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This week's rant

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sundaymorningstaple
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Re: This week's rant

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Wed, 12 Nov 2014 2:18 pm

^^This.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Re: This week's rant

Post by Primrose Hill » Wed, 12 Nov 2014 2:23 pm

[quote="JR8-
Back home in London I experienced what you describe. Employees willing to sit at their desks 18hrs a day even if they had little to do, but just to show willing. This was much more apparent when a rout and job cuts were looming (seemingly every other year). There was something of an informal policy of managers going around and literally ordering their lingering staff to go home.[/quote]

Sometimes it is the job cut rounds but a lot of the times it is just there for show. 2 major German outfits that I worked for in London was like that. The British workers will stay at the office till midnight or longer, easily and come into work in the weekends as well but obviously not their German counterparts.
These seem to happen to folks that are insecure.

I once had a barny with Head of Dept, years ago because I used to come into work at 8am and leave at 5.30pm. Asked him if he wanted quantity over quality. I have a family and I do actually want to spend time with my then young child. I am not married to my job after all. Needless to say, I stayed at that job for 10months. It was one of those 300years old brokers, whereby tradition matters more. :shock: Should have seen their filing system. They still had dining rooms with dinner/tea ladies and traditional secretaries. All the brokers tend to go to the same public school, so every last Friday of each month would wear their school ties. :lol:

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Re: This week's rant

Post by JR8 » Wed, 12 Nov 2014 6:12 pm

Sounds like my first job in a commodity broker. Ethel the tea-lady in her blue nylon house-coat would come around with both tea and beer, and biscuits on her trolley (free). Like something from Eastenders with a fearsomely quick acid tongue to match when thought justified (seemingly most of the time). If you weren't well half-lashed by 2pm then you were 'shy'.

That was a 300+ year old company; what the City was like before Big-Bang and the arrival of foreign competition alongside what was still a 'gentleman's club' collegiate atmosphere.
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Re: This week's rant

Post by Strong Eagle » Thu, 13 Nov 2014 10:26 am

brian_singapore wrote:I wonder when it will occur to the folks in the article (who seemed mostly young and entry level) that a much larger problem is the level of outsourcing in mncs means there simply are no entry level and intermediate positions available.

In my area, we don't have any positions below the manager / 10 years of experience mark and then very few at that level. Every thing else has been outsourced. There are no entry points available in my organization and no path that gets you from entry level into management.

Where I work the foreigners aren't taking their (entry and mid-level) jobs because their are none to take. Those are all in India, China and Malaysia.

This means Singapore will be in a vicious circle of always needing to bring in senior level talent because the means to develop this locally won't exist...
Dang! That's rather spot on. As more jobs are outsourced, you have to be in the country that is handling the outsourcing in order to get that job.

And, it's exactly what's happened to American manufacturing... if you want to make Briggs and Stratton engines, you need to move to Mexico.

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Re: This week's rant

Post by Sporkin » Thu, 13 Nov 2014 12:10 pm

Good point. Picking your brain if you don't mind, how would you combat this?
If there are no entry level positions to develop talent locally, and if the foreign worker policies in the outsourced to countries are not so friendly or are protected?
brian_singapore wrote:I wonder when it will occur to the folks in the article (who seemed mostly young and entry level) that a much larger problem is the level of outsourcing in mncs means there simply are no entry level and intermediate positions available.

In my area, we don't have any positions below the manager / 10 years of experience mark and then very few at that level. Every thing else has been outsourced. There are no entry points available in my organization and no path that gets you from entry level into management.

Where I work the foreigners aren't taking their (entry and mid-level) jobs because their are none to take. Those are all in India, China and Malaysia.

This means Singapore will be in a vicious circle of always needing to bring in senior level talent because the means to develop this locally won't exist...

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Re: This week's rant

Post by Brah » Thu, 13 Nov 2014 10:40 pm

Strong Eagle wrote: Dang! That's rather spot on. As more jobs are outsourced, you have to be in the country that is handling the outsourcing in order to get that job.

And, it's exactly what's happened to American manufacturing... if you want to make Briggs and Stratton engines, you need to move to Mexico.
But....isn't at least some of it starting to come back? Not manufacturing so much but a little that and other industries?
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Re: This week's rant

Post by Mi Amigo » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 4:32 am

JR8 wrote:Ethel the tea-lady in her blue nylon house-coat would come around with both tea and beer, and biscuits on her trolley (free). Like something from Eastenders with a fearsomely quick acid tongue to match when thought justified (seemingly most of the time). If you weren't well half-lashed by 2pm then you were 'shy'.
I miss the old days of the tea trolley. They were phased out in the name of 'efficiency' but I think the old tea ladies (never saw a tea man) contributed to the organisation's productivity. As long as one stuck mainly to tea that is.

Regarding the article and many of the comments, I despair at the naivety and blinkered, irrational attitudes that seem to be growing every day. We should organise an event whereby all the 'FTs' take two weeks' holiday at the same time, leaving the whingers to try to run the place on their own. The first 12 days would be spent holding meetings during which nothing got decided; then they'd all agree to just wait because the foreign trash would be coming back in a couple of days to take care of everything.
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Re: This week's rant

Post by brian_singapore » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 8:46 am

Sporkin wrote:Good point. Picking your brain if you don't mind, how would you combat this?
If there are no entry level positions to develop talent locally, and if the foreign worker policies in the outsourced to countries are not so friendly or are protected?
I honestly have no idea. I was rather shocked at the level of penetration outsourcers in Singapore have achieved with the MNCs here. I suspect Singapore's proximity to outsource locations and being in the same timezone has made the current level acheivable.

Working in NA, outsourcing was very hit and miss. Every large company was doing it to some degree but very few were doing it well and none were wholesale eliminating junior and intermediate positions. The biggest problem was the timezone which even the outsourcers (who should have learnt how to manage and claimed they would) struggled with.

There is a recognition internally here that the pendulum has swung too far (at the most senior levels) and we now have a lot of problems because we've given away the keys to the chicken coops. But it's a very difficult trend to reverse as it will cost a lot of money to in-source again. That recognition doesn't extend down to re-building the pipeline of junior and intermediate positions, only for the need to retain more senior positions as employees. Any in-sourcing of the junior and intermediate positions is being done via in-sourcing to captive offshore centers. That helps the MNC but not much for the local Singaporeans trying to get a foot in the door and a leg up the career ladder.

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Re: This week's rant

Post by brian_singapore » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 8:53 am

Mi Amigo wrote:We should organise an event whereby all the 'FTs' take two weeks' holiday at the same time, leaving the whingers to try to run the place on their own. The first 12 days would be spent holding meetings during which nothing got decided; then they'd all agree to just wait because the foreign trash would be coming back in a couple of days to take care of everything.
If we did that here, there wouldn't be enough people to hold a meeting....

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Re: This week's rant

Post by Brah » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 9:07 am

brian_singapore wrote:
Sporkin wrote:Good point. Picking your brain if you don't mind, how would you combat this?
If there are no entry level positions to develop talent locally, and if the foreign worker policies in the outsourced to countries are not so friendly or are protected?
I honestly have no idea. I was rather shocked at the level of penetration outsourcers in Singapore have achieved with the MNCs here. I suspect Singapore's proximity to outsource locations and being in the same timezone has made the current level acheivable.

......

There is a recognition internally here that the pendulum has swung too far (at the most senior levels) and we now have a lot of problems because we've given away the keys to the chicken coops. But it's a very difficult trend to reverse as it will cost a lot of money to in-source again.
Outsource companies, who have a presence here but are based elsewhere, are benefiting by those roles moving from here to where they are based or have other installations.

Good for both companies - host and client, bad for the local economy for those foreign MNCs who originally moved here and staffed up, bad for local workers, native or import, as there are less local roles.
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Re: This week's rant

Post by brian_singapore » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 9:12 am

By reversing the trend, I meant moving positions back from the outsourcers to full-time positions within the company. At senior levels, this is happening in Singapore. At more junior and intermediate levels, it's happening via captive offshore centers.

The issue isn't related to direct headcount costs per se. It's related to retaining the knowledge and control of our systems and infrastructure. We've given that away and it's causing a lot of problems and hidden costs.

This has in fact, been very bad for the company.

But none of this helps the entry level and intermediate Singaporeans looking for good career prospects at an MNC.

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Re: This week's rant

Post by Brah » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 9:20 am

brian_singapore wrote:By reversing the trend, I meant moving positions back from the outsourcers to full-time positions within the company. At senior levels, this is happening in Singapore. At more junior and intermediate levels, it's happening via captive offshore centers.

The issue isn't related to direct headcount costs per se. It's related to retaining the knowledge and control of our systems and infrastructure. We've given that away and it's causing a lot of problems and hidden costs.

This has in fact, been very bad for the company.
I agree with that too.

But then there is also the post-2008 (and post-other crises) situation of companies slashing so much for so many years that management and the masses have been decimated so many times that whatever continuity could be achieved with the same staff gets lost and snowballs and with so much constant change - it is unproductive re-righting the constantly-smaller ship.

Poorly-structured sentence but I guess I'm saying that when companies are constantly rebuilding fiefdoms it can't be good overall for anyone.
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Re: This week's rant

Post by Sporkin » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 6:15 pm

Oddly that's the people that the govt likes to have over here, senior people pulling substantial pay and spending ability. I don't think they expected it would come at a cost of losing entry level jobs, looking at things from this perspective the future seems bleak for the next generations in SG, how can you be globally mobile if you have no work experience?

brian_singapore wrote:By reversing the trend, I meant moving positions back from the outsourcers to full-time positions within the company. At senior levels, this is happening in Singapore. At more junior and intermediate levels, it's happening via captive offshore centers.

The issue isn't related to direct headcount costs per se. It's related to retaining the knowledge and control of our systems and infrastructure. We've given that away and it's causing a lot of problems and hidden costs.

This has in fact, been very bad for the company.

But none of this helps the entry level and intermediate Singaporeans looking for good career prospects at an MNC.

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Re: This week's rant

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 7:51 pm

Sadly, that's what happens once the government has been given a sharp prod that was uncomfortable. Now, virtually everything they are doing seems to be kneejerk reactions without any long term what'if's having been discussed. It's like their think tank either dried up or immigrated.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

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Re: This week's rant

Post by ecureilx » Fri, 14 Nov 2014 8:43 pm

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Sadly, that's what happens once the government has been given a sharp prod that was uncomfortable. Now, virtually everything they are doing seems to be kneejerk reactions without any long term what'if's having been discussed. It's like their think tank either dried up or immigrated.
But ... if they don't win the voters they gonna have a tough time ..

Right?

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