We have some roles at some customer sites where the engineer cannot do his job unless he has a notebook computer. At such sites, the engineer will need to fulfil the following criteria regarding his notebook:
He must always have a notebook matching or exceeding the specifications given for the assignment.
He should (strongly recommended but not mandatory) always have to have a valid warranty from the manufacturer of the notebook or reputed third-party reseller, for the entire duration when he uses it in that assignment. Operating a notebook for critical daily use without a warranty is very risky and can lead to very high repair bills and very long repair times.
He must always have legal copies of software on his notebook. Presence of any pirated or unlicensed software on his notebook will not only terminate the reimbursement, it will also be deemed that the engineer does not have a notebook and therefore is unfit for that assignment. At best, this may result in forced unpaid leave for that officer from that day onward till such date on which he rectifies the software licence problems and resubmits his notebook for audit. At worst, it may lead to termination of his employment.
He must carry the notebook to his workplace and keep it with him at all times. Absence of his notebook from his presence will be treated as equivalent to absence without prior leave permission of the officer, and will be dealt with accordingly. In other words, if you forget to bring your notebook to work with you, don't come to work and be prepared for a day's unpaid leave.
He must always maintain the notebook in good health. He will be responsible for maintenance and repairs of his notebook. He will have to make time from his personal off-duty hours to perform any maintenance or repairs to his notebook, and as stated above, any working hours where his notebook is unavailable or inoperative will be treated as working hours where he was absent.
He must adhere to data security and system hygiene standards for his notebook at all times, as per the standards laid down by Merce and the customer of Merce and revised from time to time. Notwithstanding anything else, if his notebook runs a version of the Microsoft Windows operating system, then he must always ensure that (i) Microsoft Update is active in automatic mode and all important and critical patches are always applied on his operating system, and (ii) Microsoft Security Essentials or some reputed third-party malware protection suite is installed, paid for if needed, and all updates are applied and current. If these basic rules are not followed, the notebook will be deemed to be inoperative.
If the engineer was earlier in an assignment where notebook requirement was not applicable, and is now posted to an assignment where mandatory notebook requirement is applicable, and if he does not own any notebook meeting the specifications given, then he will be given three months to procure his own notebook meeting the specs given here. During this period, the company will provide a notebook for his use. If he is posted to an assignment temporarily where mandatory notebook requirement applies, the company will decide whether to make a notebook available to him on a case-by-case basis. If the duration for the temporary assignment is less than three months (90 days), the company will always provide a notebook to the engineer if needed.
If an engineer is given an assignment which has mandatory notebook requirement and already owns an old notebook which meets the specifications given, he may not be eligible for reimbursement since the notebook was purchased older than the 180-day age limit, but he will still be expected to bring his notebook to work as given here. Notebook purchase reimbursement from the company is not related to the company specifying mandatory notebook requirement for certain assignments and roles. These two are independent.
Engineers whose employment status has not been confirmed will not be expected to procure and operate their own notebooks even if they are placed in assignments which have mandatory notebook requirement -- the company will provide notebook computers for their use. However, halfway through such an assignment if they are confirmed, then they will get 90 days from the date of their confirmation to procure a personal notebook and bring it to their workplace.
Some engineers at customer sites who had a mandatory notebook requirement earlier and were using their personal notebooks for this requirement were being given an additional monthly allowance for this. The company will now stop paying this allowance from 1 April 2012. Instead, the company will facilitate the purchase of new notebooks for those who feel the need to purchase them -- this has been discussed in a separate policy page.
We have rented some notebooks and made them available to some engineers who are in assignments where notebooks are mandatory. These notebooks will be returned to the rental agency by 1 March 2012. The engineers who were using those rented notebooks will now have to make their own arrangements for personal notebooks before that date.