Outsourcing Companies From An Employee’s Perspective
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| Outsourcing Staff working on different tasks for Australian client |
There have been discussions regarding the different advantages of working with an outsourcing company and most of them focus on the company who is outsourcing, such as; saving on recruitment fees, reducing overheads, office space, increasing efficiency and profits. These are just to name a few advantages of outsourcing which help small, medium and large businesses around the world to expand and save. People see outsourcing as an alternative to hiring locally because of high salaries. Filipino’s love outsourcing since it provides additional jobs aside from local employment although, outsourcing from the Philippines and pays more than if they are employees locally. Outsourcing has become very “trendy” as they are often managed by foreigners which gives the staff a chance to work under a different style of management. Outsourcing has always looked at from a business’ perspective, so in this blog, we look at outsourcing from the other side and review the benefits of the employees & how it effects the life of the people working in the industry.
Benefits of working in an
outsourcing company from a staff perspective
We
asked different employees from the outsourcing industry in an effort to share
clear employee advantages of working within an outsourcing company in the
Philippines.
Career
Development
In
the Philippine working hierarchy, an ordinary employee has to go through the
working process, which is most commonly known as “rising through the ranks”.
Meaning, an employee will have to start as an “intern;” then when they start
working in a company after they graduate, they usually work in an “assistant
level” position for an average of 1-3 years. These jobs include: office
assistants, sales clerk, and other back office support position that provide
minimal career advancement. An ordinary employee that is employed locally needs
at least 2 years before he/she can move on to an analyst position, then another
2-3 years to advance into an officer position and so on. In short, working
locally follows a hierarchy in which career advancement is slowly progressing;
and if your target is better career advancement, you need to work for years to
earn it. On the other hand, working in an outsourcing company is much
different. In countries that require outsourcing services, employers are
actually looking for “go getter” individuals who can and want grow with their
business. This means, when the offshore business grows, the employee’s rank
will rise, followed by promotion and salary increases. The outsourced employee
is highly motivated and more operationally efficient than any local employee.
Working in an outsourcing company gives the staff the opportunity to maximize
their skills as they work with different tasks and projects for their employer.
Employees working in outsourcing companies have high work level outputs,
improved performance and are faster at accomplishing their tasks. Employees are
also encouraged to be proactive, provide solutions and ideas as well as given
the chance to learn more. Outsourced employees are actually encouraged to
participate and offer ideas, something that is rare to find under local
employment.
Work
focus and productivity
One
famous advantage of working in outsourcing company is the high level of work
output. Think about it; locally you have people coming into your office, you
have phone ringing, appointments to see, driving time and interruption after
interruption. Whereas offshore Employees are sitting behind their desk every
day for a full eight hours or more, without distraction which means they are
highly productive and can accomplish many tasks in a day. Employees love the
fact that they are given responsibility and to a certain extent are
self-managed, thus making them achieve more every day. If there’s one thing
evident when working locally, is that you will be working hard instead of
working smart. This is driven by the Philippine working culture.
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| Virtual Assistant arranges transaction with her offshore client |
Proper
Training and Guidance
Some
employees are initially concerned about working for an outsourcing company with
a different working environment and culture. The reason being, most outsourcing
companies are run by foreigners meaning, it will be a different working
environment and culture. But when you get the chance to work in an outsourcing
company, you will be quickly and pleasantly surprised by the support and
training you’re going to receive. Outsourcing companies work with their
employees to ensure they succeed and provide training and guidance in order for
the employees to adjust with the new work culture. BPO companies do not recruit
with a view to fail, they recruit with a view to “succeed” or “succeed”, these
are the only options. It starts by looking for employees who have the right set
of skills and most important, the “RIGHT ATTITUDE” that is willing to develop a
career and be there long term. Clients will really involve you in the process
and will treat you as a partner not as a worker. It is a whole new avenue for
growth.
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Outsourced
HR Solution provides continuous training to all its employees and assure that
every employee will be constantly developing self-confidence when it comes to
product knowledge
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Work-life Balance
Australian
companies treat their staff with respect as if you are working in Australia. We
work the same 8-hour shift as they do and, in most cases, enjoy the weekends
off. And since offshore employees are following the client’s time zone, there
is a great work-life balance. Basically, you will be working 40 hours per week.
This is one of the best benefits you can get from working for an Australian
company, giving you free time to spend during weekends. This means more TV,
Facebook, night-outs and quality time with your family, enabling a full
recharge before going back to work on Monday. If you calculate it, when
working for a local company (Philippines), you are working an average of 206
hours per month compared with working for an outsourcing company in which you
are only working 172 hours, plus there is travel time. If you do a simple
calculation, that would be a 34 hours difference per month. And compute that
“difference” for a year that is 408 hours, equivalent to 48 working days.
Because of the benefits of working for an Outsourcing company, work output and
accuracy is higher.
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| Outsourced staff works as an extension workforce of the client |
Better
Compensation - The salary
In
addition to the work benefits I have mentioned, the compensation package is
substantially higher than what a local company would pay. And at the end of the
day, we all work to earn money, the work environment enables us to enjoy our
work, team, employer and stay committed for a long time. In the Philippines,
workers get paid based on the current economy of the city/province, regardless of
how difficult or easy the work is. For example, in some companies, the salary
of an office assistant is relatively similar to the salary of a sales clerk -
different work scope but almost the same compensation. In outsourcing, the pay
will depend on the current pay of a certain position; for example, the salary
of data entry is relatively different from the pay of a web developer, or
Social Media Executive, but in all cases, it’s much higher than what someone
would receive locally. Outsourcing allows skilled employees to get paid more
than unskilled employees.
Written by: Czarina Quiwa
Co edited by: Tony Godbehere
