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Surviving Outsourcing?
An anonymous reader writes "As some of you may know, HP is negotiating with DPWN, parent company of DHL, to take on outsourced parts of DPWN's global IT Services business unit. As a worker in that business unit, I and my colleagues are part of what HP is negotiating for. I moved into my current position fresh out of university and so far haven't experienced corporate shake-ups or outsourcing initiatives. I enjoy my work and the opportunities that go with it, which is why this announcement was so distressing to me at first. Then I began hearing about the opportunities HP has internally. If you've been through a similar experience, what advice would you give for someone being outsourced? Should I 'ride the wave' and join the new company and culture, or dust off the old CV/resume?"
It's always a good idea to have the CV up to date, but I don't see why you shouldn't ride the wave for a while until you can determine just how good the surf is.
If you don't like them, you can always leave then.
You should do both. Face it. The reason the shake up is there in the first place is because someone in the food chain isn't making enough money and wants to change things around so that they make more.
This likely will result in a possibility you come on to the new company... or not. Remember a lot depends on how much you are willing to accept as a reduction in pay which ultimately will happen at some point.
In the event that they don't want to pay you what you believe your worth, they will go for the lesser costing options (other people), and you would ultimately be out looking elsewhere.
Been there; done that.
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Here's how it works when you get outsourced: .. you do it.
1. You have your job and you do it.
2. You/Your section get outsourced.
3. You have your new job, which is the same as your old job, and
If you weren't dusting off your CV/Resume at your current job, why would you suddenly do it now? You're going to get the same money for doing the same tasks that your currently doing. If nothing is broke, most likely no-one is going to try and "fix it". You're likely to see less change than if your bosses boss resigned and was replaced by someone new.
Disclaimer: I worked in IT and my area was outsourced. After a little bit in the new company, I moved away from maint/support roles into development roles that just weren't available in my old company. YMMV
Should I 'ride the wave' and join the new company and culture, or dust off the old CV/resume?"
1) You should always have an up to date resume. Especially when there is some kind of "restructuring" going on.
2) You can do both. Try on the new company. If you don't like it, you can always leave. You can even spin it to new employers as "I stayed on to ensure a smooth transition" to make you look like a team player. This is a great way to get into a new company without having to wade through the throngs of HR drones trying to screen you out of new-hire interviews.
Jumping ship before the move is kinda dumb -- as long as they don't make you sign anything ridiculous. It could be a much better place. Why would you leave when you don't have a reason to? What would you leave for? An unknown new company? Then you are no better off then where you are right now.
Outsourcing is always done for one thing and one thing only. To save money. What this means is that those who get outsourced are expected to do the same work or more work for less cost. It wont be apparent immediately, often you move over to your new organization with your salary and most of your benefits intact. What happens over time is salary increases and bonuses become smaller than they would have been had you not been outsourced. Also your new employer may not backfill workers who retire or quit. Other places they start to pinch would be training and travel budgets, maybe even redo your 401k contributions to give you less, etc. Over time they will reduce costs one way or another. Hard to give advice on this since its a very personal decision. How confident are you that you can move to another job? Do you like your current job and coworkers? You need to factor these things in when deciding to move over or find a new employer. You may want to ask if you would be entitled to a severance package if you decline to move. If severance is a sizable chunk of money its another component to factor in. Best of luck!
I.e, don't be just a programmer; learn server management too (if nothing else, you should know how servers work to help you be a better programmer), and get involved in areas outside your job scope as much as possible. That way they can't containerise you easily and therefore know fully the impact of you not being there any more. Not to mention it's more interesting to have a broader skill-set.
throw new NoSignatureException();
You get an opportunity there! Write down the differences of both. Learn as much as you can. Take good old common sense to see what was good in the one and whats good in the other place. And also note what was bad in the old and what is bad in the new place. Then after some time look at your CV, add your new experience and rethink if you are better off at a different place.
One reason to outsource people for large companies here is to circumvent work councils. Many large companies here have pretty good social plans for their workers, good pension plans, good health plans, and a key incentive to move your workforce into some subsidiary is to cut those costs.
So read your new contract very, very carefully. Just because something was a given in your old contract doesn't mean it will be in your new contract. If it's not there, consider it gone. This can include things like a cafeteria that was free for the workers (i.e. part of the social plan) suddenly charging you for your meal.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Should I 'ride the wave' and join the new company and culture, or dust off the old CV/resume?"
Dust off the resume! *Always* dust off the resume. Keep that baby dusted even when you're happy and foresee no imminent change. I'd ride the wave for now. You'll know when the time is right. But keep the resume dusted.
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
Happened to me. I learned that if you are not considered a 'revenue center' you will likely be the first to go - IT Departments, internal audit, accounting are all 'cost centers', and since businesses live to minimize costs...
Given what you do, moving to HP or one of their ilk (Accenture, etc.) will make you such a revenue center, and thus less likely to be laid off. In those environments (where I currently work) if you do good work and have a good senior manager (director level, selling work to clients) you will remain chargeable, and therefore, employed. It can work out well. One thing I do recommend, though, to someone straight from University - don't fall in love with your job, because it won't love you back, and it may break your heart. Good luck!
"If nothing is broke, most likely no-one is going to try and "fix it"," is a good principle, but obviously doesn't apply when the whole deal is aimed at fixing it. If nothing were broke, DHL wouldn't "fix it" by pawning off the whole department.
Anyway, the fact is, DHL thinks it can save some money by passing these guys off to HP. Going by your scenario, it means that, basically we have two sums:
X = how much DHL pays for these guys, managing them, computers, electricity, building rent, overhead, etc
Y = how much DHL would pay HP for the same results
Now DHL thinks X > Y, and HP must think that Y includes a profit margin for itself _and_ pay for whatever they bought that department for. (It's not signing this just to subsidize DHL.) It makes no sense for Y to be the exact same old X plus a positive profit. Basically for your scenario, you have simultaneously X > Y, Y = X + P _and_ P > 0. Something doesn't add up, according to the maths as I know it.
One possibility that happens rather often, is that actually HP will end up fleecing DHL. I.e., that (maybe after a short time) actually Y > X. Quite a few companies found themselves at the bad end of that kind of a deal. (Though in the short term HP takes a small loss to sweeten the deal, the new CEO/beancounte/PHB can show some positive financial results in that quarter, and the shareholders cheer.)
The other possibility is that HP _will_ reduce the costs somehow. Maybe they'll force everyone to do more projects in the same time, so it's not going to be really the same job for the same money. Maybe they'll phase some people out after a while and move some of those jobs to Elbonia. Or maybe after a while they figure out that they can't make that much money there, gut the department and keep just some maintenance or service contract with DHL. Or whatever.
There _are_ a few such outsourcing or privatizing deals done just so someone else gets to fire those people, or ask them to take a pay cut.
So basically indeed YMMV. I'm glad it worked out well for you. Sometimes it does. In some other places it doesn't work like that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
An IT person that's roaming the corridors and works inhouse can always stop by and fix things on the fly while an outsourced IT person always has to get the issue through the issue tracking system in order to motivate the salary. This means that it can add hours upon hours of delay before an issue is resolved.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
The reason the shake up is there in the first place is because someone in the food chain isn't making enough money and wants to change things around so that they make more.
One: it depends on who's doing the figuring. Two folks, equally honest, can come up with two vastly different figures for a particular business unit. I has an issue like this once where one guy was attributing more of the company overhead to the unit than the other, so his "costs" were vastly greater.
And when you outsource, the costs are calculated very differently. That's the mistake a lot of folks make is that they don't look at the acid test: cash flow. Trump once said cash is king! The big corporate types have a tendency to forget that. I blame MBA programs. Watching cash flows was never really taught.
Two: Numbers in the business world are NOT based on physical laws as they are in engineering and science. Many times, the numbers are someone's best guess - estimate, pulled out of their ass, etc...