Sign of the times - my Job's off to India

[Irvtheswerv]

Well the day has finally arrived. The Accountancy firm I work for is shutting down its IT department in the UK, all the IT staff are to be made redundant and the work moved to India. Can't name the company until I actually get the chop, non-disclosure etc etc.

We've got til the end of the year - leaving date is non-negotiable, if we leave before our official leaving date we won't get a penny, business as usual til we tell you to clear your desk and **** off.

If I don't find something else before December, I'm doing a City&Guilds Electrical installation + Part P and going into business with a mate.

Edited 29 July, 2010 by Irvtheswerv

[Jabbasport]

A friend who used to work for Rolls-Royce had his job moved to India, they even went to the extent of getting the Indian guys over so he could train them. They hadn't got a clue what they were doing..

Kev

[Auric Goldfinger]

Well the day has finally arrived. The Accountancy firm I work for is shutting down its IT department in the UK, all the IT staff are to made redundant and the work moved to India. Can't name the company until I actually get the chop, non-disclosure etc etc.

We've got til the end of the year - leaving date is non-negotiable, if we leave before our official leaving date we won't get a penny, business as usual til we tell you to clear your desk and **** off.

If I don't find something else before December, I'm doing a City&Guilds Electrical installation + Part P and going into business with a mate.

Sorry to hear of your woes

I hear on the news that the Coalition Government are in India to drum up trade between the two countries, Looks like it's worked.

[Mute]

That's not too shabby a silver lining to a terrible situation, you could end up with a business to your name out of this. Wish you all the best with it and we need more folks like yourself who have the balls to go at it hard and make a success of a small business building it up. Still sucks losing your current job right enough.

My company recently opened an office in Mumbai. We outsource all sorts of tasks there, and the group i work in have extended team presence in Sydney, and now in Mumbai also. Even more recently we've had a Mumbai chap join us (really nice guy) in our office and he's more or less confirmed up close what we suspected viewing mumbai from afar.

Don't give them any decisions to make! It's not so much they make bad decisions, it's that they refuse to make any decisions. Also don't take "yes i'll do that" to mean that yes Mr X in mumbai will do that task, "yes, i'll do that" is nothing more than an acknowledgement you've said to him about a task. The culture is such that they cannot say no, so they say yes to everything, even when they can't do it for insurmountable resource or skills reasons, instead of saying no and pointing out the problems preventing them.

I would never willingly engage an indian operation to support my business after my experiences. They may be cheap to hire but i dread to think the total sum for damage to the business caused by our group over there.

[Irvtheswerv]

Oh we've been outsourcing for years. The quality of their week is absolutely the worst I've seen, but hey I work for a firm of bean counters, it's all about maximizing income for the current year. The bottom line is they are cheap, however bad they are. What will be of interest is when they start firing off accountants because their work has been off-shored, and that will happen within a couple of years. Ernst and Young are already doing it.

[SteVRs]

I'm off to Bangalore on Monday. :eek:

That's not a joke...

[gadgetman]

Every firm I know thats moved admin etc abroad has regretted it, with a few moving back.

Thing they dont get is we dont want someone pretending to have a british name, and make out they're in the UK. We want someone in the UK, that knows the company and an idea of the market they operate in through direct experience.

[robmawer]

We've got til the end of the year - leaving date is non-negotiable, if we leave before our official leaving date we won't get a penny, business as usual til we tell you to clear your desk and **** off.

If you're interested in jumping ship ASAP, we've got a couple of vacancies advertised at the mo' and we're just down the road from you. They might not be suitable for your skills/expectations, but feel free to drop me a PM if you want to know more.

[RobClubley]

...

Don't give them any decisions to make! It's not so much they make bad decisions, it's that they refuse to make any decisions. Also don't take "yes i'll do that" to mean that yes Mr X in mumbai will do that task, "yes, i'll do that" is nothing more than an acknowledgement you've said to him about a task. The culture is such that they cannot say no, so they say yes to everything, even when they can't do it for insurmountable resource or skills reasons, instead of saying no and pointing out the problems preventing them.

I would never willingly engage an indian operation to support my business after my experiences. They may be cheap to hire but i dread to think the total sum for damage to the business caused by our group over there.

I have to agree with this. :(

[JohnMcL7]

As an IT guy it's horrible hearing stories like this, my company is a large one and they're trying to outsource everything, it doesn't matter if the service is rubbish as long as it's cheap. I'm hand on enough with my role to have escaped it so far but it's only a matter of time plus it's frustrating to have more and more of my own functions outsourced so jobs I could do myself or within our office quickly now take days or weeks with an external company.

John

[cheezemonkhai]

While the bean counters run companies (Thank you US for declaring that a CEO's job is to return value to shareholders, combined with a next quarters results focus) work will go out of the UK/US to cheaper sites.

Spain is a good example of where this doesn't work, because a bank that tried to outsource lost all it's business and very rapidly stopped the idea.

If we are so bothered (Yes I am) then we have to make our opinions known and move banks, companies etc when you get poor service from them. This includes the yes centres in many parts of Asia.

I took a choice not to get the cheapest price, but to buy British on more than one occasion. Sure it might cost me personally a few pence, but I bet I save that in tax by a few people still being in work.

[gadgetman]

The main thing with outsourcing, is it looks good on the books.

Kill off your employee costs, and you can bury contractors (even if they cost more than staff) and outsourced stuff as another financial category such as running costs. You can also do tax offsets and basically fudge the books to look better, even though they really are unlikely to be.

The only thing that ****es me off about this practice is when the firms whack their prices up to get even more profit and screw their customer base over with a poor service.

[Irvtheswerv]

Well a final update on this.

I was eventually "made redundant" at the end of November on the basis the work was moving to India.

What the company has actually done is outsource my job to an Indian company, who have filled my job in the UK with an Indian citizen on a work visa. My job is not redundant, the role still exists in the UK, but it's been filled with an Indian who is paid £2000 a month, of which £1600 a month is paid back to the Indian company for accommodation. 110 people were made redundant on the same basis. Effectively the company has decided the cost savings are so large they are prepared to ignore all employment legislation and risk legal action.

After arguing the toss I was invited to take legal action against my employer, on the basis of "We are XXXXXXX, we can afford to waste a great deal of money on this. Can you?" . Ongoing case prevents me from naming the company.

In any case I've got another job, which is far more interesting, and I'm still in the process of buying into a business.

[RobClubley]

That's appalling!

['daiking']

Onshore offshoring :no:

[Jigger72]

Glad to hear you're back on your feet

Same thing happened to me a couple of years ago, in November as well funnily enough. My company was bought by an American corp, they moved us to their office in the middle of nowhere and after 18 months everyone from the old company was made redundant and they gave the work to their US office. It was just around the time the banking crisis kicked off so that was their excuse.

And I got the same reply when I threatened legal action due to the fact the terms of my original contract with the old company hadn't been honoured. They just said "Go ahead. How much will it cost again?"

Oh yeah, and I received the final notice of redundancy via some HR ice queen in Tulsa, and a photocopied letter :( What a bunch of c***s

It was actually the best thing that ever happened to me. I'm in a new job I really enjoy, with good people who know what they're doing

[robmawer]

Effectively the company has decided the cost savings are so large they are prepared to ignore all employment legislation and risk legal action.

After arguing the toss I was invited to take legal action against my employer, on the basis of "We are XXXXXXX, we can afford to waste a great deal of money on this. Can you?" . Ongoing case prevents me from naming the company.

That is shocking, wouldn't have expected many companies to risk that no matter what the saving - and if they're that confident in their size that they can throw around their legal resources, they're usually of a size where bad publicity over this sort of thing can be seriously damaging!

Glad you landed with something better anyway though.

[M12MKD]

Rather shocking...................but what I find more shocking is companies all over treat their staff really badly and then wonder why they have no staff loyality.

This seems to happen in one way or another more than you think. Where my mother works they have made 60% of the staff redundant and brought in temp staff which are cheaper. Anyone that complains is told in not so many words where to go.

Glad you have got another job that is better and more interesting

[cheezemonkhai]

Letter to your local MP, because all of these companies got the rules changed to allow them to do this.

As such the new rules they want will allow them to increase UK unemployment by doing this more.

[justinbarrow]

be of interest is when they start firing off accountants because their work has been off-shored, and that will happen within a couple of years.

Couldn't of been put better

[lol-lol]

What is really surprising is that the Big 4 Consultancy firms often do the analysis that recommends the move to Eastern Europe or India or the Far East. It is our own countrymen who do make huge fees in coming up with these half baked ideas as they cannot properly measure qualitative things only quantitative things. Much of this work will return but only after things have been cocked up considerably.

My job is in Intenternational Logisitcs so the move of manufacturing jobs to the East keep me busy. It is always the case of going with the flow or setting up yourself so you can dictate your own location, rules etc. I love India but they are not in the same league as the Chinese for quality etc. I am not hopeful the current Condem pacts will do the right things, moving to Australia, NZ or Canada does sound attractive !

[RobClubley]

...Australia, NZ or Canada does sound attractive !

Both NZ and Australian companies are offshoring work to China and India as well.

I'm the only one left in NZ of a team of 6 on one of our clients.

[justinbarrow]

The only thing that ****es me off about this practice is when the firms whack their prices up to get even more profit and screw their customer base over with a poor service.

+1

[lol-lol]

Both NZ and Australian companies are offshoring work to China and India as well.

I'm the only one left in NZ of a team of 6 on one of our clients.

I think one has to be a specialist in something that they cannot train to be in China or India. Being ex Government is useful and ex-big 4. Tempting to sell up, move somewhere cheap and live well.

[yegnold]

It's amazing how many times I have seen people go offshore for their web development projects, end up disappointed in service and/or the end product and have to get the product completely rewritten or audited by a UK based developer anyway, usually at inflated prices due to the project having been commented poorly (if at all, often in a different language) and effectively being handed over in a completely broken state....