San Francisco University Lays Off IT Workers; Jobs Head to India

Why? Can people here not handle a healthy discussion?
Yup, that's exactly it.... example below

This must be fake news.

A leftist university in a leftist city, in a leftist state, laying off working people and outsourcing jobs?

Leftist care about the little guy so they would never do this. It must be some right wing business guy's fault.
 
I rank this right up there with cities (looking at you Europe) who thought moving to Linux away from Windows would save them buckets of $$$, only to find out years later that it in fact did not and they have to bend over to transition back to Windows.

Yep! Same shit with IBM. IBM transitioned to Linux on all user laptops, and its complete horseshit, way to complicated for end users to handle. Now they are transitioning back to Windows. Hmm
 
Yep! Same shit with IBM. IBM transitioned to Linux on all user laptops, and its complete horseshit, way to complicated for end users to handle. Now they are transitioning back to Windows. Hmm

Because they accomplished what they wanted; they made it clear to their MS sales rep that they are crazy enough to do it and get better pricing. Pulled this trick a few times so it's not like MS isn't aware that most of our office drones could work in any old spreadsheet software to get the job done.
 
The University of California, San Francisco laid off 49 IT workers and vacated an additional 48 IT positions in an attempt to save 30 million dollars over 5 years. The University has decided to outsource these IT jobs to India to save on costs. USCF entered into a 5 year $50 million deal with HCL Technologies Ltd to handle the work.

The UCSF is a school focused on health care and research. It would seem that they would be the last entity seeking to outsource the IT department to a foreign country. I wonder how did they analyze their budget and expenses to determine that this was the best course of action. There had to have been a better solution. Maybe the ones on top making these decisions needed a pay adjustment instead of this outsourcing nonsense? I bet this costs them more in the long run.

"It's a downgrading of services and a slap in the face for the customers," said Ho, who has worked in IT in the Bay Area for 25 years. He said he plans to look for a job but worries that outsourcing of IT services is a growing trend. Last year UCSF entered into a $50 million contract over five years with India-based HCL Technologies Ltd to do the work.


Please don't make this political! Looking for solutions and stories of IT outsourcing. Feel free to discuss the topic, but absolutely no politics please!

Thanks!


I guess the uni is spending around ~$165,000 per employee right now? They signed a 50 million contract for 5 years and they hope to save 30 million over 5 years. So total over 5 years is 80 million. So 16 million a year for 97 positions which comes out to the $165,000. I'm sure not all of them make that amount and those vacant positions are not even filled now.

Out sourcing still sucks.
 
How is outsourcing data jobs not a security concern?
Security concerns are pretty trivial as these outsourced companies are pretty good about protecting customer privacy. These workers fears being canned so they work to do everything literally exactly by the book. That's why you have support calls of Indians telling you to do a step that you know is not necessary and they insist on you following it. Because they've been told over and over again and if they deviate from it, they know they will get fired and replaced easily.

When I was at Microsoft working on a government contract, I worked with a sister team that was Mindtree, an H-1B company importing workers from India. They were deathly afraid of losing their jobs and would not be flexible at all no matter how trivial it seemed nor would they do any knowledge sharing if they thought it would threaten their job security. For example, I had no expectations of privacy when it came to my relationship between my employer, myself, and my team's work so I had requested logs of a fellow employee for a specific work issue and they were "No, those are personal conversation and I'm prohibited by company rules.. blah blah" whatever. It was dumb so I literally had to get my manager to see the log himself with his own eyes all because the Mindtree employees were following exactly what they were told from above. So I'd give the outsourcing companies some props for that on security concerns.
 
I guess the uni is spending around ~$165,000 per employee right now? They signed a 50 million contract for 5 years and they hope to save 30 million over 5 years. So total over 5 years is 80 million. So 16 million a year for 97 positions which comes out to the $165,000. I'm sure not all of them make that amount and those vacant positions are not even filled now.

Out sourcing still sucks.

Even in San Fran where the cost of living is super high they are not averaging 165k per position in IT. Many of these companies don't really know how much the savings is going to be so they just throw out some numbers knowing that the general public doesn't have time or the interest in doing the math.
 
This is stupid. The numbers are stupid and the decision is stupid. Everyone involved in the decision making process is stupid and the staff being laid off were probably also stupid. I've seen way too many internal IT departments kicking themselves in the arse by saying no when outsourced companies say yes, and we'll do it for a third of the price.

Saying you can post something like this and not have the conversation turn political in the current climate is also a little naive
 
Security concerns are pretty trivial as these outsourced companies are pretty good about protecting customer privacy. These workers fears being canned so they work to do everything literally exactly by the book. That's why you have support calls of Indians telling you to do a step that you know is not necessary and they insist on you following it. Because they've been told over and over again and if they deviate from it, they know they will get fired and replaced easily.

When I was at Microsoft working on a government contract, I worked with a sister team that was Mindtree, an H-1B company importing workers from India. They were deathly afraid of losing their jobs and would not be flexible at all no matter how trivial it seemed nor would they do any knowledge sharing if they thought it would threaten their job security. For example, I had no expectations of privacy when it came to my relationship between my employer, myself, and my team's work so I had requested logs of a fellow employee for a specific work issue and they were "No, those are personal conversation and I'm prohibited by company rules.. blah blah" whatever. It was dumb so I literally had to get my manager to see the log himself with his own eyes all because the Mindtree employees were following exactly what they were told from above. So I'd give the outsourcing companies some props for that on security concerns.
By the book doesn't account for making backups for data mining.
 
Until us Americans learn to live simple lives with minimum amount of salary and wean ourselves of materialism, bringing jobs back will never happen. None of us will work for $5~$10/hr or iotw, cheap labor.
 
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Until us Americans learn to live simple lives with minimum amount of salary and ween ourselves of materialism, Trump's pledge of bringing jobs back will never happen. No Americans will work for $5~$10/hr.
Not in San Francisco anyway.
 
Until us Americans learn to live simple lives with minimum amount of salary and ween ourselves of materialism, Trump's pledge of bringing jobs back will never happen. No Americans will work for $5~$10/hr.
If you want to do without, cool for you, but I will not submit to that. You only get one life, and I am going to enjoy it. Materialism is a result of success.
 
Security concerns are pretty trivial as these outsourced companies are pretty good about protecting customer privacy. These workers fears being canned so they work to do everything literally exactly by the book. That's why you have support calls of Indians telling you to do a step that you know is not necessary and they insist on you following it. Because they've been told over and over again and if they deviate from it, they know they will get fired and replaced easily.

When I was at Microsoft working on a government contract, I worked with a sister team that was Mindtree, an H-1B company importing workers from India. They were deathly afraid of losing their jobs and would not be flexible at all no matter how trivial it seemed nor would they do any knowledge sharing if they thought it would threaten their job security. For example, I had no expectations of privacy when it came to my relationship between my employer, myself, and my team's work so I had requested logs of a fellow employee for a specific work issue and they were "No, those are personal conversation and I'm prohibited by company rules.. blah blah" whatever. It was dumb so I literally had to get my manager to see the log himself with his own eyes all because the Mindtree employees were following exactly what they were told from above. So I'd give the outsourcing companies some props for that on security concerns.

So like ...
"Dave from Texas" support guy in India: "After you type in the command and hit enter, does it respond with a 1 or a 2?"
End user at SFU: "It says HEADER_POOL_MEMORY"
"Dave from Texas" support guy in India: "So is that a 1 or a 2?"
End user at SFU: "It says HEADER_POOL_MEMORY"
"Dave from Texas" support guy in India: "1 or 2?"
 
I think that as someone said early [and I'm sorry if it seems political; I don't care about either side on this], but in lieu of limiting HB2 visas, keep them, but also impose some kind of fee or tax to be able to employ people with them instead.

If a company really feels that going with a fogreign folks over American people, then they must be willing to pay the price. We should hire foreigners because they are the best, not because they are the cheapest.

It doesn't have to be an American citizen, it should also include folks with permanent residency status and such.
 
So...to be clear here: You're in favor of paying higher taxes to pay for these people? Because that's what it comes down to: Jobs versus Taxes.

Seriously, people want it both ways all the time, then complain when they don't.
No... It's about priorities. It's about spending money on IT or spending the money on far-left programs like gender studies and how white heterosexual men are the root cause of all evil. It's not a coincidence that those IT jobs used to go to white/asian guys...
 
The University of California, San Francisco laid off 49 IT workers and vacated an additional 48 IT positions in an attempt to save 30 million dollars over 5 years. The University has decided to outsource these IT jobs to India to save on costs. USCF entered into a 5 year $50 million deal with HCL Technologies Ltd to handle the work.

The UCSF is a school focused on health care and research. It would seem that they would be the last entity seeking to outsource the IT department to a foreign country. I wonder how did they analyze their budget and expenses to determine that this was the best course of action. There had to have been a better solution. Maybe the ones on top making these decisions needed a pay adjustment instead of this outsourcing nonsense? I bet this costs them more in the long run.

"It's a downgrading of services and a slap in the face for the customers," said Ho, who has worked in IT in the Bay Area for 25 years. He said he plans to look for a job but worries that outsourcing of IT services is a growing trend. Last year UCSF entered into a $50 million contract over five years with India-based HCL Technologies Ltd to do the work.


Please don't make this political! Looking for solutions and stories of IT outsourcing. Feel free to discuss the topic, but absolutely no politics please!

Thanks!

If I took 100 job positions and paid them 100K each for 5 years, I would have spent the 50 million they just paid out to HCL Technologies. But they are saying they want to save 30 million, therefore the almost 100 positions for 5 years would be costing them $80 million or $160K an employee in salaries and other employee related costs.
 
If you want to do without, cool for you, but I will not submit to that. You only get one life, and I am going to enjoy it. Materialism is a result of success.
Exactly my point. That is why the outrage from some quarters for issues like this is pointless.
 
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17% drop is quite a bit.. i wonder what those other 482 people do there.

“It is the first time a public university has ever offshored American information technology jobs, undermining its own mission to prepare students for high-tech careers,” the CWA said in a statement.

Training the replacements was among the conditions for receiving severance packages, union officials said.

The layoffs affect 48 full-time IT workers, 12 contract employees and 18 vendor contractors. Additionally, 18 vacant positions will not be filled.

In all, UCSF is slashing about 17 percent of its 565-person IT operation.

The five-year, $50 million contract with HCL is expected to save the university about $30 million during the period.
Source
 
That's interesting. UC Schools was a client of mine at a previous employer and they required everybody that worked on them as a client be on shore. We couldn't utilize any off shore developers or off shore call center reps. Hypocrisy.
 
I think that as someone said early [and I'm sorry if it seems political; I don't care about either side on this], but in lieu of limiting HB2 visas, keep them, but also impose some kind of fee or tax to be able to employ people with them instead.

If a company really feels that going with a fogreign folks over American people, then they must be willing to pay the price. We should hire foreigners because they are the best, not because they are the cheapest.

It doesn't have to be an American citizen, it should also include folks with permanent residency status and such.
This is the second comment mentioning H1-B visas here, and I dont understand the relation? This is outsourcing to India, H1-B has nothing to do with this?
 
Cali3350 - in my link the H1bVisas were used to bring in folk for direct training of their replacements.
Since then, the workers have been training their replacements via videoconference, and in person for a few foreign employees who were brought to the U.S. under H1-B visas.
 
Cali3350 - in my link the H1bVisas were used to bring in folk for direct training of their replacements.
Ah ok, missed that. Fair point then.

I am in software engineering, not IT. Its my understanding the H1 issue is the bigger deal in IT since they pay them less. In Engineering H1-B usually costs the company's more since they pay the same and also have the lawyer fees for the visa.
 
So like ...
"Dave from Texas" support guy in India: "After you type in the command and hit enter, does it respond with a 1 or a 2?"
End user at SFU: "It says HEADER_POOL_MEMORY"
"Dave from Texas" support guy in India: "So is that a 1 or a 2?"
End user at SFU: "It says HEADER_POOL_MEMORY"
"Dave from Texas" support guy in India: "1 or 2?"
Yep.
 
Hahahaha sorry guys, I meant H1-B visas. The one I mentioned earlier is for agriculture.
 
This is why I am so glad that I switched careers, being a railroader is much more rewarding than the thankless environment of IT. End users, loved me so I guess it wasn't thankless, but still.

Huh.. conductor for a class 1 here. You?
 
I think the solution is actually political in nature.

Any college / university that receives federal funding should absolutely hire Americans first (all that's legally able to work) and then only consider work visas if no Americans are qualified/insufficient #.

And politics play a big part in this too.

Problem with this is companies currently place ads using wildly exaggerated requirements. When few US workers can reasonably meet the requirements, the companies submit H1B requests. This is routine practice currently.
 
That, and religion I assume. Both are toxic, very toxic subjects.

When I used to run a business, I told my employees to never discuss politics and religion on the job. These are two things that could very easily piss-off customers or fellow employees.

If you're a smart business or celebrity wanting to maximize business, stay the hell away from both.
 
Security concerns are pretty trivial as these outsourced companies are pretty good about protecting customer privacy. These workers fears being canned so they work to do everything literally exactly by the book. That's why you have support calls of Indians telling you to do a step that you know is not necessary and they insist on you following it. Because they've been told over and over again and if they deviate from it, they know they will get fired and replaced easily.

When I was at Microsoft working on a government contract, I worked with a sister team that was Mindtree, an H-1B company importing workers from India. They were deathly afraid of losing their jobs and would not be flexible at all no matter how trivial it seemed nor would they do any knowledge sharing if they thought it would threaten their job security. For example, I had no expectations of privacy when it came to my relationship between my employer, myself, and my team's work so I had requested logs of a fellow employee for a specific work issue and they were "No, those are personal conversation and I'm prohibited by company rules.. blah blah" whatever. It was dumb so I literally had to get my manager to see the log himself with his own eyes all because the Mindtree employees were following exactly what they were told from above. So I'd give the outsourcing companies some props for that on security concerns.


Well, Foreign Intelligence Offices would be good at security wouldn't they? :sneaky:
 
That, and religion I assume. Both are toxic, very toxic subjects.

Only when people don't have the decency to allow others' to have their own opinions and beliefs.

You can talk about anything without rancor if you really are tolerant of others. It's intolerant people who have to force their own views and values on others and turn things into a mess.
 
Security concerns are pretty trivial as these outsourced companies are pretty good about protecting customer privacy. These workers fears being canned so they work to do everything literally exactly by the book. That's why you have support calls of Indians telling you to do a step that you know is not necessary and they insist on you following it. Because they've been told over and over again and if they deviate from it, they know they will get fired and replaced easily.

When I was at Microsoft working on a government contract, I worked with a sister team that was Mindtree, an H-1B company importing workers from India. They were deathly afraid of losing their jobs and would not be flexible at all no matter how trivial it seemed nor would they do any knowledge sharing if they thought it would threaten their job security. For example, I had no expectations of privacy when it came to my relationship between my employer, myself, and my team's work so I had requested logs of a fellow employee for a specific work issue and they were "No, those are personal conversation and I'm prohibited by company rules.. blah blah" whatever. It was dumb so I literally had to get my manager to see the log himself with his own eyes all because the Mindtree employees were following exactly what they were told from above. So I'd give the outsourcing companies some props for that on security concerns.

Maybe it varies by government contract but the ones I am aware of require a US citizen on US soil to take and work calls which would make this scenario a no go from the start. Also security concerns seem to be on everyone's mind with all the high profile breaches lately. I think that would apply to both foreign and domestic service provides.
 
Maybe it varies by government contract but the ones I am aware of require a US citizen on US soil to take and work calls which would make this scenario a no go from the start. Also security concerns seem to be on everyone's mind with all the high profile breaches lately. I think that would apply to both foreign and domestic service provides.
Well my federal government contract with Microsoft did require US Citizens to man and service government-based customers both state and federal levels while the sister team I worked with only serviced customers from the private sector. But in this case, this is a public university managed by the state of California and I'm guessing that the California system does not have that requirement as my team did from the federal perspective.
 
They'll probably get great support until their profitablity on that account goes down. Then they'll get crap support and be stuck in a contract. See it literally every month when we bring on a new client from a fixed fee services provider. You're either providing good service and not making money or providing bad service and making money, when it's done as a cost saving mechanism.
 
Most businesses see IT as a cost and not a factor that helps them earn, so until that mentality changes up top it's going to be tough to avoid having businesses go with a lower cost option. For most corporate execs, they just want SOMETHING in place and don't really care what that is as long as their org can still function. If something goes wrong, who cares if the tech support guy doesn't speak English in a way you can understand it because as the exec you're not fixing your own IT problems anyway, your exec assistant is.

Given that this is a university and not a business though, their priorities were probably messed up from the start.
 
Oh the irony. So I dont get a "ban" or scolding, let me put this into context. i was dealing weekly with overseas customer service reps. in the health care field until recently. Now it seems I am getting reps clearly based in the U.S. or Canada. There was a huge language barrier and I cringed everytime one of the overseas reps picked up. It really is about the nuance of the english language that gets lost speaking to customer service from overseas.

It does suck they are moving those positions overseas. I'm in favor of them staying here.
 
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Wait what? UofC needs to math better

97 IT positions eliminated save 30M over 5 years. That's about $62000 per position per year.

They then outsource these positions for 5 years at a cost of 50M. (n)

Different budget category. The guy who chopped 30M out of his budget scores that bonus money now.

The 10M cost of the outsourcing contracts gets buried in "continuing expenses" with the rest of vendor contracts and disappears somewhere into next year's budget. I watched a company use that same voodoo to justify replacing a 75K position with multiple 250K outsourced contracts.
 
Some quick math, unless I missed something pivotal:

$50,000,000 (new contract) + $30,000,000 (savings over old contract) = $80,000,000
$80,000,000 / (5 (years) * 97 (number of IT positions) ) = $164,948.45 salary + benefits per person, per year

I kind of don't blame them for making the decision, even though I hate overseas support. If all you stared at were numbers like that, you would probably make the same decision.
 
wow insane... their 50 staff members cost 80 million (I assume 50mil + 30 mil) over a 5 year period?

80,000,000/5 = 16,000,000
16,000,000 / 50 = $320,000

I call BS on all this. They most likely were including infrastructure costs. Either way thats insane for a university.

I was just thinking this.

What the hell were they paying these people.
 
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