Domestic Outsourcing: Are We Ready for It?

That boat has not yet arrived. It is still in the horizon, just vaguely visible in the economic haze. But, the advance tugs towing it are slowly coming into view.

We may have some more time to whine about foreigners stealing our jobs. But, not for long.

Yes, it is a welcome change of scene where our CEOs turn patriotic and bring back the jobs they sent abroad.

But, are we doing our part in bringing the jobs back? Because when the jobs come back, they may not be in the same too familiar shape as they left us.

We may not see those CEOs advertising for the new jobs from their old locations. They may just outsource it to big domestic companies. Two or three such organizations have already come up.

In such a situation, the returning jobs need not be coming back to the metros from where they left abroad. Majority of our popular metros are in states dotting the coastlines.

In this era of hi-tech and hi-speed information technology, it is not necessary that such new organizations providing old jobs be located in expensive metros.

So, instead of the new jobs coming back to old locations we are comfortable with, we may have to go to the new locations of those jobs. Not something, some of us may have bargained for.

If change is needed on our part, we have to go for it, because we have no room to complain in the evolving scenario:

1. The CEOs would have brought the jobs back, though not necessarily to their own companies.

2. Domestic outsourcing means, the jobs will be going to our compatriots, not foreigners.

So, how to get ready for this new situation?

A. Check what is the skill set we have to acquire to ready ourselves for each of these jobs.

B. Get trained in these skills, if found wanting.

(One of the reasons for bringing in foreigners on job visas was this: our seats of learning stopped teaching core subjects when the easy, user-friendly Windows system came along. So, when year 2000 came, the fear factor of old mainframes crashing caught on. With not enough personnel trained to do such jobs, we had to look elsewhere for help. But once the y2k passed on, the avaricious CEOs, having tasted blood indulged in backdoor activities, finally sending the jobs abroad.)

C. Universities will have to appoint qualified people with foresight to decide curriculum that will adapt to the nation's changing needs, at least for a decade in advance. No place for favorites and soothsayers in such positions.

D. Look for sudden surge in job advertisements from unheard of, remote areas of the country.

E. We should be ready to move out of the metros if such outsourcing companies are located in the hinterland and heartland of our nation.

F. Yes, we ourselves need a sea change in our attitude to work.

WORKPLACE IS NOT PLAYGROUND. It is not a place intended for internet surfing, web chatting, playing video games and everything else except work. We are not kids, we are adults.

My one hotmail account daily receives at least twenty gossip emails passed on between the staff a company at various locations throughout the world. Yes, the company is a well-known global mail and courier company.

I warned the company many times that it has to instruct the employees to insert a hyphen in the email so that it is properly transmitted. They paid scant attention to that.

So now. what I feared is happening. In time, the staff became more complacent and playful, forgot about the hyphen totally.

The result: I am receiving vital information like invoices, payment details, customer details and other stuff which nobody should know of outside their company. If I had been their competitor, I would have saved millions in corporate espionage!

And innocent people are entrusting their valuable packages to these lazy bums!!! And their company's bosses with no guts to control their staff are putting out tv and print ads extolling the virtues of their customer care.

Not only that, investment advisers throughout the world are issuing BUY, BUY, for the shares of this thoroughly mismanaged courier company.

I have stopped warning them and have started diverting the messages to the spam folder to be automatically deleted. To hell for the company that is willing to be killed by such lazy staff.

Remember, our attitude to work, unless changed, can drive the jobs away again. No blame games will do.

This is exactly what happened to the coding-billing jobs. First it was for individuals. Then small organizations took over. Finally, biggies snatched it.

While individuals did the jobs fairly well, too many lazy bums concentrated in one place in the bigger organizations meant no work done in time and foreign outsourcing.

Hope we will learn from our mistakes too. Otherwise, soon a time will come when we will still be standing on the pier whining as the ship comes home and leaves for the hinterland without us.