The Hindu Business Line : Take'em along on job shifts; it really helps

While some of them like Mr Craig Barrett of Intel are defending the need to outsource, Trilogy Inc, a relatively smaller US-based IT company has decided to tackle the issue in a different way.

"We have done it by taking our US employees into confidence over the issue. We have been explaining to them that the economies of scale are much better here," says Mr Jim Abolt, Vice-President, HR, Trilogy Inc.

When the company first announced the shift of jobs to India, its American employees expressed resentment, which was expected anyway.

The main concern they had was regarding competency levels among Indians and whether "they (Indians) could handle the jobs that they are being hired for."

Trilogy tackled this issue by setting up a portal (Leadership.com) where employees could question the top leadership of the company about the issue.

"The response from our US employees was overwhelming," says Mr Abolt.

The company then asked its Indian employees to respond to these concerns.

This move worked in the company's favour as the Indians' point of view was well received by the Americans and to a large extent, the "negative feelings went away."

Meanwhile, the company leadership also explained to their American employees that Indian tech education was as good as in the US and that the talent pool here was totally consistent with building a great company.

"We had to convince them that an IITian was as competent as a Harvard graduate," explains Mr Abolt.

One of the key challenges for all these corporations is to look at how best to migrate these processes.

According to Mr T.S. Hariharan, Managing Director, European Operations, 24x7 Customer, UK, "We are now increasingly seeing the involvement of trade unions in what jobs will move offshore and how the process of job loss can be managed successfully."

Mr Shabbir Merchant, Vice-President, Consulting Services, Grow Talent Co Ltd, a talent management firm, feels that the HR community in the West does have a challenge with respect to managing expectations of its employees around this issue.

"Layoffs are not a new concept in the West as they are in India."

But HR leaders there do have a `communication challenge' of convincing their employees that job losses due to outsourcing increase the competitive edge of the business and in turn benefit the organisation, he says.

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