Heard the update on GCC. A lot of questions were asked by attendees of which some were selected for response. The answers were non-answers which was not surprising. People can handle uncertainty and difficult truths much better when they are presented plainly and honestly. I just wish our leaders understood that.
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@dk I did and then… not initially a great outcome for my family and mortgage
@pa Because we have to fly people over there all the time to babysit them. Part of the legal stuff for having "3rd party offshore vendor". Been doing it since 2023. Why you think all these GPs and DLs all havr to take turns going over there wasting money on flights? GCC gets around that roadblock and cost. This is pufely about costs and probably some liability for when contractors wreck something. And yes, we can offshore more jobs. The end goal is to decimate home office as much as possible before PP flies out on her broom in 2028.
I'm not sure why we even need a GCC. I haven't been overly impressed with the offshore model we have today, so what is going to make this different? Instead of hiring hundreds or thousands of lower-cost workers, why aren't we investing more in automation so we don't need as many people doing the work? Stop doing so much manual testing, automate it. Build more self-service. Use AI to eliminate repetitive work. I'd rather see us make our existing workforce more productive than just move the same work somewhere cheaper.
They are moving to GCC because it's usually easier to quantify, faster to scale and more predictable financially. The leadership needs to see some fast savings because they spent way too much in the last few years. This will be the way to replace associates cheaply. They may not layoff U.S./Canada associates but I doubt they will be backfilling those that quit/retire.
The inconsistency of them saying that they're going to offshore people, while the firm emphasizes the need for RTO for local associates to go into Home Office for collaboration is funny. Nice to see AM literally phoning it in for his segment as well.
It was also funny to hear them say that they weren't doing offshoring for cost reasons, but were doing it to broaden the pool of available associates. Yet they said they don't want to hire U.S. & Canada associates outside of the St. Louis, Tempe and Toronto areas? Baffles the mind.
The theme of returning to school also was just weird.
What’s frustrating is that even for positions that require people to work during U.S. business hours like Product Managers, we’re outsourcing those roles to vendors instead of opening them up to Associates. From what I’ve heard, vendors are being paid 2–4 times what an Associate costs, including benefits. Some of the big vendors must be making a ki-ling.
@dg It’s A
I think leaders are beginning to see the negative impact of ER. Too much trust was placed in consultants, who pushed for job elimination because “AI will fill the gap”. This narrative was oversold and overbought. Although to be fair, consultants were likely pedaling this because of someone else’s motive. But what’s done is done, and the reality remains that the HO’s welfare is tied to the field’s, and we must work together to modernize and stay competitive. It’s hard to do with the ER backdrop, but I focus on the little that I can control. I can control how I show up, how I interact with others, I can choose to give my best during working hours. As far as what % of workforce will be offshored, no one knows. Just like ER, leadership is beginning to understand more of the downsides in addition to the upsides that were sold. At the end of the day, if it doesn’t make long term business sense, I think we will pull back. But right now, who is able to see around the corner? I think a few, but who’s willing to stick their neck out and go against the grain?
Something is very off with this whole thing. It's either A.) We have no clue what we are doing with this and are just fumbling our way through it, while maybe getting g-n shy over the move. Or, B.) We know exactly what we are doing and where we are going with this, but we can't give away what the final goal is because it is absolutely horrible and disgusting for anyone working at home office. My 2 cents? I think they want 70% of home office offshored to india.