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Utility Sets IT Department On Path To Self-destruction
dcblogs writes "Northeast Utilities has told IT employees that it is considering outsourcing IT work to India-based offshore firms, putting as many as 400 IT jobs at risk. The company is saying a final decision has not been made. But Conn. State Rep. and House Majority Leader Joe Aresimowicz, who is trying to prevent or limit the outsourcing move, says it may be a done deal. NU may be prompting its best IT employees to head to the exits. It also creates IT security risks from upset workers. The heads-up to employees in advance of a firm plan is 'kind of mind mindbogglingly stupid,' said David Lewis, who heads a Connecticut-based human resources consulting firm OperationsInc, especially 'since this is IT of all places.' The utility's move makes sense, however, if is it trying to encourage attrition to reduce severance costs."
Because it's worked so well for others in the past.
Just finishing my last trojans and timebombs...now they can fire me.
Publicly traded utilities should be prohibited from hiring foreign companies to perform these kinds of jobs, in much the same way those companies are also prohibited from hiring foreign attorneys, architects, construction companies, doctors and certified accountants.
Almost all utilities are regulated industries, since they enjoy government-enforced monopolies. They should not be allowed to leverage taxpayer-subsidized market exclusivity in order to engineer the destruction of those same taxpayer's careers.
This applies equally to cable television providers, ISPs, gas and water companies.
It just doesn't work.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Why would you outsource like this? It would mean:
1) Different timezones - cannot communicate in realtime;
2) Different culture - harder to understand requirements;
3) Language barrier - even in the unlikely event that the developers all speak excellent Indian English, it is *not* the same as Americna English;
4) Lack of face-to-face contact - being able to watch someone communicate, point at the screen, sit in a room together makes for far faster problem resolution;
5) Lack of mutual value - a permanent employee is entirely your investment, and in return works and trains only on your systems, dedicating their work day to understanding what you need, and spending years at your company becoming intimately familiar with your processes;
6) Lack of open-ended requirements - this is one of the most important things of all: all contractors bit you in the ass by working to spec, whereas permanent employees will be there to do whatever you want, when you want it.
In short, paper estimates of monies saved by outsourcing are always - without exception - a crock of shit. Someone wants a hefty bonus, possibly by fooling executives re apparent saving, or possibly because they have an interest in the outsourcing firm. Most likely both.
I would have thought every IT professional with a pulse would now know that outsourcing development or support always ends in a gigantic cluster fuck.
Seeing as how vital utilities are to our Nation's livelihood and welfare, I can't possibly see any scenario in which outsourcing the IT duties to any Foreign National should be considered anything but a gigantic security risk. It's no secret that any given network on the electric grid can cause widespread outages beyond it's customer base. Congress needs to pass a law requiring all Utilities to employ their own IT departments comprised of US Nationals on US Soil.
Why did this part only make it to page 3?
Of course it does. IMHO, IT shouldn't be outside of a secure environment's walls. Even with "good" IT people, when they can VPN in from home computers and do things, it can compromise the security of the network. When your entire shop is off-shore, there's no one standing guard to make sure things are safe.
The risks are huge. It can range from malware on a workstation, to malicious actions by a 3rd party or employee.
The "what could possibly go wrong" goes from the confines of their office, to ... well ... the whole world.
I'm surprised DHS hasn't said no to this. They're worried about critical infrastructure, including power utilities, being compromised by outside attackers. When all the work is being done by someone other than in-house staff, it's inviting exactly that kind of trouble.
I guess "best case" here is that they're trying to get a bunch of people to quit, so they can get fresh locals in for less pay, screwing the existing staff in the process.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
There really is a reason why companies make the announcement ahead of time before outsourcing. Really, there is. It's part of the formula. The outsourcing company sells the patsy... client, sorry. Sells the client on the idea that the client tells their employees that they're planning to outsource, so that the employees can then be directed to spend their remaining time in documenting their jobs well enough that an untrained person in a third world country could do the job.
The outsourcing company will insist on this, and the sap, ur... client for God only knows what reason will think this will actually work, and the employees will go "sure, yeah, that's what I'm doing with my remaining time here. Sure. Not spending my entire shift looking for a job in a down economy. No sirree. My job doesn't take any original thought, creativity, or diagnostic skills, it's just a lot of button pushing and answering questions. Here, let me print out ... say ... everything in My Documents. That should stack up real nice."
Five years later, the outsourcing company will assure the chump... what's wrong with this spell checker? CLIENT. The client, that the break-even point is just around the corner, really it is, and will volunteer to help sell this concept to the board. Meanwhile, the victim's argh... client's business has suffered, it's harder to do even the smallest office task, change in any reasonable amount of time is impossible, and employees are saying things like "for God's sake, please don't make me call the helpdesk".
And this will be called Progress.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You're a fool. IT is infrastructure and an insurance policy when/if something goes wrong. IT does not produce anything, they do not sell anything, IT has no product for which a customer will pay. That in the eyes of an exec is a drain on the company and therefore will always be the first to get cut when they need a new yacht.
Keep deluding yourself that IT is a revenue generator. Try pitching that to the VP of IS/IT while he stares at the spreadsheet showing the hundreds of thousands of dollars you requested that quarter to upgrade XYZ.
Here are the facts Todd.
1: Northeast utilities is a regulated power company, outsourcing anything but the "build it there, use it here" shit (Transformers, regulators, software, hardware, etc) WILL get you in SERIOUS Shit with your local government 5,000 ways from Sunday not just from the IT Security standpoint but also from the downtime-is-not-acceptable standpoint.
2: A 10k man company with 400 IT Staff probably means they aren't secure anyway because they haven't updated shit in years. 1:25 is seriously out of what IT to Employee ratio and IMO, they deserve to be replaced if they are that lazy. 1:50 to 1:100 is much more reasonable.
3: Outsourcing doesn't work; nobody is ever happy with the results, which are often catastrophic.
4: This stinks of control fraud. The moment management begins acting like they are committing control fraud, leave.
Fraud starts with big companies undergoing mergers and acquisitions; execs and investors get payoffs as the bag is passed from sucker to sucker. Execs receive multimillion dollar golden parachutes and leave while bringing in bright shiny new people to take their place (the suckers) who try the same game over and over; the last set of managers are the bag-holders, and they don't get to leave so easily. Money is somehow lost in bad deals, or outright fraud (we bought $1,000 hammers, oops).
Ultimately the objective is to asset strip the company and the people within the company by diverting revenue to executive and investor payouts. Asset stripping people means they reduce your pay, remove your job title, let other people go and see if you can do what they did (we made them redundant), and so on. Properly operating companies don't play games like this; they do not hire unless they have to, they solve problems permanently where they can, and they motivate employee's with revenue (stock options, 401k, no hocus-pocus ponzi shit either, real cash externally held from the organization) because they know "thank you" has always gone as far as "fuck you" and paying peanuts means you get peanuts in return. If "The economy" was really an issue, workloads would go down and then they'd get rid of people in the appropriate departments.
This manifests as I don't care disease which is the result of plain burnout. The rot shows up as employee's not giving a shit and getting away with it (they are not paid enough to care or are not motivated to care, plus their boss is a sucker and just plain stupid). Money gets flushed down the toilet. When burnout starts to show up, and outrageous waste begins to show up (start job searching, be VERY particular).
Once you see the "we need you to do the job of 3 people" crap start, get your foot out of the door. When you leave, let them, their boss, and their bosses boss (right up the chain to the exec) know in no uncertain terms the reason and that there are no excuses.
Truth is with Northeast, The good ones left a long, long, long time ago.