How will offshore outsourcing impact my local team?

“What about our jobs?” It’s one of the most common questions asked by local teams new to offshoring. And it’s a fair question. When most people hear the words “offshoring” or “offshore outsourcing” – they think back to the international behemoths who cut tens of thousands of jobs and took them offshore, just to cut costs.

However, our customers are all small to medium enterprises who have different objectives. They need to find talent after months and months of unsuccessful recruitment efforts. Retain people after a long string of people moving through a revolving door. Or find someone highly experienced for a specialised role that they simply can’t afford to fill.

So, let’s start with the elephant in the room – will offshoring take away local jobs? The answer is no. In the overwhelming number of circumstances, we work with businesses around the world as their plan B – that is when, they can’t find, retain, or afford the talent they need to grow their business. Think of your offshore staff as a support team, not a replacement for your local staff.

The impact on your team will be huge. And positive!

We partnered with Bond University for a first-of-its-kind study (Offshoring Study) into firms successful offshoring. It revealed that the greatest realised benefit of offshore outsourcing is expanded capacity.

That is, that ability for businesses to focus on higher-value, business-critical work thanks to their offshore staff. Where onshore staff are drowning in menial tasks, it may not mean enough consistent work to warrant hiring a full-timer locally. Although if that hire were made offshore, it would be affordable, sustainable and make a huge difference to the onshore team’s workload.

For your local team, this means less workload stress, and support on the repetitive, albeit important, tasks that they just don’t have the time for. In turn, they’ll gain more flexibility, more time for where their skills are best used, and ultimately a better-work life balance.

Here’s what one of the Offshoring Study’s participants had to share:

“They all think ‘If I hand this to somebody else, I’m going to lose my job.’ We eventually learned that and got around it by letting them know that they are now all managers. You’re a manager, the skills you learned at university and what you’ve learned since you left are way too valuable to be wasting of data entry and filing. Convincing them of that and that they will get more interesting, challenging and career movements if they give up that data entry to someone else, is a big bonus… From what I’ve heard at various conference, we’re not unusual. We’ve doubled our staff numbers in the past couple of years since we started outsourcing.”

How can I reassure my staff?

In essence, offshoring is a change management exercise for local teams. Critical to overcoming hesitancies, is ensuring your local team is prepared and assured as you make the move to hiring offshore. Here are 3 tips to help you get your team offshore ready:

1. Communicate the benefits
Communicate with your local staff that they are valuable, and offshoring is about freeing up their time for more business-critical work. Ensure they understand the benefits of offshoring, and how your new hire will support their jobs, not replace them.

2. Integrate the two teams
Psychologically, your local team needs to see your offshore hires as part of the team, not external help. To do this, it’s critical that you treat your offshore staff like any other employee. This means, including them things like meetings, companywide emails, or other communication platforms.

3. Put it in perspective – it’s just global remote work!
Thanks to Covid-19, remote teams are the norm. The tech is already in place, location is a thing of the past, and everyone is familiar with virtual teamwork. Bringing in a new hire offshore, will be just like welcoming a new local team member who works from home. You can learn more about WFH has set teams up for offshoring success here.

So, if you’re ready to hire offshore, remember that your team will love the idea once they fully understand the benefits.

If you’re interested in learning more about how offshoring can help your business, book a 15-minute consultation with us here.