How to Build a Sustainable Career Path for Outsourcing Staff
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Strategic outsourcing not only streamlines your processes but also leads to a sustainable partnership with your service provider-partner. Here are some tips on how to build a long-lasting productive relationship with your outsourcing partner.
#1 Develop a definitive plan that hashes out what you and your outsourcing partner will do to transform your organization.
Everything starts with a good plan. Without it, you’ll be lost. Create a road map of your sustainable outsourcing strategy; include all the projects you and your provider will be doing, the timeline of implementation, who’s responsible for the project, key performance indicators, and risk mitigation measures.
Be specific. For example, say you’d like to see a 30% reduction in administrative costs after three months rather than declare that you want to minimize your costs as much as possible.
Be organized. Schedule everything, even the small tasks. You can accomplish a lot when you break down the work into smaller tasks and delegating them to your team. Set milestones to signal an achievement for the team.
Be consistent. Don’t change tactics in the middle of implementing your outsourcing strategy. Establish your workflows and train your team to follow the process until the end. Be sure to align your outsourcing activities with your business strategy.
#2 Establish a good governance model of managing your outsourcing strategy.
To achieve a mutually beneficial, almost symbiotic relationship, partners are encouraged to adopt a governance model of outsourcing that lays down certain principles:
Analysis, evaluations, agreements, and results will be communicated to all people affected within an appropriate time frame.
Management decisions will be prepared at a working level.
You and your service provider will continuously bundle your expertise concerning all questions regarding problem-solving. All relevant problems will be analyzed and proactive concepts will be developed in order to avoid further problems or disruptions.
You and your provider will solve conflicts near their origin. However, if conflict solving failed on lower levels, escalation follows. Both parties adhere to the agreed escalation mechanism.
Both parties commit themselves to adhere to the agreed governance principles and to the continuous development of those principles.
#3 Good communication is a key factor in building a harmonious relationship with your provider-partner.
A strong foundation of any relationship begins with good communication. Don’t just rely on email and the reports your team sends to you on a daily basis. More than 90% of the time, we communicate in non-verbal ways. It’s important that you and your team can see each other’s gestures and facial expressions, and hear one another’s tone of voice when you’re in a meeting.
The quality of your communication process has a great impact on your relationship. When you’re discussing something important, make sure you exchange ideas with clarity and substance. Encourage your outsourcing partner to be proactive in providing feedback and sharing their ideas to further improve processes.
#4 Let your service provider-partner manage your short-term objectives while you take care of long-term goals.
Your outsourcing strategy will have both long-term and short-term objectives. Let your service provider-partner worry about the small stuff while you take care of the bigger tasks that add more value to your business.
Establish a collaborative relationship from the beginning. Your long-term goals may be dependent on some of your short-term goals. Make sure your outsourcing partner is on the same page as you. Don’t assume or make guesses. Don’t leave the room until you’re sure everyone understood what they’re supposed to do and when they’re expected to finish their tasks.
Divide the activities and responsibilities between you and your partner. Classify them by operational, functional and strategic levels. Specify whether the duties and tasks stated will be accomplished by you, your provider-partner, or by both of you.
#5 Build a partnership with your service provider-partner based on behavior rather than mere intention.
Adopting an almost clinical approach to your outsourcing relationship may backfire on you. It’s important that you and your partner share the same values and goals.
This is where soft controls come in. Soft value-based controls (trust, openness, empowerment and shared values, or TOES for short) are significant in any outsourcing relationship as they inspire co-operation on mutually established goals, values and behavior.
Soft controls like these improve employee morale, promote integrity among employees, increase motivation, and strengthen the collaborative nature of a strategic outsourcing relationship. That’s why building a strong remote culture for your team is just as important as managing the cultural differences between you and your service provider-partner.
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This article was originally published at the Fair Trade Outsourcing blog on August 23, 2017.
Six Benefits of Mindfulness Meditation in the Workplace
Originally known as a Buddhist meditation technique, mindfulness has become a popular method for de-stressing and finding mental and emotional clarity in a chaotic world. As a meditative technique, mindfulness has been proven to be effective in enhancing one's cognitive abilities, increasing the neuroplasticity of the brain, and improving the ways we human beings interact with one another.
In the workplace, mindfulness meditation has been known to improve one's abilities to absorb, process and recall information, and to make us more likable as human beings, in general. As an employer, here are six reasons why teaching your employees how to meditate can be highly beneficial not only to agent happiness but also to your organization's welfare.
Preventing and Managing Employee Burnout in Outsourcing
The outsourcing industry is notorious for demanding jobs and stressful environments. Most employees would jump from one job to another to find a workplace that's less toxic than the last. If you're one of the top executives or floor managers in an outsourcing company, how would you prevent and manage employee burnout? Here are a few suggestions from all over the web.
Tips in Managing Your Offshore Outsourcing Team's Behavior
Ultimately, it's the manager's job to make sure members of his or her outsourcing team remain focused and motivated to work. The team must work together like coordinated gears, perfectly timed and precise in movement. When members display certain undesirable behaviors, the whole team breaks down. To avoid this breakdown that leads to disastrous results, managers must manage the behaviors of their team members. Here are a few things you can do to achieve a positive end-result.
Beheshtifar and Omidvar wrote their paper, "Causes to Create Job Burnout in Organizations", for the International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences in June 2013. In that paper, they provided the following possible causes of burnout based on Anthony Cedoline's book Job Burnout in Public Education: Symptoms, Causes, and Survival Skills (1982).
What's It Like Being Gay and Working in Philippine Outsourcing
Today is International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. Let's commemorate this day with a quick look at how LGBTQ workers have fared, so far, in the Philippine outsourcing industry.
As long as they do their jobs well, LGBTQ workers in the Philippines are welcome to build a sustainable career path in the outsourcing industry. Unlike other businesses in the country, offshore outsourcing companies do not discriminate against them.
According to a 2013 global poll by the Pew Research Center, more than 70% of Filipinos believed that homosexuality should be accepted by society. It may seem like wishful thinking for some, but it's a good sign that Filipinos are slowly changing their views regarding homosexuality. Based on this poll from a non-partisan authoritative source, the Philippines probably has a greater number of LGBTQ-friendly workplaces compared to other Asian nations.
Why Overtime Work Should Be Discouraged in Outsourcing Jobs
Overtime work is best reserved for last minute changes. Turning it into a desperate scramble for more time to complete a task only leads to a skewed work-life balance for your staff. If you're managing an overseas team or you're working for an outsourcing company, overtime work is practically useless to you and your employees. In fact, it should be discouraged in the workplace. Here are the reasons why.
What is Agent Happiness and How Does It Impact Outsourcing in the Philippines?
We've all been given business advice at one point that emphasized the need to make our customers happy, so they'll become repeat customers and become loyal to your brand. But, what about your employees, more specifically your customer service agents? Does agent happiness matter in the Philippines outsourcing industry? How does it impact worker productivity, customer experience, and your company's bottom line?
The concept of agent happiness is nothing new. Many companies have been focused on creating employee-centric programs that will keep their people healthy and safe at work, and also help them balance their time for personal and professional endeavors.
How Strategic Outsourcing Transforms Service Providers into Collaborative Partners
Strategic outsourcing elevates the old transactional relationship of outsourcing to a collaborative partnership. This kind of business relationship focuses on innovation, continuous improvement, and long-term goals rather than short-term objectives.
What Do You Get Out of Paying for HMO for Your Outsourcing Staff?
While it's normal for people to get sick once in a while, there are common factors that negatively affect the health of your outsourcing staff in the Philippines. These factors include working at night and sleeping less, environmental pollution, workplace stress, and an unhealthy lifestyle. The negative impacts of these factors on employee health can be reduced and managed well through universal healthcare services. Find out how healthcare is provided for in the Philippines and the deeper reasons why it's important that you pay for HMO for your employees early in their tenure.
Why is No Fault Medical Leave Important to Outsourcing Workers?
Outsourcing companies in the Philippines choose to provide paid time off to their employees in the event of a medical emergency or an illness because it's the right thing to do. Sick and vacation leaves are not specifically stated under Philippine law, but private companies are allowed to provide their employees paid service incentive leave of up to five days in a year.
How to Survive the Intense Summer Heat When Outsourcing to the Philippines
It's summer time in the Philippines and the heat has been relentless in penetrating the cement walls and glass windows of the office. There are ways to prevent the summer heat from becoming a distraction and causing trouble at work. Here are some ways that many people swear are effective. If you're visiting the Philippines to meet your outsourcing staff and relax for a couple of days, then these summer tips can be of great use to you.
5 Ways the Security of Tenure Bill Guarantees Income and Job Security for Filipinos
Job security is a top concern of almost every Filipino worker; it's right up there along with living wages and functional healthcare services, among other things. While job security is what every employee wants (not just Filipinos), the lack of it is more prominent in the Philippines where the disdainful labor practice known as 'endo' prevents probationary employees from becoming regularized.
It's a shameless display of chronic abuse of a legal loophole. But, the new Security of Tenure Bill, or House Bill 6908 -- and its Senate equivalent which is the End of Endo Act (Senate Bill 1116) -- aims to change all that.
It's no surprise, therefore, that job security is among the top issues that a fair trade call center aims to resolve.
With the impending passing of these bills and the cooperation of a more egalitarian employer (like a fair trade outsourcing company, for instance), this systemic malpractice can be rectified with greater success compared to fixing it with a department order or a presidential decree.
But, how does this new Security of Tenure bill guarantee income and job security when all others may have failed? What are the changes in the bill that assure employees of getting a stable job rather than a temporary one? Here are five ways that House Bill 6909 (or Senate Bill 1116) can deliver on the promises of an impact sourcing business.
10 Fundamental Principles of Fair Trade Outsourcing Part 2
Yesterday's blog post discussed the first 5 of the fundamental principles of fair trade labor outsourcing. Read on for the rest of the FTO principles that will serve as guidelines for every company that's interested in becoming a fair trade call center and labor outsourcing provider. In this two-part series, we'll discuss each of these principles and shine the spotlight on the ones that play the most crucial roles in changing the global outsourcing industry for the better.
There's nothing wrong with setting goals at work and in your personal life. It's a smart way of defining which direction you'd like to take your work (or your dreams), and if you're a leader, your team's performance. But, hitting your targets isn't the only way to measure success. Keeping track of your progress and learning as much as you can from the whole process are just as important as racking up the numbers for your team. Here are five reasons why you should focus on the process more than hitting your goals.
Why Focus on Employee Growth in Performance Reviews?
One of the things that employees hate more than a bad boss is a bad performance review from their bad boss. This yearly ritual takes a lot of manpower and precious work hours to complete. And, the results may not even be that rewarding for both the employee and the company.
