The Hindu Business Line : MNC staff get extended Christmas break this year

Paid holidays
HP sees significant operational and environmental benefits.
Cisco seeks employees’ support for greener year end and ‘power down’ some facilities.
Analog Devices will have total shutdown for a week for maintenance of systems.

Adith Charlie
Vishwanath Kulkarni

Mumbai/Bangalore, Dec. 19 Friday was the last working day in the year for India-based employees of several multinational technology firms. Beginning next week, employees of Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and Analog Devices will be on a mandatory ‘paid holiday’ as their India operations will remain closed till the first week of January.

Analysts say that this move should be read as a cost-cutting exercise, given the challenging macroeconomic environment facing these companies and the economy in general. And it is much better than laying off people, which can hurt the image of any corporate, industry sources say.

Operational gains

“The holiday period may extend from December 21 through January 4 or a comparable closure period depending on specific country schedules, client-facing demands and critical customer needs,” said an HP spokesperson.

“The annual shutdown helps its employees enjoy more time with their families, while achieving significant operational and environmental benefits.” The move will provide operational benefits to HP India, in terms of the savings derived from sites that remain closed during the holiday period.

HP, which employs about 60,000 people in India, said that the move is not a fall-out of the current liquidity crunch worldwide. It may be noted that globally, HP has extended its normal one week (year-end) holiday shutdown this year in its bid to “achieve operational savings”.

Greener year

Computer network gear maker Cisco is encouraging India employees to take a five-day vacation (December 25-January 4; without including holidays and weekends) during the calendar year-end period.

“In addition to the above, we are asking all employees for their support in driving a greener year end and will ‘power down’ some of our facilities during this same period,” a Cisco spokesperson said.

However, some business-critical teams, including technical assistance services and channel partner and customer product ordering services, will still function during this period. Earlier, Cisco had announced plans of reducing over $1billion, for fiscal 2009, from its annualised expense run rate, given the challenging macroeconomic environment.

Cisco, which has over 4,000 employees in India, including R&D, sales and support functions, will be targeting reductions in travel and discretionary-related expenses, including offsite, outside services, equipment, events, trade shows, prototypes, marketing and other activities.

Positive reinforcement

Like HP, semiconductor maker Analog Devices has also asked all its 200 employees including sales and R&D staff, in India to take a two-week leave. “It’s a paid holiday and we are asking employees to utilise their leave earned overtime,” said Mr Joe Lazar, director of human resources at Analog Devices India.

“It will be a total shutdown for the first week where maintenance of systems will be carried out. However, in the second week, some critical projects are likely to continue, but only with permission,” Mr Lazar said, adding, “the company was trying to position it as a positive reinforcement and not in lieu of cutting jobs”.

In November this year, computer maker Dell Inc had asked its employees to consider taking up to five days of unpaid vacation as it struggles to cut costs in the face of weak global demand.

However, a Dell spokesperson said there was no such announcement for the India operations.

However, companies such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, Nortel Networks among others said they will be functioning as usual with the regular Christmas break.

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