Plant & Facilities Engineering

The concept of outsourcing works very well on paper and Hi-tech power point presentations and paints a bright Rosy picture of money saved how ever i have experienced that outsourced staff will never accept the ownership of mess they create& account for money spent on clear the mess created by so called outsourced talent

crm

<...outsourced staff will never accept the ownership of mess they create& account for money spent on clear the mess created by so called outsourced talent...>

And why should they <rhetorical question>? Temps are there, as far as the employer is concerned, to push the train up and over the hill, then drop off the back once it moves on its own!

Notwithstanding the fact that apportioning blame is actually the job of the legal profession (which makes its money out of its Clients' misery), every temp will have a reporting relationship that is delegated from a staff member. While one can delegate authority, one cannot delegate liability to anyone, not even a temp.

It is in most temps' interests to create odd problems so that the train takes longer to get up the hill, for the longer it takes, the longer they get paid. And in a recession that can be very important, a factor that seems lost on many staff supervisors, it would appear from the above. So the real problem lies within the employer organisation, something the original post seeks to highlight.

When CFO's realize that 'done right' makes more money than 'on time' this trend will reverse. That lightbulb usually goes on when their job is in jeopardy, unfortunately.

Gee, I don't know! I work in an engineering section that when I started working here had 40 Full time engineers. We were a happy bunch often working 60 or more hours/week and taking home buckets full of overtime money. Now management has decided that contracting out is the way to go. We now have 10 engineers that spend all of our time hand holding two contracting firms and teaching them how to do our jobs. We work only 40 hours each week and get no gravy while the contractors take the company for every cent they can. We are a miserable lot. Fight it tooth and nail dude, you are in for a screwing...

I thought this discussion was about engineers, professional engineers are exempt on payrole and do not receive overtime. I guess we could be discussing train engineers.

I think it depends on how you are bringing in an outside company. I work for a consulting company now and some of our clients are large enough that they have engineers on-staff that have the potential to be in direct competition with us. At times, the management of that client will put us in competition with their engineers, I guess either to prove them or us out. I've only seen it happen once and when it did, the local engineers were let go pretty quickly. I don't agree with this approach.

We prefer it when we are working for the engineering staff of the client, and therefore making sure that the local engineering staff is looking good because it hurts us when local knowledge is dismissed (not to mention that we lose contacts who could get us future business).

I don't agree with this approach either and btw I've seen consultants dropped so the sword cuts both ways. The best scenario, as you suggest, is to have the consultants work for engineering and not in competition with them.

Companies no longer represent loyalty, stability and permanence. They downsize or outsource indiscriminately without a second thought. The affect of these actions goes beyond the employees and to the heart of their families. Their only short-term-minded loyalty is to the bottom line.

These are stone-wall decisions made behind closed doors by people who have little or no idea of the quality of your work or the extra effort you provided the company without requesting overtime. They don't care about your family's life, hopes or dreams, and they don't understand that you just put braces on your child's teeth.

Yes, this poses a long term threat to the organization's knowledge base and experience.

There is too much emphasis on how to save money or cut costs and not enough creative thinking on how to increase profits. Outsourcing should NOT be the only option.