Shattered Dreams of Globalization?

It is impressive to see companies proclaim grandiosely that they run offices in US, India, France, UK, Germany, China, Japan, and Canada. Even small tech startups claim at least two offices one in the US and the other in either Bangalore or Hyderabad in India.

The Dream  

To someone who is yet to graduate from college or B-school or an advanced degree program it is a dream to work at a global company. Why? Because every individual wants to participate in the Global game, learn how economies and markets are connected, learn how different cultures work, and most interestingly travel to different parts of the world and gain that valuable international perspective and exposure. 

Selling the Dream Well 

I think web sites and glossy advertisements of MNCs sell this dream well to prospective employees. MNCs want to employ talent wherever it is — after all it is a war of talents. They call you to work in a global environment and then jolt you out of that that dream slowly and certainly. 

Stories of Indian BPO employees dealing with racial slur are well documented. Each time they appear in papers people take note, talk, express hurt/insult/anger — then go about with their daily grind. Perhaps resigned to the thought that nothing much will change and they need to earn money to pay their bills rather than spend time angering their employers. 

What is not well documented and reported yet in the media is the pent up frustration of several hundreds (perhaps thousands) of non-BPO top-IT pros working in India, especially in large multi-million/billion dollar companies. From my discussions with several execs working in Europe and US (in satellite* offices) I know that working in an office far-away from company headquarters is a tough experience. Taking current examples from India I will list issues that several tech workers in satellite offices would be familiar with. (*Satellite office = away from head quarters in a different country, or a different time zone).

Commonly faced problems at satellite offices 

One common thing is work “dumping”. What is not-interesting, not-challenging gets pushed to folks working in satellite offices.

The second common observation is the sad “prove yourself to me before I give you a challenging assignment” call — even for experienced folks with several successful years in the industry either in home country or abroad. 

The third common problem is the dreaded “conference calls daily in the dead of night” according to headquarter time-zone schedules. For Indians it is a full 8-12 hour difference! What happens to your health, family, personal time is not that important for several folks working in a different time zone. 

The fourth common problem is “my VP/SVP boss abroad” does not offer quality time to me because all his 9-6 time is taken-up by immediate and urgent issues in his day-time schedule. 

The fifth sad problem, especially for Indian workers, is going to an international office and being the recipient of anti-outsourcing anger of their colleagues – ”We are afraid to losing our jobs to Indians.” 

The sixth painful problem is credit stealing. Make a different time-zone employee work day and night. Then put your name across the final report, product to the sales and executive team (who either don’t care or don’t know enough) and walk-away with the credit. It is easy because out of sight is out of mind anyway. 

Globalization in the DNA? 

I seriously believe that any company whether in India or US or UK should not venture to hire large number of employees in a different country without realizing that the “sexiness” of “looking” global comes with a huge responsibility to fulfill its promise. This means cultural training, setting rules of engagament across offices, setting metrics for failure of losing or low-morale employees in a distant office, basic training like time zones and credit-sharing, and essential communication that ”this is not about outsourcing” but “about hiring diverse and high-quality talent for world-wide growth”. 

Is Globalization a shattered dream? Right now, I would say yes with the hope that the future will force me to say – a glad - No.