Softway Reviews

3.7

73% would recommend to a friend

(160 total reviews)
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Mohammad Anwar

82% approve of CEO

65% positive business outlook

Softway has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 160 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Softway employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

160 reviews
1.0
11 Jun 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Not Applicable Here. You better be jobless rather than joining here.

Cons

- Its a trap and you will regret joining here in very short time. - 2 years bond for junior level employees or those who wish to travel US for a month. - You will loose all your earnings if you wish to leave the company during your initial 2 years. - Working hours are almost 24x7. Avg office timings are from morning 9:30 to midnight. You might need to stretch till next morning as every project is critical and in crisis all the time as deadlines are not realistic and projects runs under high pressure and behind the schedule from very first day. - You will get paid way way below standards and will never get variable pay component as well. - Micro Management. Keeping track of every second. You need to log a reason if you are away from your machine even for a official discussion/meeting. - No personal life at all. Higher management adds you on social network to keep track of your personal/social life as well and will monitor your activities online time etc. - No policies at all. You will have no clue about any rules and regulations at any time. - You may get fired without certificates/letters if your performance is not up to their expectations. - They have 2 months notice period. You need to pay 3 months gross salary as a buy out amount even if you served a month or more and you wish to get relieved just before few days. - You will not get any reply from HR/Finance team for your queries or FNF.

1.0
12 Jun 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

learning can happen anywhere. Work culture and management is what makes you decide to stay or leave. So in that sense no pros here. You would want to run out of this company even if you have a good team.

Cons

1. 2 years bond. They would say they will train you and will make you sign a bond. But you are on job from day 1 and when you wish to leave before 2 years they make your life hell. They will not respond to your resignation email as they are way too scared to communicate on email (obviously they cannot reveal their conspiracies in written). 2. They do not give you offer letter till you have signed the agreement. They will tell you during interview that their policy is to give the offer letter in hard copy on joining date. When you join they make you wait another 1-2 weeks. First they will call you to sign the agreement and then they will give offer letter after few days. 3. They say its not a bond its an agreement (please don't buy this phrase! whatever term they use, anything that forces employment on you and binds you is against fundamental rights and constitution). They do not give you your copy of agreement. You ask them a copy and see their faces how they panic and try to cover up. They say as per company policy they wont disclose the agreement which is another conspiracy to not let you have any proof of what they are doing in the dark. But they use it so well when you want to leave. 4. Management knows one more thing other than conspiring - time tracking. You need to provide an explanation and write an email if you reach past 9:30. You cannot leave before 6:30. You are marked for time-off if you show up late so you need to write email about getting your attendance corrected else you will be entitled for loss of pay. The time tracking is done on various xl sheets, attendance tracking software, TL is also supposed to inform HR when an member reports late, the receptionist will also ping you to ask reason for being late. So they make all sorts of reports possible out of your attendance data like how many times you reported late, informed-late/uninformed-late and keep nagging you with them. This company only goes far far away from agility and professionalism. 5. Every month all the employers are called to attend a lecture - height of being lame - yes they have crossed the bar there. So in most of these lectures basically they portray how good human beings they are and they care for poor, their housekeeping staff, cleanliness, the country etc. Somehow they are totally cynical so out of nowhere they pop out such topics and start lashing employees, teaching them manners as if the employees have come from some slum area and do not know the basics of behaving at office. Well after the lecture you do feel you do not work in an office but in a prison of psychopaths where these lectures are a part of routine. 6. They have the cheapest mindset you could never even imagine in any IT company. They think you learnt here so you are in their debt so when you say you wont pay any bond amount as its not applicable and you were never on training period, here is what you hear as their justification - "Why? Didn't you learn here? People learn here and leave isnt that selfish? You ate our salt and stab us? If you don't pay think of the pain other people who paid and left will feel that why only they paid and someone else was relieved without paying 1lakh..". Well I have no words to express how unprofessional and corrupt this thinking is. I took legal advise and scared the hell out of them by documenting everything in email which they tried a lot to avoid (they blocked my email access out of panic without informing me but I took a snapshot of my screen showing the login error and that was another proof with me. Blocking a person's access who is still employed without information or any valid reason is illegal.). This crap is not to be heard or considered. Just tell them the law and your next steps in legal terms and they will stop making noise. In my case they made a story, changed their tone and pretended to help me out at the end but the truth is they were saving themselves from getting shutdown as they had crossed the lines and they knew they were in trouble.

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Softway Response
9y
We thank you and really appreciate your time and efforts taken to put your thoughts together for such a detailed review. This shows that you care for us. It’s feedback like yours that helps us improve. In fact, the last 6 months have witnessed a lot of change including your feedback on the on-boarding of new employees, which by the way we are glad to say is already in practice. On introspection of your points raised, we have given our thoughts that we hope will help you in having better understanding. Agreement Terms -Yes, while this did bring in some stability with resourcing, we've realized that this policy did not reflect our people-centric values. We're happy to let you know we've had this 2-year agreement waived off wef 10th July, 2017. Working hours & work-life balance – These are definitely standardized like any other company policies - leaves, monthly payroll, compensatory offs & appraisal cycles. Employees are encouraged to report on time, display certain professionalism and that we believe is not asking too much. It’s understandable & expected that there are going to be certain days and exceptions where in time reporting may not be possible and it’s expected that the respective TL or HR is aware for better project management. Working extra hours at Softway is not always the norm and is solely the case to meet client deadlines. Community involvement -We have started taking tiny steps, but we believe it’s a start. The only reason facts on cleanliness and hygiene are talked about is because we care on providing a great environment for all to work in. Some repeats, agreed, but see it this way, better addressed in hope of change. We wish and hope for a successful career to you and if we can help you in any way we can.
1.0
27 Aug 2021

All Smoke and Mirrors

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

A few of the people

Cons

Looking at Softway's digital footprint you would think it was one big happy family... nothing is further from the truth. It's as toxic of an environment as any other poorly run agency. The only way you receive credit from your work and become promoted will depend on one of two things. Work closely with the President or suck up to the VP. The book, the podcast, the seminars... all just desperate marketing ploys to trick clients into giving them money so they can keep the 'lights on'.

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Softway Response
4y
We appreciate your perspective and we agree that we’re not always one big happy family. Our culture of love is still growing and taking roots. It appears that you were not onboard with our vision to bring humanity back to the workplace and the products we created to achieve that vision. We wish you the best for what’s next.
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