Hibernian Insurance to export 580 Irish jobs to Bangalore, India.

IanCurtis

Just wanted to point out this

The CEO holds the nickname "the axe man" and this has been planned since his appointment nearly two years ago.

I would imagine they will move the jobs for a few years, get rid of many of the permanent staff and when they return, rehire Irish residents on contracts.

Three of the executive management left shortly after his arrival.

He is married to an Indian woman and has two adopted Indian children.

This is definitely going ahead, all the Union can hope for is that voluntary redundancy packages will be offered.

Run_to_da_hills

Hibernian Staff have now voted strike action.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0711/breaking45.htm

ScouseMouse

While not intending to wind up anyone, I am glad this is happening. I had dealings with Hibernian and they were complete and utter ejits. They turned down an offer to fix me up for 900 euro and ended up paying me 12 grand.

I refer to a boards thread I opened at the time to back up my comments.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055093327

The obvious way to cut costs would be to sack the ejits that dealt with me and replace them with people who have some cop on !

eth0_

superscouse wrote: »

The obvious way to cut costs would be to sack the ejits that dealt with me and replace them with people who have some cop on !

Unfortunately, any dealings i've ever had with indian companies (especially in support) has shown they are severely lacking in cop on and will never deviate from their scripts and processes.

BostonB

eth0_ wrote: »

Unfortunately, any dealings i've ever had with indian companies (especially in support) has shown they are severely lacking in cop on and will never deviate from their scripts and processes.

I've had that experience with some, Dell support etc. But I've also dealt with Indian software companies who were excellent. Just depends on the people you get. There's all types of people everywhere.

luckat

They're capitalists. Their function in life is to grind as much profit as possible out of the cheapest workers they can get. Act surprised.

doolox

I have worked with Indians for a number of years in a multinational company.
They are no better or no worse that any other members of our planet.
I have had an instructor in my last assignment who was an inspiration, always cheerful, accurate with information, and how to do the job, good with cautions and what to watch out for in each machine and free with all types of information on getting the job done effectively. He made me look good!
on the other hand I have had one who was an out and out bully and needed to be reported ( an Irishman would rather have his B*****cks cut off than report someone...it's in our history.) He didn't speak to me for a week but
we ended up with a workable working relationship, which is all I wanted.
Others from the subcontinent I have found cheerful, hardworking and good family people and my wife , who has worked with them as nurses in her job, has found much the same.
One has to talk slower than usual when dealing with non-native ( and some non-Irish native ....) english speakers but that is part of the new world we live in.

J.S. Pill

doolox wrote: »

I have worked with Indians for a number of years in a multinational company.
They are no better or no worse that any other members of our planet.
I have had an instructor in my last assignment who was an inspiration, always cheerful, accurate with information, and how to do the job, good with cautions and what to watch out for in each machine and free with all types of information on getting the job done effectively. He made me look good!
on the other hand I have had one who was an out and out bully and needed to be reported ( an Irishman would rather have his B*****cks cut off than report someone...it's in our history.) He didn't speak to me for a week but
we ended up with a workable working relationship, which is all I wanted.
Others from the subcontinent I have found cheerful, hardworking and good family people and my wife , who has worked with them as nurses in her job, has found much the same.
One has to talk slower than usual when dealing with non-native ( and some non-Irish native ....) english speakers but that is part of the new world we live in.

I think you're completely missing the point. You cited your experiences with a foreign colleague in what seems to be a fairly specialised role. What we're talking about here is the issue of offshoring, the particular institution that is the offshored call centre or processing centre and the problems that arise with their use. Businesses utilise them mainly for cost reasons of course but some of the problems that arise include: difficulty understanding the agent, lack of local knowledge, rigid adherence to scripts & the resulting lack of flexibility and, particularly with India, large staff turnover.

Ordering a computer or updating bank details through such a call centre can be difficult enough but for a product like insurance the language barrier will be particularly pronounced. Insurances policies can be complicated and nuanced and mistakes made can be costly for the company and customers so I would hope that Hibernian get some reasonably high calibre workers. Turnover could be a major issue for Hibernian as even the lower lever jobs require a lot of knowledge which takes many months to build up, if turnover is high quality will plummet. And also, lack of local knowledge will make something simple like getting a quote very laborious and frustrating (think having to spell names and addresses using the phonetic alphabet).

Nobody is suggesting that there aren't going to be decent, hardworking people behind the phones but these problems are almost inherent and not totally a reflection on individuals.