sir_eccles

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/30/us...-overseas.html Interesting article. If there was a way to limit the outsourcing companies getting all the visas...

scrubbedexpat099

This has been an annual story since I came here.

sir_eccles

True, though I thought the application to backroom staff like accountants was a relatively recent development.

Steve_

This is the big flaw though, especially in anything involving technology. I dare say you can mimic someone's job but anything involving technology is going through constant change.

I've had this happen myself, write down everything you do and put it in a manual and in said manual I pointed out that it would all become academic in a few years time as technology changed, good luck trying to figure out how to upgrade it all based on a set of instructions of how to merely use it.

This is exactly what happens in some of these scandals, because the wheels come off when they don't have someone who is an expert on how to fix the system and then the company grinds to a halt and people wonder why. That's what happened in part with the RBC scandal.

Only long-term employees have the knowledge. And then you get a panic phone call... "sorry, I can't make out what you're saying". Click.

It's not efficiency that you're achieving, it's a short-term cost reduction which will cost you more in the long run.

I am a bit surprised the NY Times hasn't made a stink about Microsoft's "technology centre" in BC, where Microsoft brings people over and trains them for exactly one year before transferring them to the US... hmm... why is that I wonder...

scrubbedexpat099

Not just IT btw, suffered it many times.

Steve_

But that's my point, everything involves IT now. Sooner or later someone will have to upgrade that system or fix it and someone who's been using it for a few years based on a manual that simply describes how to parrot the job wouldn't be able to form a proper opinion that someone who has a career in using it would be able to.

Especially with things like accounting, many accounting functions you don't do very often, you might do them annually or only when you purchase plant.

This is why I see job offers for people with ten years experience in Exchange 2010, no-one at that company has a clue how it works but the whole business depends on the e-mail working.

I think at the board level they don't realize how hard it is to upgrade or change an IT system. For example say you want to go from accounting system X to accounting system Y, that can be very hard indeed because you need to move the data over so it requires custom SQL table mapping.

Even the best SQL person on the planet can't do it without input from expert users because they haven't got a clue what is important and what is not and there are always things that can't be moved or don't need to be moved, or need to be converted into something else. You need to know specifically what needs to be achieved. Some guy from India following a rote manual isn't going to be much help.

scrubbedexpat099

That is a medium term issue and not considered their problem.