So Your Job is in the Outsourcing Cross Hairs

No question: If your job is “in scope” for an outsourcing endeavor, you will experience change, which can be disconcerting to say the least.

Knowing that knowledge often brings comfort, I thought it might be useful to share some of the tactics that companies use when trying to decide how/if to transfer employees to an outside service provider.

They frequently ask these questions or ones much like them:

• How would you describe the culture and demography of your organization? What's your staff turnover rate?

• How will you handle the sensitivities and concerns of transitioned staff?

• How do you typically integrate and develop new employees?

• Describe the process you use to harmonize conditions between a client's staff and your own in line with "generally comparable (contractual) terms and conditions."

Transparency and providing people with as much lead-time as possible are key principles of well-designed sourcing programs, and the good news is that most companies genuinely are committed to ensuring consistent and fair treatment of employees in the event of outsourcing.

At the same time, most of the industry’s service providers are looking to add talent to their ranks.

Comments

[R. Arun Kumar]

Peter,
You highlight a very critical success factor for a Sourcing initiative and at the same time touch upon an aspect that is increasingly to the fore amidst the mostly global nature of sourcing.

While certain critical employees may and will need to be transfered to the external service provider to maintain continuity and mitigate real and perceived risks, enough thought also needs to be given to those whose roles and activities are likely to be made redundant due to the 'offshoring' or 'remote management' that is inherent when adopting Global Sourcing (as opposed to just 'Outsourcing').

Organizational Change Management during and after Sourcing will also need to address aspects around affected employee redeployment and retraining as well as retain org reassessment and redesign.

As you rightly point, transparency is key - if the employee knows how the change is going to affect him or her in the short and long term, and design the change process around their fears and motivations, it will lead to that much more alignment and even motivation.