Department being outsourced

prem_vw

Hi All,

I have being informed that our IT department may be outsourced in the future. I have also been told that the outsourcing company is obliged to employee us. Is this true?

Thanks in advance.

Alun

prem_vw wrote: »

I have being informed that our IT department may be outsourced in the future. I have also been told that the outsourcing company is obliged to employee us. Is this true?

There's no legal obligation as far as I know, but some companies when doing this make it a condition of the contract they award. You'll have to ask your own HR department what the deal is. Mind you, it's still no guarantee of a job in the long term. Companies that are pressured into taking on legacy staff like that tend to be fairly ruthless later on in pruning away any 'excess'.

Milk & Honey

Alun wrote: »

There's no legal obligation as far as I know, but some companies when doing this make it a condition of the contract they award.

There is a legal requirement under the Transfer of Undertakings legislation to re-employ the old staff on the same terms and conditions as before.

Alun

Milk & Honey wrote: »

There is a legal requirement under the Transfer of Undertakings legislation to re-employ the old staff on the same terms and conditions as before.

OK, I stand corrected.

Eoin

Milk & Honey wrote: »

There is a legal requirement under the Transfer of Undertakings legislation to re-employ the old staff on the same terms and conditions as before.

This is true, but that legislation states:

An employee may not be dismissed solely by reason of the transfer. However, dismissals may take place for economic, technical or organisational reasons involving changes in the work-force.

Sounds like they could let someone go and explain it away quite easily.

the_syco

Also, sometimes the outsourcer is far far away (read: India).

Nody

Milk & Honey wrote: »

There is a legal requirement under the Transfer of Undertakings legislation to re-employ the old staff on the same terms and conditions as before.

Only applies if the new staff is located in Ireland iirc.

Leadership

I work for an IT outsourcer and TUPE is only in scope if the new department is based in Europe. What often happens is a small team is kept on site and the remainder are moved to a cheaper location either in country or out of it.

TUPE was initially designed to help contract cleaners etc so with IT being more complex we can explain job losses quite easily so its mostly dependant on the function you perform within the team whether your job is at risk or not.

Also a lot depends on the ethics of your own business as they can say to the outsourcer they do not want job losses. Companies out source for a number of reasons and the reasons behind it will often drive the job security.

1. Save money - If this is the driver then expect the department to based off shore. Take a helpdesk agent for example, in Ireland a level 1 agent will cost fully loaded (desk space, salary, tech costs etc) €40k a year. If I move the helpdesk to say Asia the fully loaded of an agent would be about €18k

2. Concentrate on primary business - If they want the IT department to be professionally run then there is every chance the existing team will be kept on board.

A tip for you is that new jobs are often created to work with an outsourcer to manage the service so maybe you could look into Service Management or a liaison type role.

eth0_

Take redundancy if it is offered, OP.

I.T ...in fact any kind of oursourcers are utter scum, providing terrible service because all they care about is statistics, statistics and more statistics.

Think of it this way - when have you EVER had a good experience with an outsourced callcentre?

Leadership

eth0_ wrote: »

I.T ...in fact any kind of oursourcers are utter scum, providing terrible service because all they care about is statistics, statistics and more statistics.

Think of it this way - when have you EVER had a good experience with an outsourced callcentre?

Thats a nice bitter statement and totality incorrect. I do not believe I am utter scum, I am a nice family man actually!

Anyway just to clarify outsources are given a mission by their client. If it is to save money down to the last cent then they will do that. In this case who is scum? Is it the outsourcer who is given a task by the client or the business who desperately wants to save money?

I can give you examples of businesses who outsource to improve the quality and they are now winning awards. One of my desks won helpdesk of the year in the UK last year voted for by the end users. That was an outsourced desk!

Eoin

Unfortunately, many companies still see IT support as an overhead that should be reduced, rather than an essential service.

Outsourcing IT support does not make up for having support people on site - I've worked in companies where it's been tried, and it didn't take long for them to get people back on site again. I'm not saying that all external help-desk operations are crap, or the scum of the earth - but they just generally don't provide as good a service.

eth0_

Outsourcing and BPO companies are parasites, stealing jobs by offering staff at ridiculously cheap prices. And god, does that show in their work.

Johnny Bitte

Our Helpdesk has recently just been outsourced. It took calls for all of EU and provided excellent first level I have to say.

Hell on earth is the only way to describe the new shower. The simplest tasks for then take hours where before seconds, there seems to be no leadership and worst of all 2nd level is getting it in the neck from the end users.

Management doesnt seem to give a ****.

OP, when the original guys were being told this was going to happen they were told all sorts one of which was been garenteed jobs in other departments.
5 move to different roles, 1 went to the Czech Rep on reduced pay and 12 took severance, some got quite a lot.

My advice would be take severance and have another job lined up before you leave.