It’s May and there’s no word on my company doing appraisals. Whenever I ask the boss, he says business is bad and the management is not sure. My father says it is mandatory for all organisations to give employees a token hike or specifically say they are not getting. They also need to have a dearness allowance. I am confused, please help.
Most companies in media are seeing a delay in appraisals, market being one consideration. For management cadre staff, an appraisal is not mandatory and it is at the company’s discretion.
Dearness allowance and token hikes linked to inflation rate do not normally apply to executives and the like who are not under the wage board.
However I am sure your company will have something in place provided performance and revenues can afford manpower cost hikes. If you feel you are getting a raw deal, there is a large market outside but this is a common issue and hence patience is the key!
Sir, I am working with a leading media company and I am applying for admissions to key business schools for 2013 admissions. I am interested in marketing. It is too early to talk on this, but assuming I get admission to MICA and a Tier 2 institute like MDI or Symbiosis, which one should I choose?
I would rate MICA excellent and among the best, however Symbiosis also offer decent placements most of the time. MICA is especially good if you are interested in working on the agency side of the business, and in areas like account planning, which could then prepare you for brand management. Hence its important to fix your goals as to long term career and then work on the institute of choice which can get you there. All the best!
I was having this debate in our office on whether it is nicer to work in sales for a newspaper or for a magazine? We were divided in our views… will you help?
Ah! This is a dilemma I faced in my early years in media selling. I ended up working on magazines and enjoyed it thoroughly and later moved on to dailies and the like. However, in the current context, magazines are increasingly tough to market since the advertising has moved to broadcast. Niche magazines do have a future but are hugely dependant on costs. It is easy to lower pages in a paper if you don’t have enough advertising but in a magazine it would mean cutting down on 4/ 8 pages even if you are short of 12 pages of advertising.
In today’s scenario magazines are tough to run and make profitable, unless its very small numbers and cost of production is extremely high. In terms of sales, I would certainly think it’s a good training ground but there is a strong chance that the genre will find itself in trouble as you go along. Hence jump into the big pond ideally. You would probably grow faster!