MphasiS staff may lose up to Rs 1 lakh per year

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New shift policy to affect hundreds.

Hundreds of employees at the EDS-owned MphasiS Ltd stand to lose nearly Rs 1 lakh per annum each as the company has revised its shift allowance policy with effect from June 1. It has also stopped the Rs 300 daily day-shift allowance, which was given to Level 1-7 employees, those with up to seven years of work experience.

These employees work in MphasiS’ key applications development and delivery business division. While the number of Level 1-7 employees in this division is not known, the total employees it has is around 15,000. In all, MphasiS employs a workforce of about 34,000 people. MphasiS HR officials declined to comment.

Under the current rules, employees who extend their work hours because of an operational emergency are eligible for shift allowance. The allowance is also provided to employees in production and operations, while those in training, parallel operations, knowledge transfer and on the bench do not qualify for allowance.

An MphasiS employee said: “The shift allowance is a major component in MphasiS’ salary and contributes at least Rs 1 lakh annually to the income of employees who work in shifts. Removing the day shift allowance will affect a lot of people as 75 per cent of MphasiS employees work in different shifts. Moreover, the shift allowance is offered as an incentive to new employees at the time of their joining the company.”

Meanwhile, MphasiS has retained the shift allowance of Rs 500 per shift for employees working in the 10 pm-6 am shift, mandating that an employee should work for a minimum of six hours to be eligible for the allowance.

Moreover, employees at MphasiS’ infrastructure technology outsourcing (ITO) division will not see their shift allowances being revised. That apart, the on-call allowances given for shifts undertaken on weekdays and weekends or holidays by employees in the applications delivery and ITO divisions have also been left untouched.