Thread regarding Thomson Reuters layoffs

Just adding that I’m so exhausted by the incompetence of the teams in Mexico and India. At least the reps in the Philippines are polite and work hard (imo). But India and Mexico are nearly indistinguishable in how incompetent they are.

@1cg Sounds like you are somebody in Mexico or India who isnt skilled enough to get a work permit in the US or UK.

UK/US Immigration record high in recent years, with UK "skilled visa" sometimes requiring less than the average UK wage which includes unskilled workers.

Dont tell me its hard to get a work permit in the US or UK.

@17g you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Sounds like you don't know the first thing about work visas

I’m tired of the general incompetence that plagues this organization.

Given how easy its been to get a "skilled" work visa in US or UK any capable, talented people in Mexico or India would have already moved to the US or UK.

@tj+1kfehr4b9 "The key is in the hiring process; The team must interview them, the team must be involved in the decision. We do this even with contractors." Yeah, right| What planet have you been living on? From my considerable experience in hiring offshore team members and working with them it's been very much a case of " do as I say" and don't question me.

My manager told me to stop complaining about the MX team. I’m sure she’s behind them taking our jobs.

Our team has several good offshore resources, long term individuals, in multiple locations globally. Part of the issue is the 'no-backfill' policy, people leaders cannot simply release someone and replace them, It's a constant battle, a warm body is better than nobody.

The key is in the hiring process; The team must interview them, the team must be involved in the decision. We do this even with contractors. It improves your core team members as individual leaders, gives them accountability, and pride in decision making. The couple of times we have brought in someone who under performed or lacked a key skill, those that participated did everything possible to make them a qualified, contributing team member.

Don't get me wrong, the overall offshore pool is poor, quite poor. Resumes/CVs that state experience based on seeing on a screen, or reading a blog on it. You need to weed these out, early. In the past we've had to require video interviews because it was discovered that someone other than the worker would perform the interview, its scary.

If your leader doesn't put in the effort up front then the team suffers as a whole. Maybe this thread should be about the qualification of the leader, and not the under-performing team member?

We are in a constant cycle of firefighting with our offshore team in India. They make a mistake, we patch it up. There is no embarrassment when they really mess things up. Very little repercussions either, since those of us in the UK are the ones who have the meaningful relationships with the complaining teams/depts. Our jobs have flipped and become part-babysitter, part-damage control, part-translator on top of our BAU.

@j3 5,000-20,000 USD compared to 6 figures hiring a US employee. Lol well at least they save a lot of money to make up for their cr-p quality.

Horrible business practice. I”m curious what their salaries are!!

Many firms have compliance and data security requirements that their account be managed and accessed only within the US. Since the account is really being handled by people in Mexico, TR will often claim they are based in “America” on compliance reports to give the impression that they’re within the US although they should really specify that they mean North America - Mexico.

You get what you pay for

I've heard that one of the teams in Mexico cannot speak English and they are supposed to be proving support to clients based in the US. If that is TR definition of customer obsession, no wonder the share price is going down.

@OP+1kfehr4b9 having worked with outsource teams in three countries for several years, the experience I found was not positive. They were OK with the simple things and "challenged" with the more complex, ie read here the lower end of complex. Another issue I found with one country in particular was that you would get them trained up and then they would leave for a better job elsewhere, so you would have to go back to scratch again. You can't blame them - I would do the same if I was in their shoes. It's a pity companies can't see that outsourcing offshore saves little, if anything. The money would be better spent showing "appreciation" to staff who are good at their jobs.

I've heard reports in my dept. of members of those teams being declared officially proficient (not sure what term they use) in their role when they are anything but. And also I've heard of people having to spend hours and hours a week--time away from doing their actual job--to give remedial help to those folks.

The Mexican team will sink TR. Their book-long AI generated redundant emails are so embarrassing. I feel so bad for our customers.

@OP yeah it’s terrible I’m a junior and the lead is from India. They constantly can not form complete sentences in documentation and are very difficult to understand. Yet as a junior I need to follow the chain of command lol. It’s so silly. They’ll learn when the company implodes from their lack of quality.