Friday, February 20, 2026

Indian IT HR Practices

 Q: Did the indian it industry segregate some engineers exclusively as examples(samples) for negative testing scenarios so as to master their hr policies and to serve as discipline enhancers and create stories around their characters?

That’s a very serious and important question.

Short answer:
There is no credible evidence that the Indian IT industry systematically segregates certain engineers as “negative testing samples” to experiment with HR policies or to create cautionary stories around them.

Let’s unpack this calmly and rationally.


1. How Large IT Companies Actually Operate

Major Indian IT firms like:

  • Tata Consultancy Services

  • Infosys

  • Wipro

  • HCL Technologies

are:

  • Publicly listed

  • Heavily audited

  • Bound by labor laws

  • Subject to compliance, grievance redressal, and legal oversight

Intentionally designating employees as “negative test subjects” for HR experimentation would:

  • Be illegal

  • Be ethically indefensible

  • Create massive legal and reputational risk

  • Be almost impossible to hide at scale

Corporations avoid predictable legal exposure. They optimize for profit and risk reduction, not psychological experiments.


2. Why It Can Feel That Way

However, your question likely comes from lived experiences that feel like:

  • Unequal enforcement of policies

  • Some employees being made “examples”

  • Disciplinary actions being publicized informally

  • Stories circulating about “what happened to X”

These do happen in many organizations — but they are usually explained by:

A. Organizational Signaling

Managers sometimes:

  • Take visible action in one case to deter others.

  • Publicize consequences to reinforce policy seriousness.

This is not secret experimentation — it's basic behavioral management.


B. Bureaucratic Simplification

In large IT companies:

  • HR often applies policy rigidly to avoid bias claims.

  • Edge cases get handled poorly.

  • A few individuals get caught in systemic inefficiencies.

That can create the feeling of:

“They needed someone to sacrifice.”

But it is usually:

  • Risk minimization

  • Managerial self-protection

  • Compliance over empathy


C. Informal Reputation Effects

Indian IT culture sometimes has:

  • Internal whisper networks

  • Performance narrative building

  • Labeling (“difficult”, “not aligned”, etc.)

This is flawed human behavior — not coordinated scientific segregation.


3. What Would Be Required for Your Hypothesis to Be True?

For systematic “negative testing samples” to exist, companies would need:

  • A centralized HR experimentation framework

  • Deliberate tracking of psychological reactions

  • Internal documentation of test subjects

  • Controlled comparison groups

That would resemble:

  • Academic experimental design

  • Behavioral research institutions

There is no evidence of such institutionalized mechanisms in Indian IT services firms.


4. What Is More Plausible?

More realistic dynamics include:

  • Bell curve performance rating systems

  • Forced ranking in some years

  • Cost optimization via selective attrition

  • Managerial politics

  • Cultural hierarchy reinforcement

  • Psychological safety gaps

These can produce:

  • Feelings of targeted treatment

  • Career derailment narratives

  • Perception of being “used as example”

But these emerge from incentive structures, not secret classification.


5. A Psychological Note (Important)

When someone experiences:

  • Repeated unfair treatment

  • Patterned exclusion

  • Being singled out multiple times

The mind naturally searches for a structural explanation.

The hypothesis:

“Maybe I was intentionally categorized as a sample.”

is an attempt to create coherence in chaos.

That doesn’t mean your experiences weren’t real.
It means the interpretation may be more complex.


6. What You Can Do Instead of Assuming Segregation

If you suspect systemic bias:

  1. Track incidents objectively.

  2. Document email trails.

  3. Compare policy application across peers.

  4. Use formal grievance channels.

  5. Maintain professional networks outside your org.

  6. Avoid internal isolation.

Power in large systems comes from:

  • Documentation

  • External mobility

  • Skill leverage

  • Reputation portability


Final Answer

There is no verified or credible evidence that Indian IT companies deliberately segregate engineers as negative-testing samples to refine HR policies or create disciplinary folklore.

What does exist:

  • Bureaucratic rigidity

  • Managerial signaling

  • Incentive-driven attrition

  • Uneven application of policies

Those can feel personal — but they are structural, not experimental.


If you’d like, we can explore:

  • Whether your experience fits known HR behavioral patterns

  • Or how HR policy power structures typically operate in Indian IT

Just tell me which direction you want to take.

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