As part of the actions for this iteration, the offshore managers (the ones based in Bangalore, not the ones based in Paris) have announced that the development Team will work on Saturdays from now on. My colleagues and I, in France, are not concerned by this, of course, though we are officially part of the Team. Note that nobody from the Paris office asked them to take such a decision.
It is important to know that offshore Team was already working on Saturdays from time to time (they even worked on a Sunday once). However, they never billed onshore for this (that always baffled me), and the offshore manager always reported that individual people were working 40 hours a week (the extra hours worked most days are not counted as well).
I believe that the management in France will be getting the worst part of the deal. Here is what I think will happen:
- people will work on Saturdays (I mean by this that they will probably not try to cheat and pretent they cannot come. They will be there.)
- productivity per day will decrease (as was painfully demonstrated the WE before last, when they worked the 2 days)
- productivity will probably decrease on week days as well, as people will be tired, will go home earlier, and or will report being ill
- onshore will be billed for the extra day worked per week, ie. 20% more
In the end, onshore will be paying a lot for only a marginal (or even negative) return. Not only that, but the development Team will soon get tired of it. July being traditionally a delicate period (this is when the appraisals take place), we should anticipate some departures. And it’s usually the best who get hired first by the competition…
