason of firing as it will spoil employee's career and affect his or her life too.

They said that usually for any reason, if the company is firing any employee, they are giving either two months of pay and some other companies are not at all giving any pay too. They have demanded that the companies give at least 6 months of pay to the terminated employee. They also requested the companies to extend both medical and life insurance for at least another year with humanitarian concern.

They said that though 8-hour work is the rule, most of the companies are asking their employees to work in weekends and extended working hours which are not welcome. They also requested the companies to form internal teams to solve sexual harassment complaints.