Will WFH be outsourced to cheaper countries?

[Alongcameacat]

Following on from a recent thread where the majority of people believe that they will remain working from home permanently, is anyone concerned that their jobs are now high risk?

Why would companies continue paying people their current salaries when there is no need for people to be in the same place at the same time?

Surely it makes sense that companies will outsource most if not all of their WFH workforce to countries like India and Eastern Europe where labour is significantly cheaper?

As for going to the office one or two days a week - Zoom, Google Teams, would suffice for the most part and any inconveniences would be more than offset by huge financial savings?

But how would people abroad have my skills, judgement, experience and authority to replace me

I might be WFH but that doesn't necessarily mean anyone could do my job

But how would people abroad have my skills, judgement, experience and authority to replace me

What will happen when you change roles or retire? The company will find a replacement. People are highly educated abroad.

@chrislilleyswig

But how would people abroad have my skills, judgement, experience and authority to replace me

I might be WFH but that doesn't necessarily mean anyone could do my job

It's the same with my job. It's pretty niche and I had to have several years experience in a relevant field before I qualified for it.

steff13

Again.

What will happen when you change roles or retire? The company will find a replacement. People are highly educated abroad.

@Alongcameacat

steff13

Again.

What will happen when you change roles or retire? The company will find a replacement. People are highly educated abroad.

They'll replace me with one of the candidates with the same skillset, I'd imagine. I conduct public assistance appeals on benefits issued in the State of Ohio. How many people abroad are being educated on the Ohio benefits system and have six years of experience with issuing benefits in Ohio (one of the minimum job requirements), do you think?

What @chrislilleyswig said.

There seems to be some people who think that people who have historically worked in an office are low skilled. Simply not the case. Nor is it the case that people 'solely' wfh or work in an office. There are masses of jobs where people go out - to sites, to clients, to meetings, to other offices or laboratories or hospitals or schools or factories or construction sites, and then have done their admin in the office. It seems likely that that admin can now be done at home, but the visits and inspections and collaborations etc etc will still happen, but the office time won't necessarily be the same.

The simple answer is yes, I expect this to become a trend. If a company doesn't need people to physically attend an office and you can get the work done to the same standard more cheaply, why wouldn't you?

My job won’t be outsourced. It needs someone with a cultural and political understanding of the U.K, needs to be in this time zone and no, simply couldn’t be outsourced. It will be replaced with another version of me if I leave

How did you obtain the skills? I think there is a possibility that whatever course you completed to do your job will be offered online and experience (unless face to face) will come with time as it does with all jobs.

Is working in a benefits office a niche job? Here it is a civil servants job.

However I assume public jobs will stay in the country of origin.

I’m an accountant and some companies have already outsourced. But I can spot instantly which questions from our auditors come from the UK team and which come from their offshore counterparts (who don’t understand the UK market). We’ve already complained once because the offshoring is causing us (the client) a great deal of extra work unpicking the false assumptions. I’m sure I’d have the same problem if I tried to do my job offshore for an overseas company. You can’t replicate that local knowledge. Or the nuances of questions.

It already happened with overseas call centres, I see a distinct possibility of other office roles going the same way, and you can bet your bottom dollar big corps will be looking at this and rubbing their hands.

Admin and IT can be done from home. Lecturing can be done from home. And countless others.

Surely that is a large cohort of the current WFH?

I wasn't presuming that ALL WFH are at risk but a large number are at risk.

@Alongcameacat

How did you obtain the skills? I think there is a possibility that whatever course you completed to do your job will be offered online and experience (unless face to face) will come with time as it does with all jobs.

Is working in a benefits office a niche job? Here it is a civil servants job.

However I assume public jobs will stay in the country of origin.

My job is a niche job. It's in the legal field, regarding public benefits. I don't work in a benefits office. And I am a public servant.

Issuing benefits here in Ohio requires a college degree, 6 months of training, and the appropriate "soft skills."

As I asserted, my job won't be outsourced. 🤷‍♀️

This has already happened in my husband’s company. It’s an IT business who have laid off lots of workers and re-employed them in Vietnam, I expect it will be ongoing.

No, my job is part of a niche workforce that needs experience and knowledge and skills based on jobs that can’t be done working from home. Just because I’m office based doesn’t mean it doesn’t need skills and experience based in this country. They’re not going to hire someone from elsewhere as the qualification I have to do in this country may be similar but not up to our professional standards somewhere else. It won’t be outsourced.

@Alongcameacat

steff13

Again.

What will happen when you change roles or retire? The company will find a replacement. People are highly educated abroad.

We're highly educated in this country. Lots of graduates, quite a lot of world ranking unis. And the real benefit of being native anglophones. Wfh is happening in other countries too - no reason the flow of jobs shouldn't be the other way too.

I've wfh for 25 years in the U.K. although the rest of my colleagues are in the US; the company was American, now its European. Outsourcing to India didn't really work except for some QA functions.

I'm a social worker working from home. Given we can't even work collaboratively with social workers from the next borough I doubt my local authority will be rushing to outsource to another country,

Plus there's the whole issue of physically needing to see people in person to do the job.

I wfh for a massive financial company. They have offices in India and Asia already so I assume there is a reason why they keep their IT in the UK. Prior to that I worked on a government contract which needed to be in the UK for security reasons. Not all wfh can be done abroad.

I can't see it happening where I work. For a start they would need to be in the same time zone. Acquiring the product knowledge, market knowledge and soft skills that everyone in my department has would take far too long for it to be cost effective.

Wfh is happening in other countries too - no reason the flow of jobs shouldn't be the other way too.

The higher salaries in parts of Western Europe is the reason.

...real benefit of being native anglophones

People who speak English as a second language speak it perfectly well enough to be understood. We all have colleagues who are not from the UK whose English is excellent not merely adequate.
And the disadvantage of not speaking multiple languages unlike most of our highly educated European neighbours.

Nope. Our company have tried that, and it absolutely bombed. Language barrier when speaking with customers, and therefore not being able to divert from the ‘script’ resulting in big increase in complaints from customers.

Why would companies continue paying people their current salaries when there is no need for people to be in the same place at the same time?

I'm sure many companies considered this pre the pandemic.

Services which can be delivered from WFH only require home internet connection, that's it. It's beyond foolish to assume that overseas employees can deliver the same skills as employees within the U.K.

I'm more interested in knowing why large numbers of people WFH seems to gets the goat of others. OP maybe you can explain? What do you do for a living?

@Frequency

I wfh for a massive financial company. They have offices in India and Asia already so I assume there is a reason why they keep their IT in the UK. Prior to that I worked on a government contract which needed to be in the UK for security reasons. Not all wfh can be done abroad.

Security is definitely one reason for keeping some functions in the U.K. , including IT. And of course, servers, backup facilities etc are physical entities requiring people on site at least some of the time.

I wouldn’t say there’s no risk but most skilled jobs require more than a qualification. The experience but is about getting to grips with the culture of the industry and company and how to communicate effectively in these settings and these would not be easily transferable abroad.

Many companies, especially in the IT and customer service fields have been outsourcing jobs for years. I don't believe the current situation will cause a tremendous increase in outsourcing.