Abhinav Khushraj

The US employment visa (H1B) and employment based green card system is severely broken. It gives undue advantage and power to employers. And given the insufficient visibility and scrutiny in this system, employers often take advantage of this when dealing with immigrant workers. I have been on a temporary visa now in the US for 12 years and have personally experienced many of the consequences of this power imbalance.

To give some background, the USCIS requires that for most work visas the process be initiated and managed by the employer. Typically, the employer has to prove inability to find American talent and then make a case to hire immigrants. This is applicable for various temporary visas (H1B, L1) and also for permanent visas (employment based green cards). And there is a legal requirement that employers pay immigrants on par with Americans so that an American worker is not disadvantaged when competing for the same job with an immigrant.

Now this system could have worked had the visa processes and timelines were transparent, trackable and consistent. But the quotas on these visas run out so quickly resulting in a huge backlog for many of these visas. Consequently, employers get disproportionate power over their employees.

Here are some specific ways in which it screws employees who are at the mercy of their employer to file their visas and green cards.

* Negotiation tactic: HR often uses the argument of immigration paper work as a negotiation tactic. “We can only offer you this because we also have to bear the costs of your visa”. Now this argument is illegal and can get companies into severe trouble. But.. it still happens all the time. Consequently immigrants often end up with a poorer compensation or job grade during negotiations. Further, it also hurts American employees as employers find it attractive to hire immigrant workers for cheaper.

* Arbitrary rules: Employers start setting arbitrary rules requiring immigrant employees to wait for 6 months or 12 months before applying for the green card. This is great for the employer because no matter what happens the immigrant is likely to stick around waiting out for their green card to get started.

* Unfair promotions and pay raises: Now that the immigrant employee is locked-in there is not much incentive for the employer to promote them or adjust their pay according to their contribution. I have personally witnessed this on various occasions. It doesn’t seem there’s a law protecting the immigrant employee on this. And even if there is a law, given there’s no objective way to track this, it’s quite easy for an employer to manipulate by saying ‘they are only performing at a lower level’.

* Conservative approach: HR often forgets that they have a dual role. While they are supposed to protect the company, they forget to be an ally for the employee. As a result, they end up taking the most conservative approach when filing for any visa just because there’s a 0.001% chance that the company might get into trouble. This results in further delays for employees.

* Severe layoff impact – scenario 1: And let’s say the employer is going through tough times, nothing stops them from laying off immigrants. The problems for immigrants are now lot more complicated. Simply put, they have to leave the country. The visa rules are very fuzzy about the legal duration one can stay in the country after being laid off. So they are left with little or no time to find another job. And don’t forget that the new employer has to agree to file for their visa again!

* Severe layoff impact – scenario 2: Even if the immigrant does not lose his/her job, layoffs can impact visa processing quite seriously. Generally, employers will often stop any visa paper work. The argument is that if we are laying off, it’s risky to file for a visa or a green card. The missing point is that the person laid off can not potentially fill this job for technical and practical reasons. Could you tell an immigrant employee ‘Hey Joe (American) is getting laid off, but you are an immigrant so stop doing what you are doing and let Joe take over’?

* Affects employee motivation: As a result of the above lock-ins, employees are sometimes stuck in jobs they don’t enjoy. They end up with low motivation levels, hate their job and their bosses. This impacts productivity and surprisingly employers don’t seem to notice. And honestly, bosses hate to deal with employee’s immigration stuff, it’s quite unrewarding.

* Improper treatment: Finally, employers often make us literally beg for any immigration paper work even if it’s a completely required activity (e.g. H1B refiling, green card filing). Employees tend to be very careful not pissing off HR fearing that they can play hard ball when the time comes to renew visas or file the green card. This is quite demeaning and my self-respect has been hurt on more than a few occasions by having to put up with some bureaucratic BS.

Overall this is a very unfair system for the immigrant employee. Employers have disproportionate power and they end up screwing up immigrants all the time. The more effective system would be a point-based system that is in place in the UK, Canada, Australia and some other countries. Employees are qualified based on the number of points they can accumulate either because of their advanced degree or years of experience or their specialty. This system is a lot more objective and evens out the power imbalance between the employer and the employee.

I have personally been impacted by this and am still waiting in the green card queue even after 12 years in this country! And to put it mildly, it’s extremely frustrating.

I have previously blogged about the New Venture Creation program at BITS Pilani. This last Sunday we hosted its first ever Entrepreneur Day. Students at Pilani are hidden away in a remote place and don’t get to meet entrepreneurs that often. And even if they do, it is not with the purpose of being coached for their startups.

This E-Day was an event setup to get students face to face with Entrepreneurs, hear a couple of startup stories, practice pitching and then get 1-1 coaching for their startups.

Vish Bajaj, Founder and CEO of ValueFirst, gave a highly motivating and humorous talk about his personal entrepreneurial journey. Ajay Chaturvedi, Founder and CEO of HarVa, talked about his rural BPO and more importantly emphasized his startup’s focus is on value creation and not empowerment or social upliftment. Gagan, Founder of ValueFirst, and Sujit Panigrahi, Founder of Convergent, also shared their experiences.

But the most exciting part of the day were the student pitches followed by coaching sessions for each team. The pitches were well rehearsed and most of them were quite clear about their business idea. Of course they need to tighten the business case and the launch plan which is the next phase for them. I am bullish that at least 3 teams out of these 9 will form a startup straight after graduation. Let’s see!

For rest of the pictures go to the E-Day album.

While I have never visited China, it has always mystified me. So I decided to read a book to get a deep dive into the nation that is a world in itself. I picked this book based on recommendations on Amazon and it turned out to be quite educative.

I had taken a course at MIT on China which focused mostly on all the success stories of its rapidly growing economy. But this book viewed China from a different angle, from the east going to west.

The author goes through a soul searching trip from Shanghai on the east coast to all the way Urumqi on the western end where it ends into Kazakhstan. He spends most of his time on Route 312 traveling by cabs, buses and other local commute options. And in true journalistic fashion interviews random people he meets on his road trip, with the simple purpose to learn from the stories of common Chinese people. It is brilliantly crafted and has a very personable reading style.

The book touches on various topics in the context of modern day China. Some of these are:
History: Rob gives a snapshot of the various dynasties from Qing, Ming, Tang and many others that ruled for several years followed by the modern era which ended the imperial rule. While the Republic of China tried to drive industrialization and modernization, there were several internal disputes that resisted significant change. Finally it culminated with the Sino Japanese war and the formation of a separate, smaller ROC, now Taiwan. This resulted in the formation of PRC under Mao Zedong who drove the socialistic transformation of PRC. 1979 was the inflection point when Deng Xiaoping embarked China on the road to economic reforms and a decent balance with Communism was achieved.

Communism: Rob seems like a die-hard believer of democracy. So while he still loves China for various reasons including its history, culture and people, he is unable to give in to the ideological differences he has with the country. There are numerous examples from the lives of common Chinese that support his standpoint. He goes further to explain why Chinese people have never been able to develop checks and balances on state power which he attributes to political, ideological and social reasons.

Rural China: Across rural China, there are millions of stories about lack of water (due to dried up or polluted rivers), lack of women (due to the one-child policy that made couples favor a son) and lack of opportunities. The road to the east is the only hope to a better future for most of them.

Chinese dilemma: The nation needs to empower its people to become strong but its Communistic roots can’t let the people be too empowered. The government wants advanced education without encouraging people to think. The tension is between the need to enforce orthodoxy in order to retain unity and the need to allow freedom in order to encourage creativity.

Tibet and Islamic China: He also makes a stop in Tibet and Islamic China. The Buddhist monks are afraid to lose their identity. Beijing is encouraging hordes of Han Chinese to migrate to these areas to keep communal tensions at Bay. For many Tibetans, sticking to the rules of the Chinese government is their best hope for their future generations so they put up with it. Similarly, while Uighars and other indigenous Islamic people are clinging onto their identity, the great wall in the minds of Muslim Chinese and the Han Chinese stands very firm. Beijing is trying to buy off the Muslim peoples with economic opportunities, education and transportation to the West.

China is a complex country with many socio-political tensions at various levels. There is a lot of subliminal unrest in people. But the rapidly growing economic opportunities are keeping any revolutionary tendencies at bay. Beijing is therefore frantically working hard to keep the economic pace as brisk as possible.

People often rave about cool ideas and great strategies in all companies big and small. I used to believe on the same lines for a while until I entered business school and saw the massive divide between thinkers and doers.

I know several great ‘idea people’ who amaze everyone by their innovative ideas for the world they live in, the companies they work for and for themselves. But many of them are just not able to execute or actualize any of their plans and ideas. As a result ideas remain just that – ideas! And that’s how I believe the phrase came about – ‘ideas are dime a dozen’.

One needs to have energy and execution to be able to make meaning of ideas. The ability to put thought into action and the motivation to drive things to fruition and generate measurable results are critical aspects for producing real, tangible success. Jack Welch’s 4Es also include Energy and Execution as two key factors behind successful business leaders.

People who give too much credit to ideas waste too much time in perfecting their ideas as a result wasting too much time in getting started. I see tons of people at work creating pretty slides and sitting in countless meetings to perfect their ‘ideas’. The counter intuitive thing is to get started. If one starts executing quickly, they will not only encounter potential problems sooner but are also able to solve them more effectively because there is a real context.

There’s just a small catch though. It’s not sufficient to run fast and get things done, you also need to run in a fairly right direction. Otherwise you achieve results but they are not sizeable and meaningful.

The reason I am typing this post is because I am seeing a lot of poor execution around me these days. These people and the companies they are in are unable to execute and are continuously attributing it to a wrong strategy or a bad idea. My simple answer to them “stop analyzing too much and get things done!”

I just finished reading Outliers. I have previosuly read his Tipping Point and Blink and I can say that this book has also opened my mind in yet another dimension.

Unlike his previous books, this one starts with stories of people (Bill Gates, Bill Joy and Steve Jobs) whose stories I am generally familiar with. So it was quite interesting to learn about the events and situations that made them Outliers.

His stories about ethnicity of pilots and how it relates to plane crashes is quite eye opening and, to some extent, hard to believe. However, the chapter of rice paddy fields and it’s relevance to the Chinese math prowess is simply a stretch.

The key point of his book – the impact of timing, family and cultural history – is something I can personally relate to. I grew up in one of the ‘inner-city’ areas in Chennai and it seems quite surprising how I was still able to get all the education and exposure. But its quite obvious now that there were specific things that happened in my life for the way things turned out. 

My maternal grand father, who was a lawyer, was educated in the UK at a time when it was not that common among Indians. Given his global exposure, he encouraged and supported my mom’s education. My mom also became a lawyer, which was quite unusual in the ‘marwari’ community which does not generally encourage women to study and work. And because of her passion to educate me, I ended up in a top school in Chennai in spite of the not-so-educated neighborhood and society. Now this school had all the ingredients to prepare me for a professional career that I now have. 

I have always believed that more than half your life’s path is determined in the context you are born – time, place, family, economy, culture, religion etc. Still there is quite a lot that is not predetermined and is left to the choices one makes in their lives. Those choices determine whether you live a happy life or not. Outliers does a great job of putting facts and research behind this belief.