Office Time Closing Implementation.
As discussed in my last updates. We don’t want to encourage the culture wherein
We spoke with many clients, and for most part, clients are happy with an overlap of 4.5 hours.
We are hereby putting forward Office Time, closing hours, And other things in order to maintain better work-life and health balance and build a better culture in our office.
From 2023 and onwards two-time changes would end and the entire year would be DST. ( Read this News for more )
So we will eventually move towards closing the office by 1:30 AM or 1.00 AM next year. The objective is to:
Overall we want to build a culture of better work-life balance and avoid building a call center kind of culture.
Night Allowance shall remain the Same
Many of you have raised concerns regarding night allowance incase of the planned early closing of the office. Let me clarify the same to allay those concerns. (Night Allowance remains the same)
| Old Time | 11:30 PM & Above | 12:30 AM & Above | 01:30 AM & Above | 02:30 AM & Above | |
| Night Allowance | 125 | 175 | 250 | 350 | |
| New Time | 11:30 PM & Above | 12:30 AM & Above | 01:30 AM & Above | 02:00 AM & Above | 02:30 AM & Above |
| Night Allowance | 125 | 175 | 250 | 300 | 350 |
Concerns of Associates on Night allowance
The feedback from managers is that in many cases, associates are not required to stay till late, but they are still staying late only due to the night allowance provision. We understand this concern and don’t want to disrupt the expected earnings of team members in the middle of the year. However, I want to reiterate that night allowance will be provided in cases where the client's requirement and work requires you to stay late in the office. In principle, we want to maintain an optimal time policy balancing both business needs and work-life balance.
So, we will not change the night allowance policy in the middle of the year. We will make sure that in the next 1-2 quarters, we provide opportunities to associates to move up to the level of Consultants and have a client-facing role. Otherwise, as mentioned above Associate Team member's requirement to stay late needs to be justified on the basis of client needs or work requirements.
Feedback for Admin Team and Managers
I have some feedback for the admin team and the managers as well.
Feedback for Admin Team
If you see any behavioural, conduct or administration issues, you don’t need to go to the manager all the time to initiate an action. You guys are authorised to directly speak with the concerned person. If things are grave enough, you can issue warnings directly or take necessary action and talk to the concerned person. Manager shall be copied in the email and shall be reported.
However, while performing this duty, the Admin team needs to also maintain the right behaviour and communicate the message with the right tone and tenor. You have the authority to enforce a certain level of discipline and conduct within the organisation but you also have the responsibility to act maturely. You cannot mis-behave and come in with a chip on your shoulder.
You are dealing with a large number of people on a daily basis. So, politeness and empathy should be two aspects of your core function, which is team interactions.
Feedback for Managers
All of you are responsible and senior members of the organisation and I expect you to be very proactive and uphold proper organisational values & behaviour.
Consolidation of Clients Timesheets Under One Manager - Perspective and Challenges
From our recent conversations with some of our clients, we got to understand their long-term and medium-term business plans and vision with Entigrity. Many of our clients want to expand with us but with client’s work distributed under multiple managers, our focus has been divided. Therefore, the idea of consolidating clients under 1 or 2 managers was planned.
So, broadly from this, there are two objectives of consolidation:
Here is an example of how our clients are thinking about expansion.
Example: A client with a team of 55 staff members onshore and currently 10 staff members with us, is planning to expand to 40 staff members with us in the near future.
Tax focused practice, 5,000 Tax Returns Clients. (Not able to Take New Clients) - 55 People Onshore
Current Offshore Team: 4 Tax Associate - 3 Bookkeepers - 3 Virtual Assistant.
Client Needs: 10 teams of 4 staff each (Total 40 offshore staff) in the following structure
As of now, the client needs 4 Teams Immediately - Round the Year Team. (No Temp Needs)
Solution To Be Implemented :
Clients have also repeatedly raised requests for staff with an experience of more than 6-8 years, who can take more high-level work and manage client’s entire offshore work and team.
In most cases, we will have to hire experienced professionals from outside for this role. These will be mapped to the respective team managers and they will be working with the existing team.
Benefits of hiring experienced staff:
Broadly speaking, we are looking at 250-300 MRF clients planning to have an average team size of 10-20 staff with us in the next 2-3 years, which means:
I wanted to give this big picture and my perspective on this issue to you. There will be challenges in the process, but we will try to keep them to a minimum.
Hiring of Experienced Staff
Across all domains, clients want to hire more experienced professionals offshore. Clients have high-level work that can be pushed offshore and with experienced staff in the team, the existing offshore team members could be used more effectively.
We have identified and shared the below list of domains with the clients for their requirements for experienced profiles.
To meet this requirement, we will be hiring experienced professionals. On top of this, existing staff members who are ready to work on senior profiles, will also be given the opportunity. Experienced staff across all these domains shall be mapped to different managers and will be working alongside the existing team members so that - 1) existing team members are also able to upgrade their skills while working with the experienced staff and 2) the client’s workflow gets more streamlined offshore.
Levels Master For Team Members
There was a certain lack of clarity on the levels which we use to categorise our existing team members. Below table shows the way we are pitching the different levels of profiles to our clients. Typically, levels 1-5 will be absorbed within the existing teams themselves, and the experience for the same is also mentioned in the table.
| Level | US/CA/UK Experience | Overall Experience |
| Level 1 |
0 Yrs |
1-3 Yrs |
| Level 2 | 0 Yrs | 1-3 Yrs |
| Level 3 | 1 Yrs | 3-5 Yrs |
| Level 4 | 2 Yrs | 3-5 Yrs |
| Level 5 | 3-5 Yrs | 5+ Yrs |
| Level 6 | 5+ Yrs | 8+ Yrs |
For example, for level 3, the expectation would be at least 1 year of experience in US/CA/UK in the respective domain and 3-5 years of overall experience including on the Indian side.
Role of all Team Members in further branch expansions
We have the following locations in the pipeline which we might be able to plan and execute in the next 6-9 months. Existing teams will be involved in training and onboarding the new staff members for these branches for a particular time period. Below is the list of confirmed branches:
Existing team members can also apply for these branches as well as other existing branches. They will be provided a reasonable package revision and if their base location is Ahmedabad, the minimum period in the branch will be 2 years.
For now, only Managers, Team Leads and Consultants are eligible to apply for moving to any of the branches.
I’d request all the eligible team members to please fill the form if they wish to relocate to any of the new or existing branches.
Role of Prashant Doshi
Just the way Janak is helping Valay in operations in Ahmedabad, Prashant will be helping in overall branch management, coordination and development.
Update on Sodexo
Initially we had provided the Sodexo card balance for tea and coffee in the canteen for all the team members. However, since the last 2 months we have installed the tea and coffee machines around the canteen area and that has been received very well. Eventually we will also install tea and coffee vending machines on every floor in Sakar, so the need for Sodexo balance will be redundant.
Therefore, as you are already aware, we have discontinued adding balance in Sodexo cards of the team members effective from October 1st, 2022.
Just to clarify there would not be any change in your package due to this decision, as the balance was anyway provided over and above your total agreed package.
Due to administrative limitations, the Sodexo Cards couldn't be used at other places; however, the new vendor in the canteen has started accepting Sodexo cards for payment. You can now use your available balances in the canteen area (Sakar - 1).
Team members must submit back the Sodexo cards after the end of November.
Updates on Compensation Related queries, L&D Suggestions/Feedbacks and Client Related Learnings
Feedback/Suggestions
In the Feedback/Suggestions tab in Perfex, you can now select which department you want to direct your queries/feedback/suggestions to. For example, for salary related queries you can select Finance and HR departments or for queries related to learning & development you can select the L&D department.
1. Compensation and TDS-related queries shall be updated in Perfex through the Feedback and Suggestion portal. You can direct these queries to Finance & HR departments Click Here
2. All team members can now put in request/feedback/suggestion for any learning and development-related matters as well in perfex. Please select the Learning and Development department when you’re filling in your query. Click Here
Client Specific Training Request
3. In cases where a staff or the CRM gets client specific requirements for staff training, please start updating such requests in perfex as well. You can capture this in the Learning and Development tab in Perfex, in Client Training Request: Click Here
We will also be making the user panel for all team members live shortly. Firstly, that will make your work with the client as well as with the internal departments more streamlined and secondly, we have tried to make the user experience a little better. We will give you an update on this shortly.
Office Hygiene & Corporate Work Environment
We have put in place certain mandates as a part of our policy whether it’s related to attire or no cell phone or bag not to be taken in the work area or punching while going in and out. But we have come across several instances where there are grave violations to these policies that we are trying to implement. I would request that we all have to collectively implement this at Ahmedabad and other offices as well. And Senior Managers and Managers need to make sure that firstly they themselves comply with it and their team members comply with it as well.
Here is what I would like to suggest: if you have feedback that you are not feeling this is the right policy please come and talk to me and I will be happy to explain why we are doing this, but blatantly violating is not going to help. We shall take appropriate action on the staff members and the managers involved for the below violations:
The decision of the HR would be final and an email would be provided copying your manager and Sr. Manager about the violation. We will also appreciate it if you report and provide us with information on any such violations from any person in the organisation.
We do want to keep a very flexible system in the organisation, but on the other hand we would also want to reduce instances where team members take undue advantage of that flexibility. In some cases, the violations are also happening with a tacit approval of the team managers, and we want managers to be very cautious about it. If there are repeated cases of violations or the gravity of violation is severe, we may use our discretion to terminate the team member immediately.
Bags and Mobile Storage on Respective Floors
We will be making bags and mobile storage facilities available for everyone on respective floors by November 15th or 30th, so many of us will be able to save time in going to the terrace to keep their belongings.
Update on Diwali Holidays
As New Year is falling on October 26th, the leaves for Diwali will now be October 24th, 25th and 26th. We are setting off the holiday of December 25th against October 26th and hence December 25th will be counted as a Sunday instead of Christmas Holiday.
Clarity on Full and Final Settlement Post Resignation
Collecting Compensation on Non-Completion of Minimum Employment Period: “If the Employee breaches the terms of clause 2.1 in specific about minimum employment, the Employee grants to the Employer the right to take compensation from the Employee. Such compensation shall be determined considering bases on the last drawn salary of the employee, His / her roles and responsibilities within the organisation, Expected loss to the Employer because of his / her exit from the organisation; and Internal policy of the Employer, if any, The Employee acknowledges and agrees to the above terms as reasonable for legitimate protection of business and goodwill of the Company”
Thanks
Shawn Parikh
CEO and Founder
Entigrity Solutions LLC