Scenario #2Being Outsourced

Patrick Huson

Physical

• Colin works for an American financial firm that has recently outsourced its entire HR department to India, this requires Colin to relocate to accept his new job as office manager. This promotion will require Colin to evaluate and assess his new employees. Colin is more than qualified for the position however he is slightly worried about the difficulties that come with working in an office where the employees all learned English as a second or third language. Luckily the firm’s office he will be working at is in Mumbai, the largest city in India, so there might be some western culture present, making interactions easier with the other employees.

Mumbia, IndiaMap of India

Solution:

• In order for Colin to effectively evaluate and analyze his new employee’s performance he first must examine and listen in on their calls. He needs to determine if they are correctly understanding the callers inquires and how effective they are at providing solutions. Since this is a Human Resource call center if an employee is unable to understand what the caller is referring to, they could give them the wrong advice or wrong information. After Colin spends a few days evaluating the employees performance he will schedule a staff wide meeting addressing areas needed for improvement. If certain employees need more training or are failing to understand the American dialect, he will send them personalized emails addressing each component that needs curtailing. While some managers might see this lengthy approach as a burden and not productive for the company, Colin knows that this approach is the best for ensuring there are minimal errors in the future.

Emotional:• Another important part of Colin’s new

managerial position is he needs to have an “open path” of communication with his employees about their concerns or questions. Colin is planning on having monthly staff meetings where the whole department will meet to converse on such topics. However, before the first meeting occurs Colin needs to send out a formal email addressing the plan and procedure.

Solution

• To ensure that this task is completed correctly and efficiently, Colin must write a mock email for his assistant manager to review before sending it to all employees. Colin trusts his assistant manager’s opinions on their employee’s moral since he himself is natively from India. After reviewing Colin’s email and making minor changes they determine the document is ready to be sent to the employees. On the next slide is an example of the email Colin sent out

Example of Colin’s Email

Dear (Employee Name):In order for our department and office to operate at its most productive level I need to ensure that

all forms of communication are open between you, your fellow employees, and myself. I am urging you to please come to me with any comments or concerns you have in any of these following areas.• Inefficient communication with fellow employee’s• Social interactions within the workplace• Harassment in any form from other employees or callers• Any signs of theft or damaging of company equipment• Specific problems relating to understanding American cultureThe entire HR department will meet as a whole the first Friday of every month to discuss problems pertaining to these topics. Please do not hesitate to respond to me at any time, I am more than happy to help youSincerely,Colin JonesOffice Manager

Circumstantial

• After the company’s first group meeting, fifteen employees expressed their shared concern with the difficulty of communicating with the American callers. They explain how the lack of formality and use of slang words has caused there to be numerous problems with HR’s customer service. This was also the most prominent problem addressed at the meeting.

Solution

• Once Colin heard the employee’s opinions, he devised a workshop that he was going to operate on the weekends for employees that needed extra help linking together the vast amount of synonyms in the English language. Colin compiled the most frequently talked about conversations and most used words by collecting data from the companies call logs. Once he had these topics he listed the most commonly used words and all the different synonyms and variants of the word. In these workshops, Colin’s employee’s conducted mock call scenarios with each other, each time using different words to convey their message. After only 3 workshops, twelve of the original fifteen employees expressed how much more confident they were in handling the callers inquiries. Colin’s efforts for the company have resulted in higher customer service ratings for his office as well as an office wide bonus for being the most proficient HR group within the company.

Questions?

I would now like to take a moment to answer any questions you might have on Colin’s problems or the solutions he developed

Thank you all very much for listening