Vignet has been the most important experience of my career. But I would not wish this on any working professional. It gave me a larger outlook on how bad things can be for an individual both on a personal and professional level. It also taught me the fact that never take your job/experience for granted. I will list down my review w.r.t different phases/segments right from the hiring process to the exit formalities:
1. The directors are wary about spending even a tiny buck on you. Everything has to be accounted for. CEO negotiates with you himself to reduce your salary. That is a red flag
2. No bench. If you are not on a project you are in the danger zone
3. If you take a sick leave you can/will be asked to produce a medical certificate. Apparently if you are working in India only then this rule applies to you
4. Work from home is highly not recommended. I worked from home thrice in the first 3 months and all of a sudden they deducted my salary for the days when I was working sighting you are not allowed to work from home in probation (even though it is a part of company policy)
5. They are so miserly that they do not have a coffee vending machine. You can drink as much tea as you want. "Milk is costly"
6. No proper induction for a new joiner or introduction with senior members of the company. Everyone is in their own world
7. Work: You need to make sure you raise questions every time, even if no one is answering them. Raise them on phones, on email, on messengers specially to your reporting manager. They will come back later after a year to ask you for proof whether you raised the questions at all. You need to have this in written and not in verbal else you are on the receiving end. The KRA’s are not clearly defined and come appraisal/probation you will be told that your performance is not up to the mark. This happens with all experienced people joining here. Moreover, they will extend your probation by a couple of months and then make you permanent and then raise the same performance issue before the appraisal which is just a month after they make you permanent. Clearly different flavors at work here. Time and again I was made to feel that my job is in danger by different triggers throughout the company using various modes of communication but mainly horizontal gossip and this originated right from the top level. As a result, I never asked for my incentive which I was due after completion of a year or my appraisal because I was always put on the back-foot. The reason I realized was that I was an expensive resource for them (remember the red flag during the interview with the CEO). This experience is not just mine but most of the senior/experienced folks they hired from other companies
8. Atmosphere: Office politics plays a major role. Different folks for different strokes. The directors and company people would know better who I am referring to
9. CEO lacks the etiquette or manners to talk to the employees. He has a very rude and aggressive tone while talking to people. Dont be surprised to hear things like:
a. We are paying you alot of money
b. You should be fired
c. Who gave you the authority to do so and so
It is an out an out culture shock for any outsider joining in. If corporate slavery was a thing then Vignet rules the roost.
I would highly recommend experienced people to look elsewhere, especially if you have a family, a home loan or other financial responsibilities. Please look elsewhere or you will regret at some point. I felt like I aged by 10 years just in less than 2 years. It affected me at a personal level as well as professional level. More than anything it made me value my previous job and how important life is. The day I resigned was my best day in the company. It was like when a caged bird feels freedom.
Some things I noticed during my tenure:
Some people who were hired for a different role were asked to later perform another role instead and when they could not cope up, they were fired.
There were situations (and I am not kidding) where people were asked to produce medical certificates for taking sick leaves.
The trust factor between the directors and the rest of the employees(barring their pets) is ZERO.
“Work from home” facility comes under severe scrutiny. It is okay if the counterparts in US are working from home but apparently indians misuse work from home is what I have been told
Also you do not get comp-off if you come to work on weekends.
10. Projects: They have only 2 major revenue generating projects. Don’t let them mislead you into thinking there are more projects. They also do not have a sales team (another red flag) to get more projects. During the interview I was told that there is a sales team which gets new projects regularly. LIES. One of the projects during my tenure had shut down and a lot of people came on bench. The concept of bench does not exist in vignet. A lot of people started fearing for their jobs. Few of them left, some stayed. They really need to get more projects to ensure a safer future.
11. Appraisals: I never had one. It kept getting postponed by 3 months till I got another job and resigned. Phew. The others get okay appraisals. Depends on how much hold you have on a project and what salary band you fall in.
12. HR: They are not allowed to take any own decisions by the directors. Do as you are told.
The rating here (~3.8) is very misleading. it should be below 2. Don't go on the positive ratings, They are biased. Read the negative reviews and that will give you a better idea.
