Even if you've never heard the phrase Business Process Outsourcing before, you will almost certainly have been annoyed by it -- especially if you have ever had to explain to an inaudible teleworker that your TV is on the blink.
But while the outsourcing of customer service functions to India is perhaps the most widely publicized example of this trend, in the UK, many other outsourced jobs remain within the country's boundaries.
And it's not just customer services being outsourced: payroll, health and safety, and human resources work have all been farmed out. Are secretaries, receptionists, administrators and personnel assistants (PAs) next?
"The outsourcing industry for secretarial work is exploding at the moment," said Richard Phillips of Outsec.co.uk, which offers transcription and typing services via the Internet. "We are doubling in size about every five months at the moment -- our turnover is now in excess of ?1.25 million [US$2.6 million] and it was half that in May. Outsourcing has moved from being a rather quirky cost-saving enterprise to being mainstream business thinking."
"Outsourcing was besmirched by the rather poor use that it was put to in the early days, and we've found that when we were trying to market our services there were a lot of negative feelings we had to overcome," he said.
These negative feelings are largely connected to offshoring, where work is outsourced to countries that can provide labor at a cheaper rate. Think that isn't a danger in the administrative world?
Research for the UK's Unison trade union carried out in April suggests that hundreds of medical secretarial positions have been lost in the country's health sector. This is thanks to pilot schemes that offshore the typing of medical notes, which have been dictated by doctors.
For Unison, this is not just a case of protecting their members' jobs.
The union argues that this outsourcing could have serious consequences for patients.
"Quite a lot of these overseas companies have targeted health authorities that have deficits, saying `we can save you money' and offering free trials to send the transcription of medical notes to their country," the union said.
"We believe that, especially in this area, outsourcing is just too risky. Because of data protection, the typists overseas don't have access to patients' notes. They may not be as familiar with UK regional accents and they can't simply go and ask the consultant what was actually said if they're not sure, so they just have to type what they hear," the union said.
"What the secretaries in the UK who have to check the work are finding is that serious mistakes are being made: for example conditions such as hypertension -- high blood pressure -- have been transcribed as hypotension -- low blood pressure -- which is potentially a very serious mistake," the union said.
But outsourcing doesn't necessarily mean work will disappear overseas. In Wrexham, Moneypenny, a telephone PA and reception service company has seen its turnover grow from ?2.9 million for 2005 to last year, to ?4.2 million this year. In 2000, it employed two people; now it has more than 120 PAs answering the phones for more than 3,000 companies.
"Outsourcing makes financial sense mostly because office rents and the costs of recruitment are going up. One of our clients outsourced their entire reception facility to us and they're saving more than ?90,000 a year. Despite that, we are definitely not trying to say this is the death of the receptionist," said Rachel Clacher, Moneypenny's director.
But if traditional in-house reception jobs are being outsourced elsewhere, it is the death of the receptionist, isn't it? Clacher argues that secretarial and reception services are still in demand and all that outsourcing is changing is how those services are provided. So instead of just answering the phone for one company, Moneypenny receptionists might answer it for several.
"I used to work on reception for a firm of solicitors and with the best will in the world it was pretty dull," said Cara Jones, a PA with Moneypenny.
"You knew the types of calls that were coming through and that was it. Now I have about 30 companies I answer for -- and no two calls are the same. One call I could be in a plumber's office, the next moment I could be in a financial services office. Some days we can answer up to 150 calls or more,"she says.
Of course, outsourcing not only changes the way that a business is structured and the work administrative staff might undertake, but it can also represent a big change in the way people work. Those employed by Moneypenny, for example, have a contract and go into the office every day. But other outsourced administrative staff might work at home alone, which is very different from being part of a company.
"I think daily contact in the role is vital," said Julia Philipson from the Institute of Qualified Professional Secretaries. "The human link in a secretary's job is still very, very important, but nowadays there are organizations where secretaries can network and share information and knowledge. Contact may now be by e-mail -- but that link and interaction is still part of the job; it's now achieved in a different way."
Jones said that building and maintaining relationships is still essential.
"I've got huge relationships with all of my clients. One of them comes up from Watford to Wrexham to take me out for Christmas every year and we have a jolly good time. I've also got clients who say that if anyone calling up is rude to me, then they won't do business with them. In return, I know all about my clients' kids and their wives' birthdays," she said.
But is it really just business as usual? Phillips would suggest it's business as better-than-usual for the secretaries who now work for themselves as freelancers.
"They can work from home, determine their own working practices and have a huge amount of control over what they're doing," he said. "They operate on a freelance basis and so they can take holidays when they want; they can stop working to pick their kids up from school. Outsourcing is also opening up work to those who have been disenfranchised by ageism, sexism or geographical location. Over the Internet, the only thing that matters is whether you can do the job well," Phillips said.
It's not all brilliant. There are risks: There is no job security, no benefits. Quite different from going to the office, taking five weeks leave a year, and getting your salary on time every month.
"The greater flexibility that they [secretaries] get for working at home does come at a price," Philipson said. "There's no time off to go to the doctor, no sick pay, no pension."
"However, if you look at it from the point of view of this work being outsourced to people who perhaps otherwise can't work -- because perhaps they are mothers taking time away from the office to raise their children -- then it is hugely positive for them, because without outsourcing they wouldn't be working at all," she said.
What does outsourcing mean for those who remain in the offices?
"What some of our clients have found is that by having Moneypenny staff supporting them, it allows their in-house PAs and secretaries to have a more meaningful role," Clacher said.
"Now there's not that constant requirement to be babysitting the phone and they can get on with the other duties that the modern secretarial role has come to encompass," she said.
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
Last week, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), together holding more than half of the legislative seats, cut about NT$94 billion (US$2.85 billion) from the yearly budget. The cuts include 60 percent of the government’s advertising budget, 10 percent of administrative expenses, 3 percent of the military budget, and 60 percent of the international travel, overseas education and training allowances. In addition, the two parties have proposed freezing the budgets of many ministries and departments, including NT$1.8 billion from the Ministry of National Defense’s Indigenous Defense Submarine program — 90 percent of the program’s proposed
RSS