HP Indian outsourcing meets grief as Aussie support staff re-hired

But today we can report that it's not all roses, roses on the HP outsourcing front, and there's thorns in the thicket the firm's created.

HP Australia, and the support division bore the brunt of this plan, and in May, lots of HP support staff were told they were no longer necessary. The replacements that were slated, all happened to live in the same area in India, and by chance, worked much cheaper than the Aussies did. Brilliant plan, HP.

Unfortunately, reality has this nasty way of intruding on the best of paper plans, and it intruded big time here. No sooner had HP told everyone in several support centers that they were redundant, or retrenched as HP spin calls it, than the problems started. A friendly almost ex-HP staffer wanted to keep in touch with his friends, so he made a web site to keep in touch with his fellow soon to be ex-staffers (See here). That nice gesture was given the big thumbs up by HP, in fact they were so happy, that they canned him early, and escorted him out of the building. Parading people around by security guards is generally a signal to others, and that signal was received loud and clear.

As you can expect, for that remaining week or so, morale plummeted from its already low depths, and the site's hits went through the roof. Sure enough, days later, the call center phones still rung, but they were answered a few thousand miles away, with a decidedly curter accent.

Then something funny happened. A few weeks later, the call centers down under were reopened, and the same worthless, overcharging hacks were asked back, temporarily, presumably minus one unlucky soul. It seems that the Indian call centers were not up to snuff for reasons no one is talking about. More importantly customers noticed, and complained, but again, no one is talking. Pity, I am sure there are some interesting stories there.

The stopgap measure of hiring everyone back was only for a few weeks, and when the last week rolled around, it was extended. And extended, and extended. Looks like the outsourcers are in need of a little help getting up to the 'below snuff' level that HP support so often boasts of. There is still no end in sight for the poor souls in HP AU, but they tough it out. In fact, they are actually enjoying themselves.

Why? Let's see, they have management by the short hairs, and if they go away, what options are there? Replace them for a week with highly trained people that know they are on death row? Make HP India magically better? Let them have a little fun, and look the other way more often than the HR policy calls for? I think we have a winner there.

From the sound of it, both literally and figuratively, they are not taking life all that seriously. One technician told me "It's great. I've downloaded the Half-Life 2 game-preview movies and I'm working on my D&D .pdf collection. Life couldn't be better!" Another learned of details that made him smile, "It's been amazing. The customer feedback is all in favour of speaking to Australians. The Indian call rates are still through the floor, phones times are higher than previous records. Many of the software calls we would resolve over the phone, the Indians are sending to the Field. So it's safe to say the Indian support is costing more in intangibles than it's designed to save. As long as the Indians keep sucking, we'll be here. And I think that will be for quite some time." It looks like HP has finally hit on the magic formula for employee happiness. Good for them, they needed a boost.

There is only one dark side, as Rhody's Law of Karmic Universality goes, karma is a finite universal constant, it can neither be created or destroyed, it just is. If something good happens to me, someone else must be having a bad day. HP's techs are loving life, so where does that leave their customers? That is a story for another day. µ

See Also
HP Australia proposes outsourced "final solution"
HP tries new money saving gambit: Fear

L'INQ
Situation in Australia "normal" The Age update