Cult of Manipulation, Favoritism, and Exploitation - Recensione dipendente - Consultant presso Samagra Development Associates

Opportunity of working with senior government officials Some motivated young colleagues

I knew Samagra very well both during initial stages and later stages (from when it was a smaller development concern, then through its merger with and de-merger from another company with whom relations had soured, and in its latest avatar as "transforming governance"), and so it pains me to write this review because I used to really believe in this company, and in its original founder. However, as I worked within the company I found two broad areas of great concern: - Behaviour: the behaviour of the company towards employees is very very poor. In addition to not having the right policies and biased treatment, there has been outright manipulation of both facts and individuals. The company is not transparent and does not promote transparency; on the contrary it manipulates statements from different employees; during my time there, I saw two of my colleagues break down and cry because of management; several times. Consequently, there is a huge mental heath issue for employees, which the management is entirely indifferent to. - Intent: this 'intent' can be further be subdivided into intent (external) for country/government and intent (internal) for employees. With respect to external intent, I have seen the company grey over facts (it's called 'storylining') to funders; when challenged, there was no admission of guilt or even a sense of an apology. By effectively misrepresenting the quality of government's own initiatives to international funders, the company does a huge disservice to the nation, just to make a space for itself. After all, if the government can do good work without such agencies, then this agency will not make money itself. Further I began to wonder that the intent is not genuinely to have "impact at scale", but to show impact (real or imaginary) to stay in the marketplace. Similarly, with respect to intent for employees; the management is very manipulative and deceitful; the same issue of unfair treatment, unfair promotion, unfair work hours, unfair compensation etc etc keeps cropping up; the management, however, will pretend each time that it is unaware of these issues and not deal with it; this is why people keep leaving and these people keep trying to hire, but they will never solve this problem, because they genuinely don't intend to. They will exploit individuals and throw them by the wayside. The intent factor is most troubling and hurtful because if people can behave badly without intending to, but when the company has no genuine intention of behaving well, it never actually will do so, but it will only pretend that it cares. But it doesn't.

- High ownership of your work - Very high exposure to senior govt. leadership and voice in decision-making - Execution / implementation heavy work leading to operator-based learning - Amazing people in general - young company - Good place to start for a fresh undergrad - Projects are based in capital T-2 cities in general (could be a con for some) - Structured feedback and training sessions (partially a con as well, details below) - Accomodation sorted with good guest houses, house helps and house cooks - Good projects in general in impact space - Good pay in impact space

- Extremely penny-pinching / cheap company for a firm which expects 60 hours a week from its employee and makes profits. Examples: 1) Centrally managed Google-form to book flight tickets, where the admin will book the cheapest flight for you (with no food and seat selection allowed) irrespective of your timing preference. If your flight gets delayed - you'll be stuck as the admin will create chaos for booking another flight (which would obviously be costlier). They pressurize you to book flights A MONTH in advance - and call you out if you don't for whatever reasons. 2. Food allowance : INR 300 per meal (shameful, to say the least). Plus there are tens of conditions to claiming food allowance, for e.g., it cannot be in your base location (even though you're traveling), it cannot be a snack item (e.g., chocolates), and so on. 3. If you unknowingly claim something as expense due to lack of policy knowledge, they cut the claimed amount from your salary as a "penalty". 4. The monthly townhall is done in a basement, with steel chairs stacked up right against each other, with unbearable suffocation in summers. This is for a 9 hours crammed day. 5. Hotel per night cap is INR 2,500 - 3,000 (shameful, again). Even an NGO treats you better. 6. Gives 6 flybacks per year from your project base location to Delhi ONLY, that is, 1 flyback every 2 months to Delhi, even though your home might be somewhere else. The only Delhi part wasn't changed despite several requests from all employees (for reasons beyond anyone's understanding) 7. The firm does not provide laptop and MS-Office suite to consultants! You're expected to get you own - Extremely top-down, with hardly any place for logical dissent. What CEO says is the word in most cases (even on topics where he has zero knowledge of ground). Even senior leadership who don't agree with the CEO have been asked to leave - Too many irrational processes, which are just forced down on everyone and centrally tracked by admin. Examples: 1) Weekly planning and reviews - 2 hours planning on Monday and 2 hours review on Friday, every week 2) Monthly planning and reviews - 4 hours planning at start of month and 4 hours review end of month, every month 3) Quarterly planning and reviews - 6 hours of planning at start of quarter and 6 hours of review at the end of quarter, every quarter 4)Team Pulse - wherein the entire team including PL sits and tell how they're feeling (as if they'll be honest) 5) Team Feedback - where the entire team including PL sits and everyone gives feedback (good and bad, compulsory) on everyone (creates trauma for most) 6) PC Coaching - a 2-3 years overall experienced guy will provide you feedback every 2 weeks, even though there hasn't been much done in 2 weeks. This is centrally tracked and therefore "must be done" 7) PL Coaching - valuable, but again implemented as a process 8) Compulsory 2 district visits per month - even though your project doesn't need district visits at all and you can spend the time on other productive work 9) Townhall - every month where the leaders presents about their work and everyone listens - A profitable social impact company, where the CEO expects employees to work for national building and social causes, makes profits as a company, but don't want employees to have perks or have that lens at all - Extreme favouritism by CEO, picks and promotes whoever he deems fit, fires whoever he deems fit - Appraisals are highly based on "feelings" of your lead, and you cannot do much about it - If you an MBA, avoid this firm like a plague. They fired 25% of the the first batch of MBAs they hired from top colleges within 3 months giving reasons like "cultural fit". They didn't give hikes to MBAs because "they're already being paid highly" (leadership's words) - Highly inconsiderate to employees, rejects valid requests veiled as "expected sacrifices from the employees"