umm.. Saad doesn’t your post actually PROVE that rumors were indeed true!

“…I recently talked to a couple of their management guys and they told me that they initially did ask the employees to leave, if they wish, as the payments for the project had been delayed…. ”

A company can be very profitable, but if it doesn’t have cash - it can go bankrupt! Technically this is what Inov8 was going to be as they could not meet their financial liabilities. In fact their business model is downright unethical: keep hiring and keep delaying salaries. Inov8! If you cannot pay salaries, LAY OFF people (you are exploiting people just for “good workforce strength”.

Government needs to take action against such firms and there should be strong protections of the employees. Inov8 should be paying interest on the salaries they delayed.

Lastly, employees are “hired” as employees not as partners. They do not have to share the owners’ risk about payments. If payments are delayed, owners should take loans and pay the salaries. If they can’t afford to keep employees or pay interest over loans, just clear the liabilities and lay-off employees and operate a smaller and more efficient company.

Nice reply Asim. It’s good to see tech workers are not ill treated as textile companies’ workers most of the time, this is a bad exception. I won’t recommend anyone to companies like Invo8.

Hi Asim,
the rumors floating were that innov8 is going towards bankruptcy and will be closed down or sold out. I think Saad meant they have removed those rumors and are in business.
He has admitted that they have delayed the payments and due to which some people have left the company. but we need to hear both sides of the story. they did ultimately pay out the dues if delayed. with companies facing every thing from slow business to electricity nightmares. they still went out and paid the employees even the ones who left them. we have had worse examples in our industry of companies outrightly rejecting employees dues.

Hi Asim,

I appreciate your comments. FYI, quashed can be used in many connotations especially in the case of rumors, even NYT and WSJ use it frequently. Still, I would be careful in future.

GnW is an open community and everyone can contribute so you have an open invitation to start sharing your ‘valuable’ thoughts.

Saad

Hi all, sorry about the strong comments. May be ahsan is right however I understood the post to have a different meaning than the intended.

Asslam O Alaikum to All;

Well reading out the worthy Comments of all of the people I got little bit confused because i m going to Join INOV8 in a couple of months Does all these rumours are TRUE???
Anyone who is curently or was an Emloyee of INOV8 plzz let me know abt the True story…

Regards,
Shayan

There is a mailing thread going on at “sahics_all” yahoo group (FAST Alumni group)with the subject: “Impact of global credit crunch on IT Busineses in Pakistan” and one of the response was :

“I think Inov8 got badly impacted due to the worldwide economical disaster. It’s funding has been stopped. They have not paid salaries to the employees from last 5 months .They also terminated many of their employees without even clearing their dues. Employees and their families are suffering because of them and struggling for their dues and new jobs. One should be highly careful while joining any such company in future.”

When i confirmed this with some of the inov8 employees (old as well as currently working), i came to know that Inov8 has only paid to them who are currently working at inov8. But those who resigned or terminated by inov8 are still waiting for their salaries. The situation is still worse for those who are terminated by Inov8 without even clearing their dues. Employers are also exploiting them because they are jobless and got nothing by inov8 since after June 2008. They are forced to join at very low packages.

This is very sad for me

The mail attached by “inov8 on November 6th” is for the employees who r still there in Inov8 not for ones who r no more with Inov8. NO SALARY HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO THE ACCOUNTS OF EX-EMPLOYEES. This mail by Inov8 management is just to show the world that Inov8 has become an “Angel”. This is status of today that no salary has been transferred for the Ex-Employees of Inov8 and the higher management saya that they can’t say when they will transfer the dues.

Hi Qazi, i have reconfirmed again, Inov8 trying to call some of its Ex-employees to rejoin and says that “We will pay all of your dues only if you rejoin us”. This is nothing but clear blackmailing. Only a couple of ex-employees joined them and left again when they got their salaries. But remaining people still struggling for their dues.
Situation is worse for those who were terminated by Inov8 and NO ONE HAS BEEN PAID YET.
Another recent news for you is that 4 more employees have resigned this month including their PM.

My brother used to work for Inov8. They terminated him without clearing his dues. Its been a couple of months and Inov8 still is not paying for the previous 5 months. The only people to be blamed are the ones running the show, the duo of two cousins. All the people affected should go to Labor Court and file a case against Inov8.

Its ‘ABC’ .Can’t show my identity here but I have worked for inov8 and left it early this year. So thats y i know a number of people there and still have good terms with most of them. I know that whole scenario but after reading lot of comments on this forum I today explicitly called and chatted a few guys who are no more with inov8 due to this issue and they have confirmed that after May they have only received one salary that of June on 30th september i.e. 29th Ramazan. They told me that they are waiting for remaining salaries and dues. When they call any one there CEO, HR, Accounts etc then they say they are planning for it but can’t give the exact date. They are saying this since first week of October but had done nothing. Inov8 have got loan in “Crores” from a bank and as per my estimate they need maximum 3-4 millions to clear the old guys. So they should do that immediately and get “Dua” from these guys and their families instead of “Bad-Dua”. So if any one from Inov8 management read this then he should advice the management of the firm to clear the dues.

Hi Osama. I dont think there is any thing un-civil in my comments. ************* MODERATED *************** they misbehave lot of times with their employess. I have spent a reasonable time with them and i know what the hell they speak with their employees. One example is that when they transferred the salaries of resources which are with them then one of them (Hasnain or Bashir) used the following words in the presence of females: “get your ass back to your work”. Is this the behaviour of a civilized person? Never ever. At the end the basic purpose to put my comments here is to convince the Inov8 management to clear all the dues of their ex employees

this moderation idiocracy has to stop so we can really understand the matter clearly rather then the moderator stupidifying it’s mindset over the topic.

Hello, the November salary of employees still working with inov8 has been transferred yesterday but not a single coin for ex employee.

@TiredOfMollyCoddling, I am surprised at the immaturity of the comment! So employees should “get their asses back to work” for bosses who don’t seem to know how to run their business and how to pay off the liabilities? I see somewhere a reference made to why it’s okay to use expressions like ‘get your ass back to work’ as it being a regular norm in the US; however stopping salaries is not a norm. And if it was US, employees would have sued the firm and it would have been out of business.

In any case, the point wasn’t the expression but the fact that they werent/arent clearing dues and then using expressions such as these to show that they have some sort of slaves working under them.

Regarding innovative products, it’s not because of the employees, it’s because of the short-sighted and unprofessional leaders that we don’t have great products. Bondage labor does not produce great products!

“.. You think you can do a better job? Go build your own company.” I have already done this and I have Alhamdo’Lillah a very successful firm and I want firms such as Innov8 out of market who are misusing the resources in a market where there is already a lack of resources!

Please stop sympathizing with unprofessional entrepreneurs who don’t know how to run a business! Also every employee and employer has a right to respect, you don’t have to “earn” it. This is the professional way of doing things. There rules of engagement that are meant to be followed by both employers and employees.

Lastly, please don’t give examples about US startups as they are not really applicable and take the entire argument out of context.

As an entrepreneur from the good ol’ Pakistan, I am saddened by the events at Inov8. I hope they can still get back on their feet soon!

I can understand the anger of the people stuck in this (from the getting paid perspective) but you need to look at the trouble the pay-masters must be going through! They are literally seeing their “baby” die here!

(baby, in the literal sense)

inov8 owners!! ab to sharam karo … kion logon ki bad duaien le rahay ho? kion logon k paisay nai de detay?

I am a friend of one of the ex-employees of inov8 who left when inov8 did not pay its employees the salaries for few (3-4) months. And still inov8 has not cleared the salaries plus dues to employees who left at that time. Now inov8 is trying their best to blackmail those employees who were very important to them, by sending them false legal notices. Mr Hasnain Sheikh (CEO of Inov8) has come from USA but in nature he is a pure ‘UJJAD’, he has even threatened the employees that he can snatch his employees from their homes if he wants. This was the very rude an unethical behavior of the CEOs (Hasnain and Bashir) that when the development manager of Inov8 left in the start of year 2008, what he did in anger that he completely destroyed the CVS code repository of Inov8. I am very disappointed of those employees who are still working with Inov8, I will say they are equal participants in the cruelty the inov8 is doing with their employees who left them. I will recommend all IT people to avoid joining inov8 otherwise on their own risk.