Serious plight faced by experienced company secretaries in the job market today -SOS message - Request honourable members to take cognizance and provide immediate remedy

[Srinath Sai]

Broadly, there are 3 main issues that are crippling the lives of experienced company secretaries in being unable to find even a single suitable job particularly of a 'whole-time company secretary' in the available job market today, despite having the relevant or better experience.

Request the honourable, influential members to take cognizance of this debilitating, numbing situation and provide immediate remedies to facilitate the lives of experienced company secretaries.  

Highlighting the Problems in colour RED and some humble Solutions to fix them permanently in colour GREEN.

Problem 1: All companies, by and large, are interested in only freshers upto 2 years experience as they are unwilling to pay more. If you can see the Employment Opportunities section of Bangalore division, only 2 of  the 14 companies listed on ICSI website under ‘Employment Opportunities of Bangalore division’ are asking for experience over 2 years with one of them being a PCS firm ‘ZEHN’ which obviously might not pay while the other is a contract job with ‘Cauvery Neeravari Nigam Limited’. This is the case everywhere where only freshers or trainees are sought by companies or PCS firms for reducing the salary pay-out as little as possible and there's hardly any job that gets an experienced CS take-home more than Rs. Fifty thousand rupees. For an experienced CS to get a job itself has become unrealistic let alone the salary. and one is most likely in a ridiculous predicament of even considering moving out to some remote place (like Sri City, TADA, Oragadam, Batinda, Kolhapur, Solapur or Guduvanchery, etc.) to survive even when his/her kid is admitted in the city school of one's resident city, for mere survival. This is not acceptable however bad the economic situation is, considering that only some thirty thousand company secretaries are job-hunting today.

Possible Solution: At least some rule should be enacted to protect the interests of the experienced CS community that mandate large and medium-size companies atleast should give preference to experienced company secretaries at a deserving salary level.  Otherwise only freshers will lap up all the jobs. As these freshers also will one day suffer  after becoming experienced.

Problem 2: In this profession where there is no guarantee that one can be in the job over a long time due to the associated legal risk as well as salary back-log issues (kirloskar electric, etc), at least the job market should be liquid enough to provide enough jobs, with only thirty-thousand company secretaries in the market hunting for jobs, which is not happening. Companies are advertising a job many months which they want to fill leisurely. For example, Vidal healthcare, Infinite computer solution, Moog india technology center, prestige projects, etc have filled position only in March-April 2016 for which they have been calling candidates through job consultants as early as July 2015. A person who has given an interview in July 2015 can’t wait till March 2016 for the company to decide hiring a candidate, as he/she will be at risk of eording market value caused by remaining unemployed. And, as I had mentioned earlier, this profession has a high degree of job-loss due to associated legal risk/salary backlog issues, etc, and the job market mechanism should facilitate those CS members who have quit their jobs to find another suitable job soon enough which is not happening nowadays as companies seem to hoodwink the interviewees by their long-drawn recruitment process.

Possible Solution: Some rule can be imposed that companies need to fill a position immediately which will make more jobs available for a company secretary who is bound to be without a job due to the associated legal risks/salary backlog issues compared to other normal job-holders. For an experienced company secretary to face this situation of not being able to get into a ‘SINGLE JOB’ besides losing out to freshers on salary is a bane which is undeserving, considering the might with which he/she has vaulted a low-pass rate exam with grouping rigour with single-minded devotion.

Problem 3: Another dimension of the problem that’s taken shape off late due to the large pool of qualified people chasing few job is that qualifications have started losing value very rapidly. Today, companies have got emboldened to ask for LLB or even CA for a ‘company secretary’ position from once quoting them as ‘desirable qualification’ a decade back. I doubt whether a CS qualification will have any weightage for lawyer appointments or chartered accountant appointments just as a law degree or a CA qualification has for company secretary appointments.

Possible Solution: A rule should be enacted so that companies, at least the small ones should ask for just CS qualification and not mandatorily ask for other qualifications. Otherwise, a middle-aged CS from a B Com background will most certainly lose an opportunity only because he/she is not LLB qualificed, and this practice is unpalatable and should be moderated immediately.

And when listed and unlisted public companies like Shetron, Camson, Gerdau take their own time to hire a whole-company secretary one can't expect much from the ‘little brother’ private companies who will assume that they need not be foolish to lose money on salary-payout by toeing the line urgently on the appointment of whole-time company secretary.

Some immediate measures are needed to plug the loopholes that give the corporates a free hand on choosing the qualification and timing of the hire and affecting the lives of the members of a prestigious body to feel so miserable and disillusioned about having gotten into this profession after painstaking effort and time..

Being only among the few in the country, the company secretaries lot deserve a better deal, at least adequate opportunities that materialize soon, considering it’s a risky job that can affect one’s personal and professional identity unlike other normal jobs such as that of IT/BPO. The system currently practised even after the new act is in vogue, is not up to the mark with respect to providing opportunities to the CS members and seems to ignore the interests of the experienced members while only providing opportunities for CS Fresher members, Trainees and Student members.

Any industry lobby that is curtailing the scope of experienced company secretaries in the job market should be moderated as it's hard to imagine/ accept the fact about jobs not materializing for an experienced company secretary despite being one of the only thirty thousand people to have qualified among the 130 crore people in the country.

[santhosh kumar]

 Dear Srinath Sai good ...

at least we are able to find support . we need evaluate and more in right direction

--
--
************************************************
Mail your comments, feedback and suggestions on CSMysore to Moderator: datta...@gmail.com and Manager: vivekhe...@gmail.com
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CSMysore" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to csmysore+u...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

CS.M.Santhoshkumar
"From the man who always has a Good heart ! "

ॐ सर्वे भवन्तु सुखिनः

 

 

[Vineeta Kumari]

I strongly support you sir. If there is  no value of a CS in the market then why ICSI is not giving result of 100 %. Why we people are doing a lot hard work to fall in that 2-3 % result in order to get the degree.

If it has no value then its an urge ICSI provide 100% result if it is like after doing engineering from any private college where its very easy to pass and get a degree and either not finding a job or finding a very low salaried job.

Urgent and strong steps needs to be taken ahead in this regard.

I think it should be made a rule that if person is having all three degrees i.e CA,CS,CWA then he can get employment only on the basis of any one of the degrees only.

Thanks 

[Kanti P]

You are right Sir. These issues have to be addressed and solved. 

[Vineeta Kumari]

yes Kanti P they should otherwise what is the difference between other professions and this profession????

[Deepak Sadhu]

This is the bitter truth....A CS cannot have the same scope of work of a CA. Even semi-qualified CAs get highly paid jobs....

ICSI has to do something about this and we all members should form a committee to put forward the views, plights of all CSs.

Lets take this on high priority

Regards

CS Deepak Sadhu

DEEPAK SADHU & Co,

Company Secretaries

Bangalore

W: www.deepaksadhu.com

M: 98860 - 96664 / 88843 - 11947

E: dee...@deepaksadhu.com

    csdeepa...@gmail.com

[Vikas Manohar]

Hi. I am both CA and CS from Baroda (Gujarat) and I think the situation is not that grim in the western part of the country. Rather a legal professional (CS) is in demand in corporate world in Gujarat. Initially you may have to struggle but if you are ready to migrate, learn new things in Finance and Taxation and more particularly Management Consultancy, there are ample opportunities in practice area also besides job opportunities in the industry. 

Of Course there is temporary phase of recession in western parts of India too but with Capital Market booming, and new start ups and Make in India concept gaining momentum, I do not think there is need for worry for a CS professional. Only he/she has to rise above the mental block being only "Company Secretary" and be a "Legal and Financial Professional" too.

Vikas A Manohar 

[Srinath Sai]

I think Change.org kind of vent is a something-better-than-nothing citizen support mechanism in place right now where all of them can garner support.Though only a small vent (as the threshold of support to convince the law-makers to decide whether to at all get serious about the issue, still vests with them) given to 'We, the people of India'- the tribute that's given to the citizens by the starting words of the 'Preamble of our Constitution'- ironically the only place where we, the citizens of our country have ever been given their due respect and nowhere outside this. In the real world, we the citizens comprising of trailblazers and intellectuals are a hapless lot at the mercy of the law-makers who decide which laws or resolutions are important so as to be given urgent attention- be it giving 100% hike to themselves or to sanction OROP scheme to the fasting senior veterans or maintain poise over the Lokpal campaign that was being run for several decades by Anna Hazare. But, nonetheless, change.org seems to have some credibility, at least to get a wink or two from the law-makers, who may, if God is by our side, to include in their parliamentary discussions among the plethora of issues, purely out of their magnanimity towards we, citizens, if not for enacting any serious laws to correct the deficiency in the system. But we can still try our luck instead of continuing with our misplaced fervent prayers to God for giving us good times rather than directing them to our real benefactors.

On Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 1:53:56 PM UTC+5:30, Srinath Sai wrote:

[Srinath Sai]

Who will not want more for the same expense. And, Indians love especially while shopping where they will even consider buying a reasonable quality product that gets something extra free of cost, though they might have initially gone with the intention to buy a premium product at a high price.It's not so in abroad. In abroad, qualifications are still respected. They generally ask no more than a solicitor( equivalent of LLB) or some other qualification for company secretary appointments and hardly ask for additional qualifications. Here in India only, because of the easily available qualified pool, qualifications and salaries have taken a hit. I

It may not be grim if you have acquired other professional qualifications. But people with just one, that too, CS only- it's is very grim- grave situation indeed as you can notice from the job-postings on Bangalore division or any other division where 12/ 14 jobs (80 to 90%) posted are for freshers with 0-2 years experience that will pay a maximum of Rs. 40000 while the remaining two jobs for experienced are- one being a 1 year contract job and the other one being that of a PCS firm which obviously can't pay. So what should one do once his experience crosses 2 or 3 years. Should he still fight for these fresher-level openings competing with other fresher level candidates at fresher level salaries? It's not practical. Companies in India are having a jolly good time finding a large available qualified pool ready to compete for a dirt. Otherwise who would imagine a company Handiman Services Limited who advertise for a company secretary cum executive assistant job and the HR when asked for this insane ad, confirmed that even for this position, several candidates have applied. It's a shocker. And, one Bal Pharma Limited had unabashedly published a salary of Rs. 1.8 Lakhs-2.5 Laks CTC on Bangalore division website sometime back. For this salary, the grueling time one spends to pass a prestigious qualification like CS is not worth the salt as one can earn the same without any exam rigour or legal risk by doing a BPO or a Call-centre job. Situation is going insane. And, if you happen to be middle-aged and have a kid studying, you simply cannot think of migrating for a few thousand extra every now and then. The situation now is so grim that having spent 5 and odd years for CS, you feel the qualification has got redundant and employers are using the mandate to pick candidates who have LLB also. So now when you decide to spend additional 3 years to get LLB, that to may get redundant some day when employers will ask for CA and that's over for you as it's tough to acquire CA when you have got middle-aged and in the middle of your career and reached a certain salary level. Like this, because of too many qualified people chasing few jobs, employers are jolly-well getting a numerous qualified individual for a pittance.

I know someone who despite serving as company secretary and compliance officer of a listed company and having abundant core experience in company law, is today languishing outside company law learning everything new like a fresher, with much aversion, simply because of companies long-drawn recruitment process as well as that of one having acquired just one. I seriously if this supply of jobs is artificially tinkered so as to get more people fighting for limited openings thereby enabling the companies to get a better deal- somebody having 2 or 3 professional qualifications at a less salary saving them of the money they have to otherwise spend on hiring 3 candidates with 3 different qualifications.

Unless there's some sleight of hand, it's illogical as to how a person of a group of just 30,000 is finding it hard to get a single job.

Somebody has to take it forward for a solution on war-footing instead of everyone living in fear, as all of my previous posts highlighting the same issue stopped after eliciting a few responses. If this is left to continue, very soon every qualification in India will get mandatory in the near future and it's not easy to acquire one after crossing student age when one has to give time to other things such as family and kids. 

If this thread also ends after few responses, God only save us. Better late than never.

[Srinath Sai]

The importance given to different professional qualifications, whether it's LLB or CA or CS, should be on a reciprocal basis otherwise it's not a fair practice if it's only one-sided as is happening today in the case of 'company secretary appointments'. If LLB qualification is the first and last criteria to affect the employer's decision to hire/ reject a candidate or evan a mere call for an interview for the position of 'company secretary' despite him/her having worthy experience as a company secretary, it's only fair to expect a similar reciprocal importance of allowing a CS qualification to affect hiring/rejecting a candidate or calling him for an interview for a 'lawyer appointment'.

Same is the case with Chartered Accountant qualification, that companies should also insist for CS qualification for certain 'Chartered Accountant appointments' just as they insist on the candidate possessing a mandatory CA qualification for 'company secretary appointments' (CA+CS).

Already, a qualification based reciprocal exemption scheme is practised by the different professional bodies and it's only fair to expect a mutual reciprocal benefit to be shown in the job market also.

 

If companies who hire chartered accountant-qualified candidates for 'company secretary positions' and still employ them for doing the chartered accountant related job in their company, it echoes the proverb 'you can't have your cake and eat it' where CA's are killing/nullifying the opportunity for a pure member of ICSI who is merely only a CS-qualified, who has devoted his entire time and energy solely for getting trained as a company secretary to grab a job in his/her own related field on which he/she should have the first priority because of his/her core competence, when compared to a CA+CS dual qualified member who splits his time and energy to acquire the 2 different qualifications and enjoys the luxury of sailing in two boats. And, as we see, professionals of other bodies such as Chartered accountants or lawyers wouldn't leave their ground or even allow dilution of their importance to professionals of other bodies, to call the shots when it comes to 'chartered accountant appointments'.

 

There's been a misplaced importance given to other professional qualifications for 'company secretary appointments' when a trained professional member of CS alone can handle the job. And, the so-called KMP position worded as 'Whole-time company secretary' is only a MISNOMER and needs to be immediately amended to echo the current sentiment in the job-market so as to somewhat read as - 'Part-tiime company secretary cum part-time chartered accountant cum part-time lawyer'. As, any Law, per se is sacred and can't allow any misquotes or mis-interpretations of it.

 

[Srinath Sai]

The waning importance of company secretary qualification to other qualifications in it’s own territory can be mitigated considerably by a simple solution that’s been voiced in discussions by other ICSI members, rather than the complexity of making numerous amendments at different parts of the act which never will happen.

Firstly, LLB qualification is the nemesis in the job-market that’s tremendously affecting,  though CA qualification of late, has also joined  hands in undermining the value of CS qualification in it’s own territory.

CA is more or less an equal opponent to CS in electing members only after considerable training. But in the case of LLB, barring those LLB courses offered full-time, rest of the others who pursue the course while working, are allowed to become members or earn their LLB qualification (the bane that’s responsible for this eroding value of CS) by just sitting through not so rigorous low pass rate exams or any proper training(as compared to CA or CS) and still managing to get away with the little opportunities  that come up for CS members without a fuss which is  completely unacceptable.

1)First to tackle the issue of losing-out opportunities to also-CA qualified candidates, ICSI can urge the ICAI body to temporarily inactivate those CA’s for the timespan until they take up and remain in the role of ‘whole-time company secretary’ positions of a company and subsequently activate back their ICAI membership after they clear some PDP owing to the time-gap. This way one can obviate the over-arching influence of CA qualification in deciding company secretary appointments.  And, CA’s also will start to prefer to seek work within the realm of their profession that already are providing diverse, abundant opportunities at better salaries compared to CS, rather than looking to singe the little opportunities available within the CS realm  that could have otherwise been offered to the hapless ‘ICSI-only’ members. This way, once CA members are out of the fray, only-CS members can get back their importance within their realm on which they have supreme right, by the availability of more jobs and better salary terms.This only is a fair solution to curb the influence of CA qualification over CS qualification, considering that even ICAI body, being a little more responsible body,  surely wouldn’t keep watching when one of it’s own members lose out a ‘chartered accountant’ opportunity to those who are were also members of ICSI or BCI.

2)To tackle the influence of LLB over CS in plucking CS appointments, is bit of a complicated problem, though. But even here, one can mitigate the impact by not awarding LLB to anybody who sits for exams even while working (barring those pursuing full-time LLB programs), but have a pre-condition  of a mandatory training of 2 years under a solicitor/ senior lawyer, just as practiced in other countries, not just in developed countries like US, UK or Singapore, but even in countries in African region. So why India, that's smug about it's fastest growing economy and being the cynosure of all eyes in the world,  should be an exception that’s awarding anything by just sitting for exams. And, when CA or CS has a mandatory training requirement to qualify as a member, BCI also should have a similar agenda, as they are underdogs that are stealing 50% of  the opportunities from CS, though not much from CA’s at present.

So, ICSI council members should talk out these serious problems with ICAI and BCI to settle the problems being faced by CS members and not just provide only abundant training and capacity building as though there’s capacity, it’s still is not realizable in the market due to the over-arching influence of CA and LLB over CS qualifications and the presence of the mean corporates, except for tom-toming about their mission, vision, corporate governance or ethics  are in fact the fox with prying eyes, by and large, that’s tight-fisted and always looking for opportunities to exploit any weak situation or a flaw in the job-market system or the absence of a comprehensive act , to serve their own needs and showing a complete apathy to ways and means to correct the flaws to strengthen the system.

 

 

[Srinath Sai]

ICSI council members should talk out these serious problems with ICAI and BCI to settle the problems being faced by CS members and not just provide only abundant training and capacity building as though there’s capacity, it’s still is not realizable in the market due to the over-arching influence of CA and LLB over CS qualifications and the presence of the mean corporates, except for tom-toming about their mission, vision, corporate governance or ethics  are in fact the fox with prying eyes, by and large, that’s tight-fisted and always looking for opportunities to exploit any weak situation or a flaw in the job-market system or the absence of a comprehensive act , to serve their own needs and showing a complete apathy to ways and means to correct the flaws to strengthen the system where qualifications are given their deserving respect and market value just as a soliticor qualification alone can get one to become a company secretary in other countries across the world unlike the situation here, where even having numerous prestigious qualifications also don't guarantee one with a job, let alone a deserving pay level.

[Srinath Sai]

When in India, MNC's also tend to go with the tide as how else they will filter out candidates who are coming in hordes with a host of qualifications.

And, MNC's owing to their high productivity levels, don't create that many jobs to make them available to all of our population and a major chunk today are still only provided by Indian companies that are private and promoter-driven where even a company secretary before ensuring compliance norms are met, has got the arduous task of making the promoters concur with, who despite their knowledge or pretending to have no knowledge about compliance, would tend to look the other way, which more or less gets the company secretary back into the job-market looking for his/her next job. 

So, considering most are promoter-driven, there's a risk of quitting the job as a company secretary and job market should be liquid, but it's not so, as companies tend to advertise for a position they hire later, much soon tending to beguile the gullible jobless company secretary who believing on this opportunity give interviews after interviews with every company only to find his market value eroding rapidly due to joblessness and later one is even driven to a catch-22 situation of choosing between the 'devil and the deep blue sea' of being unemployed for long or getting into some xyz job that's just legal but not company law and survive. 

Unfortunately one is bound to pursue these options despite being aware about the struggles one has to undergo to learn as a newcomer outside company law with much aversion, where the scaling up in terms of remuneration/ performance/ recognition is affected vis-à-vis a company law related job in which one has worked before and has the necessary skills and experience to handle the related tasks or work situations. The dearth of jobs that fails to materialize in one’s hometown/city due to the pretentious long drawn recruitment process of companies, makes a CS even get into a predicament of even considering the ridiculous choice of moving out of one's city to a remote town far-off to get employed, despite having one's kid studying in a city school in his resident city, for the sake of survival and not for any money as even those jobs one is hardly paid a few thousands more.

On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 1:27 PM, Bhavesh A Kinkhabwala <bhave...@gmail.com> wrote:

True, but it seems such a kind of situation is LESS fond in MNCs and where found is due to the typical unprofessional local people.

 

It’s somewhat regional level problem also where education do much matters but, REVENUE generation is only the moto.

 

Sometimes it seems other good counties is a better option to work and settle when compared to India. 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Company Secretary Vacancies (CSV)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to company-secretary-v...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to company-secre...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/company-secretary-vacancies/8c7391c6-7305-40de-b5ab-3fbf9f5ca068%40googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Company Secretary Vacancies (CSV)" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to company-secretary-v...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to company-secre...@googlegroups.com.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/company-secretary-vacancies/CAFtQJUTKW%3DG6U0WVKK4ZEjowOX-vWAS5%2BvOD9fY0R9m%3Dnnyy5A%40mail.gmail.com.

[dikshant singh]

Dear Srinath Sai Sir,

       I totally agree with you But I can assure you that Institute will NOT DO ANYTHING WHATSOEVER on this matter !! This matter is not new as they know everything but choose to sleep on it !

 If you see for example I can name more then 4 Ltd companies in my city who needs to appoint a CS but has not and are fearless of any notice !! I did try to notify the ICSI but there was response.

 If we see the no. of Ltd and (P) Ltd Co.(s) in India,which comes under the purview of appointing a CS is much more then the total no, of 45k CS at present,now this figure also includes Members who are in Practice+female (Married) who are not in not using the membership+ also have CA qualification. Now just try to calculate the an approximate no. and still CS with 2+ experience offered a job of 25000 Rs pathetic!

[Srinath Sai]

Yes. You have rightly said. As per archives in MCA there are about 28000 companies that across all categories that have a paid up capital of >5 crores and require an appointment of whole-time company secretary. These may be old figures. There may be only about 30,000 company secretaries  of the 45,000 members who may be job-hunting in the market( after excluding some 5000 retired members, 7000+ PCS's, non-working women after marriage and some more who are working in the 7000+ PCS firms and other fields such as CA or consulting, etc.,) Among these 30,000 members atleast around 10,000 may be working at executive level and manager level and including those who work as part of a team in Big 4 companies and MNC's and are better-paid and prefer those jobs over the legal-risk prone whole-time job and are definitely not seeking for a whole-time company secretary position.

So, overall, there should be only about 20,000 CS's looking for jobs as 'whole-time' company secretary positions in the 28,000 qualifying companies. 

I don't see any logic why each of those 20,000 CS's who actually seek for a whole-time company secretary job is struggling to get one. I smell a rat. The data is out there for everyone and even a layman (not just an egghead) can understand this simple arithmetic and will wonder what's going wrong. 

Isn't the ICSI body vested with any powers to question these companies (who seem to enjoy some privileges by not following the rule and also achieving to keep the CS's salaries low in the market by a stealth way of delaying the appointments (it's a joke that a job with a price tag of more or less Rs. 5 lakhs as is being generally quoted in jobsites is taking 6 to 8 months to materialize, who can believe this?) that fret the anxious job-hunting CS's succumb, thereby making the most of the situation for themselves) and set right the current trend as of today (even if they are to be stripped of powers later as has been talked about in the media). So, who really has the final control in urging these qualifying companies to appoint one immediately or face punitive action, 

Can't ICSI supplicate to the untimate authority who can set right this anomaly and thereby save it's suffering members, especially the experienced as the job-market is currently over-serving the reshers or trainee level candidates for fresher-level salaried jobs. I think it's high time all members do something about  My detailed email on this anomaly to the ICSI president didn't elicit any response. I doubt if PCS's will support rectifying this anomaly as they also are providers and will not be happy to part with more salary to their CS employees as their revenues will get hit.

On an other thread when some other member is narrating her ordeal to get back into the profession after having had a job-gap after marriage, the maximum help somebody is offereing is that of a 'trainee'. I am not arrogant in not appreciating the fact that atleast somebody is coming forward to help but the jobposts everywhere you see for a CS member, be it googlegroups or job-sites, seem to be hankering only for trainees, freshers, semi-qualified. Why not anyone notice the experienced members who also were freshers once, and cater to them. Otherwise where do you expect the members to go after gaining experience? It's pathetic as everybody are only concerned about their bottomlines and reserving their social accountability posturing only to talks and not actions. I am aware that even PCS's or anybody in service business, are having a tough time nowadays in servicing demanding clients who expect maximum return for their pie. But, expecting a CS to remain only in fresher-level salaries even when maturing by way of experience is disappointing as when insiders themselves don't accord value to a CS qualified then we can't expect outsiders to understand the value of a CS qualified member. 

Why is that a CS member isn't given his/her due both in handing better-level jobs or earning better salaries when he/she has been expected to clear better-level exam among all of the exams in the country.

Hope everybody comes together to highlight the issue to the Institute so that this issue gets as much space as the regular updates on Companies Act amendments getting posted by the Institute.

But I don't see anything happening as any number of times I have highlighted this simmering feeling of experienced company secretaries in several threads before,  there's not much response and it's lost steam after 2 or 3 days, just as those issues Arnab Goswami superfluously covers in his TV shows highlighting them for not more than 2 or 3 days. Hope people awaken to safeguard their interests before it's too late. At least now ICSI has some powers. But after Modi goes about his way, I don't know if any solution to this problem will ever be worked out and one's sufferring as an experienced CS member will only get worse.

[Srinath Sai]

Somebody has to bell the cat and stop this rut soon. When CS fraternity is imploding within inside in a never-seen before kind of situation where a class called 'experienced' is not recognized nor getting rewarding opportunities just as a semi-qualified, trainees and freshers get. How will the people who are outside this profession including Arun Jaitley or Nirmala Sitharaman or even the common man, get educated about this problem  and act? (it's unlikely that they wouldn't know about this, as they have been part of tabling the Companies Act and would know all the risks and their impack on the stakeholders) rather than conditioning themselves to believe that CS members are having abundant opportunities after the new Companies Act. And instead of behaving like ostrich-head-in-sand and enabling the vested interests to get away scot-free, they can urge their leader and PM Modi who is talking about sweeping reforms, for which they too are lending their voices, to begin the reform process starting with this profession. .If not done in this spirit urgently, all public posturing on reforms is only 'maya (illusion)' and nothing else, as the noticeable deformity in the system would get entrenched causing irreversible damage to the member's future scope of work and causing a question mark over their long-term survival in this profession.

[Sachin Kumar]

The shell behind which companies hide earlier that their financial position are like that they are unable to appoint CS is now plugged up sufficiently by Companies Act 2013 and that proviso is already deleted.

But in spite of that NO Company is bothered till now…. Even few listed are also included in it.

The Institute is producing Company Secretaries in bulk as the data suggests- total CS in 2005 are 20,000 and in 2016, it is 46,000 i.e. In 25 years (1980 to 2005) -- 20,000 CS qualified and in recent in only 11 years (2005 to 2016)-- 26,000 qualified.

That time is not far when fresh qualified Company Secretaries will struggle to get 15,000/- job. I don’t know who will be responsible for that….. but this is the time to raise our voice forcefully and unitely.

With Best Regards,

CS Sachin Kumar

Phone: 99034-34421

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.

On Mon, Aug 1, 2016 at 2:36 PM, Srinath Sai <saisr...@gmail.com> wrote:

Somebody has to bell the cat and stop this rut soon. When CS fraternity is imploding within inside in a never-seen before kind of situation where a class called 'experienced' is not recognized nor getting rewarding opportunities just as a semi-qualified, trainees and freshers get. How will the people who are outside this profession including Arun Jaitley or Nirmala Sitharaman or even the common man, get educated about this problem  and act? (it's unlikely that they wouldn't know about this, as they have been part of tabling the Companies Act and would know all the risks and their impack on the stakeholders) rather than conditioning themselves to believe that CS members are having abundant opportunities after the new Companies Act. And instead of behaving like ostrich-head-in-sand and enabling the vested interests to get away scot-free, they can urge their leader and PM Modi who is talking about sweeping reforms, for which they too are lending their voices, to begin the reform process starting with this profession. .If not done in this spirit urgently, all public posturing on reforms is only 'maya (illusion)' and nothing else, as the noticeable deformity in the system would get entrenched causing irreversible damage to the member's future scope of work and causing a question mark over their long-term survival in this profession.

--

--
************************************************
Mail your comments, feedback and suggestions on CSMysore to Moderator: datta...@gmail.com and Manager: vivekhe...@gmail.com
---

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "CSMysore" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to csmysore+u...@googlegroups.com.

[Srinath Sai]

Even now when I call companies seeking for opportunities, they are audacious enough to say they don't want a CS-qualified unless he is also an LLB qualified to even call for an interview. (whether he/she can demonstrate his lawyer skills is immaterial, they give importance only to the qualification rather than whether he/she has been trained properly by attending a law course in a college or have just acquired by just sitting for exams).Just last year around situation was somewhat better at least that they would ostensibly call these CS-qualified candidates for interview to placate and then apply their mandate in selecting THE candidate having LLB also. A few years before, things were even more reasonable for CS members, that LLB was just stated as desirable and not essential.

Now the scales have tipped towards the LLB qualification and have become so cancerous for CS members, that employers are more concerned about your possessing an LLB degree than your CS qualification. God forbid, if Indian Companies Act were to read like Companies Acts of UK, Ireland or Singapore, where a lawyer is the most suitable candidate for company secretary appointments, then the job-ads for company secretary posts will start changing to read like, LLB with CS (desirable and not essential). When every country including India is trailing along the path of developed countries to copy every law and business practices, it's astonishing how companies act alone has been distinct and left uncopied from that of developed countries when it comes to company secretarial appointments. 

It's a blessing in disguise but situation may change if Indian industry (that's taking the easy route of working for foreign businesses/clients for generating revenues rather than building local customer base which can't build that scale of revenues} lobbies to make a lawyer or a chartered accountant or even a non-qualified person (as allowed by Ireland companies Act) to have a go at this company secretary position citing the global precedence. Then government can't shun this proposal as there's substantial proof abroad towards this phenomenon as also India being a country that finds it easy to seek for ready-made solutions that have been applied elsewhere, to design it's own laws or business practices than nurturing it's own distinct identity. If that happens, then it's the end of the road.

[Deepak Sadhu]

Then we should seriously write to icsi on this issue.

Let's form a committee on this and disclose our issues. Unless icsi doesn't put pressure on govt nobody will take CS seriously.

Notices, complaints, fines etc should be sent to cos then only something can happen. The industry is not bothered abt anything.

Regards

CS Deepak Sadhu

DEEPAK SADHU & Co,

Company Secretaries

Bangalore

W: www.deepaksadhu.com

M: 98860 - 96664 / 88843 - 11947

E: dee...@deepaksadhu.com

    csdeepa...@gmail.com

   

[Srinath Sai]

The government has no clue about ways to tackle the scourge of the population conundrum that's apparent by the churning out of a large pool of highly educated lot on a regular basis, each one possessing many qualifications and this has reached unsustainable levels, without being supported by commensurate number of available jobs in the market coupled by the low brand image of 'Made in India' as compared to that of 'Made in China' or 'Made in Malaysia', and all these factors are responsible for the eroding the market value of the labour force at a rapid pace, so much so that even the so-called high-paymasters- the IT companies have kept the salaries of freshers for this year at 2008-09 levels itself, when all other things including inflation has grown manifold.(employers will be relishing this Indian puzzle that's pitted the existing employees against the new-entrants which is automatically taking care of the job of denying any salary hikes to existing employees as well as denying any good salary to a new employee, caused by the huge supply of highly qualified workforce in the market.

And, Indian industry has time and again been saving the clueless government from getting shamefaced and more so in recent times, by at least pitching-in to provide a few million jobs (though only 1.35 lakh jobs were reported, lets also add the number of unfit-to-be-called-jobs, as otherwise, it looks embarassingly scary for the government to say that only 1.35 lakh jobs were created for 1.2 crore new entrants to the workforce). As a quid pro quo to this gesture shown by the Indian industry, government will likely be somewhat lenient to it's rescuers who have saved it's blushes, and may even concede if a request/lobby is put forth by the Industry asking for an amendment to allow even other professionals such as lawyers or CA's to be appointed as a 'whole-time company secretary', citing global precedence.

We can't brush aside this threat, as we have been noticing several instances of the government turning a blind eye to nefarious dealingx of powerful corporates at different points of time, even in the simple case of NPA's where government is not seeming to be acting fast on the corporates, even when it knows that they are losing Rs. 1.3 Lakh crores as interest every year(10% of Rs. 13 Lakh crores of NPA).

So, the threat is real and possible, and we can't wish away. Today, even when there's clearly delineated laws of the new Companies Act to protect the interests of the CS members in vogue, there seems to be serious lapses in it's enforcement. Situation will get even bleaker for the CS members if the Indian Industry rallies successfully in getting an amendment that allows other professionals also to become eligible just as a CS member, citing global precedence. It's hard for anyone to deny that this can't happen at all, as India including Indians ourselves have always prided in having a foreign influence in our society and our day-to-day lives, right from laws, global best practices to using an apple/samsung mobile, a LG refrigerator or even buying a Colgate toothpaste though we acknowledge the fact about an Indian product or Indian best practices (such as that of a self-built solar car driven by a bengalurean recently, nonetheless, we feel good talking about Tesla) that's available with the same value, if not more.

[surender singh]

Fully agreed with Mr. Deepak Sadhu.

[Deepal Shah]

Fully agreed with Mr. Deepak...unless we take some steps, we will be taken for granted...

[Srinath Sai]

I think it’s already late to form a committee and discuss the issues and solutions for ICSI to supplicate to the powers that be, as it should have been done few years back itself, when LLB was just beginning to exercise it’s dominance over CS in CS’s territory, by being quoted as a desirable qualification and the Institute being supreme would surely have been in the know about the global trend of the increasing dominance of lawyer qualification for CS appointments world over.  Now what is required is not concern, but action.

Company secretary being a licensed specialized profession where one has delved deep only to study company law both by way of qualification and experience, be denied a small shutter for an interview for the position that’s rightly theirs because of an overbearing influence of a qualification that has a general scope of work. Each one should be provided a room to play and perform and any unwieldy interference from others should not be condoned.  And, lawyer qualification hasn’t still become a be-all and end-all  skillset like that of IT skills that are being asked for any profession. If lawyer qualfication is expected, one needn't have formed another body to churn out specialists (who literally die to qualify) who are expected by the Indian industry to be also generalists. Instead, the lawyer licensing authority itself could have started offering these specialized courses in company law, whereby whoever undergo and qualify such a course, could well be the most-sought after person by the Industry.

I don’t think Chartered Accountants or any other licensed professionals will allow other licensed profession to take centre stage when it comes to appointments in their own profession. It’s sad that everybody have been letting  the India Inc absolute freedom to gradually shift the powers of appointing in this profession to a kingmaker outside this profession.

If companies are recruiting for a specialist position, they can also ask for a generalist background. But giving too very importance to the generalist background so as to even disqualify/eclipse the specialist background for the specialist position, is highly deplorable. One can argue that both are law related qualification and can’t stop this power-shift. Even CA’s are snooping into CS’s territory despite having abundant scope in Finance, only to grab  the seldom jobs just as LLB’s have mastered, and deny the original protagonist, the CS professional high and dry.  

If India Inc prefers a multi-faceted person with all knowledge, then the most concrete solution will be to amalgamate all of these individual bodies into one and given suitable exemptions for each other member-professionals based on the degree of their evaluation /qualifying standards (Among this BCI clearly not equal as they aren’t able to stop irrational way of allowing people (those who aren’t doing full-time course) to becoming members without any training) , so that they can qualify CA, CS or LLB faster than outsiders.(with LLB being only a graduate-level qualification that’s surprisingly still is able to exert it’s influence to nip at the post-graduate appointment only with CS and no one else).

Even in the worst case, I don’t think a CS will ever be interested to compete for a lawyer position ever and so a lawyer need not fear any competition for letting a CS to complete the LLB course in a time shorter than three years. So, BCI can also  think of designing a short term LLB course for 1 year only to CS members ) as against normal law aspirants, so as to cater to the ever-changing culinary tastes of the Indian employer.  (as CS members are the most affected by being on the same side with a member of another body-‘Law’ unlike the CA’s who are enjoying being on the other side-‘Accounting’ where there’s no match with abundant jobs being dished out.

[Srinath Sai]

Why at all a HR person should be involved in hiring a company secretary that's licensed. And, sometimes one is in a cringing situation of explaining to this idiot who doesn't know the difference between a normal job-holder and a licensed person carrying a substantial legal risk, the reasons for quitting as a company secretary within a short time because of legal risk/ salary backlogs or even while telling about not having an LLB degree, as if it is something that can be picked-up on the roadside shop. 

Every company files forms on the appointment of KMP on the MCA portal and there's so much technology that ICSI can track these forms and get the list of companies where CS's have been appointed or resigned or even the list of companies whose paid-up capital requires appointment of a CS. ICSI would come to know and can suggest candidates to that company as even today if you see the request letters coming from employers to ICSI, they are asking ICSI to suggest suitable candidates for the position in their company. Why ICSI is discrediting itself of this importance given by companies at least in letters. They should start suggesting suitable members on a more involved way so that we can fend off the HR.

A CS need not talk to a stupid HR- the employer's pawn hired only to moderate salary-payouts- who sees everyone only in terms of money and don't know the difference of a normal candidate and a candidate who takes a legal risk upon himself. If you don't believe, any CS will vouch for their HR interview experience where absolutely nothing serious was discussed other than salary. So, why should one allow HR and job consultants to spoil the sanctity of CS appointments. The fumigation process to fend off the HR and job consultants should be the first step forward that can get CS back it's lost sheen.

[Srinath Sai]

But the experienced job-seeking company secretaries lot may constitute just about 20 to 25% only as the rest are divided as 18% of PCS's, 25% of freshers (0 to 3 years experience) while the rest 32% comprising of people working in other fields or in this field itself who are in better-paid jobs in MNC's, Big 4's or VP/AVP/ Senior manager CS members,etc., women not working after marriage and so on. 

So, effectively roughly only some 25% are terribly affected by these developments where they are pitted against freshers and employers are only interested in the experience they have without wanting to remunerate them. Freshers also don't know that they too will face this situation once they get experienced, but are just accepting jobs to get some pocket money (a few rupees change) and play spoilsport not only for the experienced CSs but also tending encouraging this stagnating salary levels in the market. .I doubt PCS's will be keen on rendering any support for their own profiteering reasons. So, it seems like a minority who are conditioned to see only low abysmal stagnating salary levels all around - be it offered by the brethren PCS's or the job market and so are pushed to accept it as the new norm for their own survival. And, Institute also is not wanting a change either as each of the member's interests also is involved.

Now who will come to support this minority population that's suffering today, is a question?

And, I can see that there's hardly any interest elicited by the CS community so far on this subject except a few.

[Srinath Sai]

Allowing firm/LLP to be appointed as a CS instead of an individual may be a good idea as an individual CS will be part of an LLP and render service and can enrich his/her knowledge and broaden the scope of work alongside lawyers working in the LLP.

 

Though this model looks like a better one, it also has some problems. 

 

The vested interests coupled with the current global situation of delinking productivity from headcount will allow the LLPs to employ only a few number of CS’s for servicing all of the 20 or 30 clients or even give special preference to certain CS employees among all the staffs whereby the unpopular CS staffs will have a tough time. Added to this is the adequate compensation to be paid to the employed CS’s for which no law can come to the rescue in a supply-driven market as ours, as well as the prop on which Indian companies are leaning heavily- the clients who call the shots, by preferring an LLP offering better quality service at a cheaper cost and with the fact that all LLP’s can’t give uniform service, it will entail only a few successful LLP's to thrive in this market vying for a small pie, causing a distortion. So, it will render the CS’s always at the mercy of the LLP employers for their survival and even the banks will not prefer to advance any loan to an employee of an LLP and CS being one of the most educated person in the society will be denied of the deserving common luxuries in his/her life- of buying a home, taking a personal loan, etc.

 

Instead, the following steps can be taken to clean up the present system to increase the market value of a CS, though it might not do much to broaden the scope of work for a CS, as compared to working alongside a lawyer in an LLP firm.

 

1)A certain minimum wage level need to be fixed for each of the CS’s employed by a PCS firm based on his level of experience: executive level, manager level, partner level and this crop eating the crop situation should be stopped immediately. Otherwise, if insiders themselves knowing all about the risks of this profession don't accord much value to a CS, then we can't blame the outsiders who don't know anything that a CS represent for.

 

2)Classify the companies based on their revenues and profits and enact a provision in the law whereby better-run companies should necessarily seek to employ only an experienced CS and small or medium size companies as also those loss-making companies can be allowed to seek for freshers. This is required as among the 20,000 job-hunting CS for ‘whole-time company secretary’ positions- leaving aside those CS's who are in better paid VP/AVP or Big 4 company jobs, there are may be about 15000 experienced CS's who are losing out to freshers because of cheap labour provided by freshers, and they too deserve equal opportunities.

 

3)Freshers also shouldn’t settle for a low-paid job (anything like Rs. 15,000 in a PCS firm or Rs. 20,000 or Rs. 30,000 in a company) just because of the enticing opportunity of gaining an entry to a prestigious position that involves interacting with the board of directors. No doubt it’s a fresher’s dream ticket to think of catapulting from a college campus directly into the boardrooms in the company of honchos. But they need not mix-up as they are 2 different things and it’s not necessary for them to compromise compensation for the opportunity, as it tends to have caused the stagnating low salary levels in the market. And, ICSI should and must ask for a certain deserving benchmark from those companies to employ a fresher.

 

4)There should be a cap on the number of clients serviced by the PCS’s as other minnows who also take to practice shouldn't be spurned of potential client opportunities because of the influence of established PCS firms in the market and any name-lending practice needs to be immediately weeded out with tough penalty.

 

All of these are within ICSI’s powers and can be done without muc          h interference unlike tackling the overt influence of LLB qualification, and of late CA qualification also, orchestrated by the Indian industry, that has virtually sounded a death knell for a CS member from a commerce or other backgrounds, by virtue of the unbridled freedom Indian industry enjoys in picking the kind of hire they want as well as fixing the pay, by virtue of being the primary job creators sparing the government’s blushes, in the backdrop of the out of hand job situation in the country.