BENGALURU: When a firm’s employees talk about its growth and mega projects, you know they really are happy. After being in a state of free fall for over a decade, the government-owned ITI’s revival over the past two years seems to have been just the thing the firm needed to completely change the mood at the workplace.
While there was hardly any work for employees earlier, the firm now finds itself is understaffed having bagged numerous mega projects. And the employees don’t mind having to work harder at all. They are in fact releived that the days of having no work are over.
Generous government funding has also enabled the firm to upgrade its infrastructure and install equipment with state-of-the-art technologies. As a result of these improvements, the employees are bullish about the firm doing well. They also hope that if the company starts making profits, they too can look forward to some monetary rewards.
Chairman and Managing Director S Gopu has been in charge for just over six months. But he can sense the positivity among the staff. “There’s a lot of hope and good vibes. Officers have started getting the kind of projects which they hadn’t been getting for the past decade. The market has opened up and there’s a lot enthusiasm among everyone.” The CMD has set a target to break even this financial year and is looking to making profits from next year.
Ramesh B R, Chief Manager-Project and Planning, said the prevailing atmosphere was a direct consequence of the firm’s improved performance and upgrade of its infrastructure. He said the firm was going through continuous growth and also getting into diverse areas.
Summing up the general feeling within the company, he said, “The mood has been set and it’s the responsibility of all of us to carry it forward.” He added that a sustained effort to bring back the firm from the wilderness, which he termed a “revolution,” had begun in 2010.
Senior Technical Assistant Manjula M, an employee with ITI for the past 17 years, said it was a relief that there was work to be done now. Another staffer of the same grade, Gopal K, said, “Earlier, there were few orders and lack of infrastructure. Now we’re getting prestigious projects from the defence sector and from C-DAC and BSNL. We’re clearly on the revival path and we hope this translates into something good for the employees too after a year or two.”
Assistant PRO Geeta M Pinto has been working for 27 years and says the last two years have been very different from the decade earlier. She says, “The people seem energetic".