An employee asked to go remote. Her CEO says he outsourced her job to India instead and saved 40%

An employee asked to go remote. Her CEO says he outsourced her job to India instead and saved 40% on labor costs.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/employee-reportedly-asked-remote-her-171337829.html

 

Outsourcing to India comes with a lot of hidden risks that companies who are only looking at pure up-front monetary costs won't realize.

• Culture clashes. There are a lot of seemingly minor differences in culture that can make a huge impact in the business world. In the US, if the employee is tasked to do something impossible, they'll probably mention the impossibility and can then get told to make modifications to the project so that it will work. If they're told to do it anyway, they might complain but they'll do it anyway. India has more of a culture of the boss always being right. If they're told to draw seven perpendicular red lines with green ink, the boss is always right and they're less likely to even try to speak up. This will waste the company time and money in the long run. Some bosses think they want pure yes-men, but that's a really bad idea.
• Taxes. You can't just hire abroad and that's it. There is a lot of accounting there. They may have saved purely on the salary side of things, but they're probably spending more money elsewhere. This may not be immediately obvious to the company.
• Language issues. Yes, many Indians speak English. It's not the same English as in the US. It's closer to British English in vocabulary, but it's still its own thing. Just as the English spoken in business Europe or business South East Asia is not the same as that spoken in business America. A company that isn't aware of these differences may get... unexpected results and waste yet more time and money. This can happen whenever you have two English speakers from different regions coming together. Example: you tell your marketing team in the UK that you want a guy in a navy blazer and navy pants to be photographed holding your product. Now, the British people should clarify what the Americans mean. But maybe the person is new or maybe this seems like a perfectly reasonable request - based on past requests and British humor. So you get the sample marketing materials and they show a guy who is wearing a navy blazer and navy boxers (underpants) who is holding your product. That's... probably not what the Americans had in mind.

 

Most people in the corporate world don't mind about anything but the next quarter, so, well...

 

I HATE when I reach someone in India when I contact customer support. There are many times when I have spent too much time trying to get them to understand me.... and I barely understand them.

I recall when I first got my Sprint phone years ago. Something went wrong with the initial setup. I probably spent 10 hours over several separate phone calls trying to sort it out. The guys at the store couldn't figure it out either. I FINALLY got someone to figure out what went wrong, and they fixed it. It boiled down to an issue with the phone number I ported in. It was tagged as a "Nextel" number, and they were transitioning out of that brand. Luckily for me, when they fixed it, the system thought that I had brought my own phone, and I was able to upgrade early. (This was when we all still had contracts).

Getting this sort of thing figured out shouldn't require several hours between two different cultures and a language barrier.

 

I don't suppose it's any consolation, but any company that did that would never get any further business from me. I have dropped more than one outfit because I found out they'd outsourced offshore. If they want money from people here - they'd better keep jobs here. No exceptions.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/remote-could-why-lose-job-172820690.html

Remote work could be why you lose your job. Higher salaries face the greatest risk

 

Like the chorus of people insisting on a return to the office, it's a lot of fear mongering by CEOs unable to lead their businesses unless they can appear busy by physically being seen.

This CEO at the SHRM decided to outsource an employee's job rather than grant her request to be a remote employee. So, he was perfectly fine with a remote employee, just not her.

Labor savings sounds like an excuse when you consider the cost required to on-board and train someone new for a year.

I think you'll find that experienced remote workers (I've been doing it for almost a decade) continue to be in demand and employers that refuse to adapt find they simply don't have the best candidates if they're headquartered outside major population centers.

 

What protects US remote workers is that many of the companies and organizations they work for are safeguarding the data or by regulations or other way from going overseas.
But not all my customers have that restriction.
So last week , we had downsislzing and a coworker was lay-off while someone in Manila was brought on board.
Im also working remote for very long time.
What my employer had to gain from it is more effective employee. It works both ways as my life quality improved as well. Instead of employees spending hours commuting, or sick leave, most of the remote workers put more effective time.
But some do abuse the situation, from side or multiple jobs to not focusing sufficiently on work.
But those type of workers find ways to do what they want even when daily in office.
My co worker a mother to 3 little kids who's husband was recently downsized from Google.
Most likely now 3 or 4 Manila employees can be payed with what she was making.

 

But also:

• Cultural differences
• Time Zones. Manila is 13 hours ahead of the US, Delhi is 10 hours - they're unavailable for most of the US workday)
• Language barriers (as noted, Indian and Philippine English are distinct varieties from American English)
• Qualifications. Regulated professions like Engineers often have no reciprocity with bodies in foreign countries so there's no easy way for a Philippines Professional Engineer to transfer their license to the US. Ditto with Accounting, Psychology, etc.

Humans are not fungible, easily replaceable parts like cogs in a machine. They've been talking about the ability to offshore white collar workers since the 80s. It just hasn't happened en masse and probably never will.

Edit: As it is, Canadians cost a lot less to hire than Americans, both because of the weaker Canadian dollar and also because salaries for a lot of professions are just lower across the board. Licenses transfer much more easily. There's a much smaller cultural and language gap to bridge and often no time zone issue. And yet you don't see companies rushing to hire Canadian Salesforce Administrators (to use an example from a market I'm familiar with) even though they could save 40% by doing so.