Pros
Principal Global Services, the IT & ITES extension of Principal Financial Group provides excellent facilities like cab service (yes AC cabs!) and Industry average pay. Your salary will usually be around the average salary for typical captives like RBS, Wellsfargo etc. Thanks to the US office, the work load is usually never heavy, and typical of a reversal role in IT outsourcing, the US office usually works extra, while the India office has less work. There are Pune employees who have not worked for several years. Work and direct interaction with US office is the highlight of being in PGS and hence there is no onsite to play work related stunts. If you work hard, you can learn a lot and use it after you leave PGS and join other companies.
Cons
Due to captive nature of organization, there is no outward thinking and management is more on operations side - ie simple supervisory job. the senior managers in PGS don't act or work because there is not incentive for them to perform. Promotion is in the form of IJP and is highly controversial. There are instances of employees being promoted because they played "Tambola" (Bingo) and hence contributed to organizational activities and therefore promoted! Promotion has come in the form of shooting an email to the CIO on asking how backups are taken!! Decisions are based on hearsay and loose talk - anyone can "conspire" against anyone by going to the senior management and saying that "he/she said like this...." and the management takes decisions on such loose talk. In fact, the concept of "spies" aka "khabaris" is common in PGS. Every manager has a gossip monger and more the filthy talk, better is the reward granted in promotions or townhall awards. Unethical practices like personal relations being favoured in job selection and promotions. Learning in technology and business is strictly restricted. Even exams for certifications can't be refunded, and domain knowledge and skill building is a strict no no. There are weird reasons for not supporting knowledge like "We don't want to build knowledge, we build relations". Some managers curse and use abusive language to employees and despite complaining to higher ups, things have been hushed up making a mockery of the so called employee values and ethical policies. Birthday celebrations for the so called top management are executed in style, the most of the lazy bunch practice for a day and when the d-day arrives, what you see is songs, Mexican waves, balloons and sycophants that can put the the middle age dark world to shame. You may be wondering what is US office doing despite knowing the razzmatazz in Pune? Perhaps, US office is the main culprit in the kind of total waste of Princial's public shareholder wealth. The cost to PGS is a hedge to the ineffective team of PGS so that US jobs are safe.
