Slashdot Mirror
Why Outsource When Workers are Willing to Telecommute?
An anonymous reader asks: "Corporations and management resisted telecommuting for years, now jobs flow to distant nations. Did telecommuting become acceptable because of the greater distance? Because some form of on-site management persists? Because labor laws are favorable? Because a well paid middle class is a political threat? Is it really as simple as money? I'll work cheaper if I can choose where I live and work. Must I leave my country to do so?"
There are two obvious factors that favor foreign outsourcing to domestic telecommuters:
1) The outsourcer is still likely to be much cheaper.
2) The outsourcer is (presumably) an organized unit with a high degree of standardized processes, etc. that are difficult to implement across a telecommuting workforce.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
I'll work cheaper if I can choose where I live and work. Must I leave my country to do so?
Yep. And you must also accept a salary of around $5,900 a year, assuming you're relocating to India. You said you would be willing to work cheaper, but I doubt you'll want a job at that salary.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Is it really as simple as money?
short answer is yes.
And don't forget benefits such as healthcare and retirement.
I'll work cheaper if I can choose where I live and work.
Not as cheap as someone oversees. What is considered good money in India wouldn't be a living wage in Silicon Valley, or in most of the United States.
Indeed. Especially considering that even $100k is not really even a living wage in Silicon Valley and that same $100k costs the employer approx $155k including benefits. That same job in many cases can be found in India for $5k or less. The issues to be overcome are language barriers, project management and innovation (or lack thereof with remotely managed projects).
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The average Indian programmer costs $20/hr in wages and benefits while the average American programmer costs $65/hr.* Therefore you would need to take a 69% paycut in order to be competitive. You would be better off moving to your favorite part of the country and waiting tables.
*Source: Arizona Republic, July 14 2003
>>Are you willing to live in Bangalore, Pune or Delhi for $12-14k/yr?
Forget it. India has laws barring non-Indians from working there.
Yet the US is cool with H1-B's. Weird.
Huh?
The problem with workers telecommuting is that they need to be managed individually; the lure of Indian outsourcing is that someone else is managing them. In short, if the relationship with the Indian shop is set up correctly (specs go one way, code goes the other), the management overhead goes down as well as the cost. The interface is (theoretically) cleaner. I've never heard of an Indian outsourcing arrangement where the coders were in India and their immediate supervisor was in the U.S.
The comparison with telecommuting is shallow, and not very good.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
Not as cheap as someone oversees. What is considered good money in India wouldn't be a living wage in Silicon Valley, or in most of the United States.
Too true... while workers in the US might work cheaper while telecommuting instead of going to the office, they will need a salary that allows them to live, wich means a salary that let's them live paying US cost-of-living. For example, here in Chile a computer engineer (computer engineering in this country (at least in the Universidad de Chile) is more or less like a MsC in Computer Science, six years of studying everything from advanced calculus to economics to algorithms to AI to BD to Software Engineering to OS to...) goes out, fresh out of school, to earn about US$12k or 14k a year. Sounds like peanuts in the USA, but here it allows you to rent a place, pay your bills, buy your food, and car payments. Low cost of living where you are hiring means your workers will be satisfied for less. In no way you are ripping them off. I know *I* would be too happy with a US$24k/year job :)
You can split the pay of one US worker and use it to hire more people, wich are capable of doing the work of that one US worker and more. It's only a matter of sending someone here to do face-to-face interviews so they can pick the ones who REALLY speak english.
No it doesnt. There are a bunch of Americans working in Bangalore (ok, in management roles) in US based companies. I am not an expert in Indian immigration/visa laws, but you could get help from the Indian embassy or in your local Indian consulate.
There are even international schools in Bangalore so your kids can study stuff they do in US.. plus Bangalore has a lot of great pubs!
My job was replaced by someone in India..
Hint: A lot of Microsoft Support is done in India now..
Let me just say that, as far as my experience was concerned, telecommuting wasn't that great. I was offered to telecommute one day out of the week, and after a couple weeks of that, I actually found myself going into the office on my telecommute days... to sum up:
1. Technical issues. The VPN was butt slow. Even over DSL the whole process of logging in and getting simple stuff to happen was a pain in the ass. They gave me a laptop that was nowhere near as fast as my work computer, plus, because of the VPN and paranoia, I had to do all work on the laptop, not my home box. Then, some days I couldn't log in for hours. I would actually prefer working on the work box since everything would get done twice as fast.
Totally distracting. Had the TV going, music playing, couldn't resist the urge to do household chores, etc. I'm honest when I say my productivity was likely reduced by 25% just from stupid distractions and the basic "hey, the boss ain't here, I'll post on slashdot again..." etc.
Lonely. I was surprised, but it sucked not being around other co-workers, even just for one day. If you want a quick answer on something you can't just walk to their cube. Have to call them up, inevitably leave a voice mail, or email, etc. The back and forth probably wasted an hour every day I telecommuted.
Team gets fragmented. Our telecomute schedule was like a rotation, so every day of the week one or two people would be out of the office. It made it harder to schedule meetings, also, I seriously think workflow would be slowed, because someone would be "working from home" and people would figure, well, I'll just ask this question tomorrow when I can speak to them face to face (procrastination).
So, on the surface telecommuting sounds like a sweet deal, but I found it problematic. And if I were to take a pay cut for telecommuting? No way. I'd go to the office anyday. Your mileage may vary but I urge anyone to actually TRY telecommuting for a while before assuming "working from home" is such a holy grail.
Imagine earning the equivalent of US$160 every month. Can you folks in America live with such a wage? That's how much money I'm making right now, and while it's not exactly a lot, it's enough for me to pay the rent and utilities, buy enough food to for me and my girlfriend to eat well every day, and allow us to have a little more fun besides romping around on the bed. :) (it's not enough for us to consider getting married and having children though) What do I do that earns me such a pittance? I deploy and design enterprise Linux systems, and write custom Linux software as well. The fact that I work for a new and impoverished startup company skews things a bit, but the facts remain. Even as much as US$500 a month is considered a very good wage where I come from. Would you folks in America even consider such pathetic wages?
I can buy a pack of cigarettes here for the equivalent of less than 50 US cents. A home-cooked meal of chicken or other meat costs around 75 US cents per person. My daily commute to work is slightly less than one US dollar. Water and electric bills amount to roughly US$8-$10 per month. Rent, US$60 per month. That's what life's like in the Third World, folks. Come by and visit sometime.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
Yes, Japan is even worse.
The point was that the average incomes in some countries is such that
two dollars an hour sounds like good money. Exchange rates can help
here too. If you hire someone in the Cameroun, you can pay him
500 francs an hour, because that's only about a dollar. But 500
francs an hour times 40 hours is twenty thousand francs a week,
which is an above-average wage there. You've got a combination of
two factors in your advantage here: the exchange rate is such that
20000 francs will buy more there than 40 bucks will buy here, and
additionally it seems like even more because they all have friends
and neighbors who make less than that amount.
Consequently, if you want to telecommute and work for the kinds of
wages those people make, you'll need to live outside the US. You
can't support a family on 40 bucks a week here. Even just supporting
yourself on that amount here would be a very very serious strain,
and could only be done if you already owned your home outright
(in a location where heating is not needed in the winter), had no
need of a vehicle, and had very inexpensive tastes in food (think
in terms of gardening and buying rice in bulk...) and clothing.
(Think: Goodwill.) Even at that, with no significant other
expenses, you'd have VERY little discretionary money. The
company would have to pay your internet bill, and I'm not sure
you'd be able to afford the electric bill. It'd be very tight,
if you could even do it at all.
As you point out, the US is _not_, contrary to popular opinion, the
richest country per capita. It's (quite easily) the country with the
single largest total amount of wealth, but that's a combination of
not only affluence but also size. (There are larger countries, but
not very many.) There are a number of somewhat smaller countries
that are also quite wealthy per capita.
Nevertheless, there are quite a few countries that are a lot LESS
wealthy per capita than the US. If you pick a country in that
category that also happens to have the right kind of exchange rate,
the result (from the perspective of a US country) is cheap labor.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
I just modded you up. While yeah, it's *always* about money to an extent - I think you're right on the mark pointing out the "control" factor (which most managers won't readily admit to, either).
Even when you finally manage to prove to your boss that you can do excellent work outside the walls of the company, he/she often still clings to outdated ideas of time management and employee tracking.
(EG. The guy I work for right now has me work on all sorts of projects for him, including producing and editing a computer training video he wants to use in-house. I do all of the work on this video at home, and keep track of my hours. When I get back in to work though, he forces me to religiously punch in and out on a time clock! So basically, I end up with a time card full of handwritten notes about hours I worked outside the office, plus all the time-stamps on it when I came in. Ridiculous - but another case of a boss who can't quite adjust to giving employees control.)
BTW, dido is in the Philippines (not mentioned in the post).
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= John Reinert Nash -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=