I just found out that one of my employees has been outsourcing the majority of their work overseas, and has simply been collecting a paycheck for work someone else did. Should I fire them and try to outsource the work myself or just stay happy that they're relatively productive this way?

likefunnysmarthelpful
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But end of the day, you have an unethical employee. It’s a big red flag for me.

likesmartfunny

Signing that you won’t share confidential company information with others that haven’t signed an NDA and then doing it is unethical. Contract or not, it’s an agreement you have made with the company you work at.

However we don’t know if confidential information has been shared or if so in what way.

Perhaps placeholder data or information was shared instead of actual data. Maybe this person broke up one project into several parts and sent them to different freelancers so that each part doesn’t make sense by itself. In the latter case confidential information may have been shared but not in a way that was useful to 3rd parties.

What you could do is confront the employee and ask them to work together with you to outsource the work. That “unethical” employee could become a manager of outsourced work and the whole operation could be moved above board.

like

Collecting a paycheck for work someone else did - isn’t this just capitalism?

likefunnysmartuplifting

It’s not an incorrect statement– you and I and everyone else gives the government a piece of our income when they didn’t do the work for it.

Who and how that money gets disbursed is a separate statement. Of course they’re not the SAME exact thing. But that wasn’t my original statement to the original comment.

Money doesn’t go directly into Jeff Bezos account as a result of the company profiting or having left overs either. His investment in the form of company stock increases in value.

This discussion is getting derailed unsurprisingly. It’s not a dig at socialism, it’s not a “capitalism is better than socialism” statement. One isn’t better than the other. They both have their rightful place in society.

likefunny
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In a capitalist society, enterprising behavior should be rewarded ;-)

likefunny

The truth!!

like

Plot twist, its the OP.

funnylike

LOL

I find the number of people supportive of the employee in this thread shocking.

This would be, and should be immediate termination for cause at any “real” company.

1) When you sign on as an employee, you sign IP agreements, NDAs and usually something that says that you won’t have any other employment at the same time. By outsourcing your work you are sharing company IP and information - how trivial it might seem to you doesn’t matter - with an outside party that has not been vetted by the company, and is not covered by contracts. This opens up both the employee and the company to contractual (against their customers) and real risk (security breaches, IP leakage)

2) Immoral conduct. When I hire people, I hire them because I want that specific persons skill and want him/her as a part of the team, learn and grow with the company. By outsourcing his/her work, they are not evolving, and more importantly, they are lying to their colleagues and managers every day. It would be an irreparable breach of trust.

Had the employee come to me and said “I think I can manage some offshore contractors, and it can double my productivity at only 1.5x cost” that would be a great way for someone to grow their career and show initiative. Doing the same thing covertly, where he/she is arbitraging their employment to not have to work, is a great way to end their career.

likesmartfunny

Agree with SE1 above.

There's another legal risk: you don't know what the employee signed or not signed any legal agreement with the contractor company, and one day down the road that company could file a law suite against your company claiming for the IP rights for the code or product they developed for your company.

like

Don't see anything wrong with this, unless there was proprietary info that wasn't supposed to be shared. But honestly, they have to pay the person/team they're outsourcing to....and they're using the money you've paid them. Meaning that they're still getting the work done on behalf of the company. If the work is satisfactory and your clients aren't complaining, then it sounds like you're taking this way too personal, and you should look at this logically and not emotionally charged. This person has a go-getter mindset, and clearly has decent business acumen - as long as any sensitive info hasn't been shared

likesmartfunny

How did you find out

likesmart

If it's a moral issue (they covered it up / lied), then it is probably a bigger issue of character than work output. Would you be able to trust them with other work responsibilities?

If it's a security issue, where company information is being shared outside of the company without proper NDAs, then they should be disciplined accordingly.

If it's a bottom line thing, consider the cost of finding, onboarding, and training a contractor, including managing their work directly. This could be more effort than it's worth. You could also increase the work of your current employee since they have more time on their hands.

If none of the above and your employee is actually pretty good/resourceful, think of how you could use that employee to scale your business through having them manage above board contractors.

likesmarthelpful

Company sources tasks to employees: Great
Employee sources tasks to overseas: Unethical

???

If it is confident data, then it is not okay of course. But if it is simple logic in code which is not company related, why not? In the end you are getting the results that you are paying for.

likehelpfulfunny

It’s all about disclosure.

If a company says it’s doing all work with in-house employees with background checks, but then hides from their client that they outsource it to random people on Upwork it’s the same.

likefunny

On one hand mad props. On the other hand how is this person surviving with half the salary? Lol

likefunnysmart

I'm doing this. I have a side contract and where I am a sub/sub contractor. I am training my Step-Son to transition to It and using this project to train him. once up to speed I will let him do most of the actual work. and he is just a sub contractor to me. there is nothing in my contract saying I cannot subcontract the work. I do this in addition to my day job. I have others that want to transition to IT. So I am starting a Nearshore consultancy in this manner. I win the contracts based on my expertise. I am living in a country where the average salary for a professional is 500/mo I pay them a multiple of this they are happy and I am happy as most my contracts are 70-100/hr

likefunny

Yeah this ain’t the place to ask

funnylike

Promote them

likesmartfunny

Isn't this like plagiarising your final term paper in college? Pretty sure that's not ok.

like

PSA we get the concept but comparing this situation to college is a bit of a reach, at least thats how i feel, im not saying passing someone elses work as your own is right, its just college plagiarism

like

I don’t see a problem with this. As long as their getting their work done…

like

I've done this multiple times. No shame here

likefunny

HIGHLY doubt anyone is winding up in jail for outsourcing their work to a Fiverr worker.

likesmartfunny

The fact so many people in this thread don’t see the issue here is concerning

likesmarthelpful

Out of spite I would fire the employee and hire the person he outsources too.

likefunny

When I worked at Microsoft, in the late 90’s I wondered if a co-worker dev was doing this. He was amazingly proficient and yet didn’t seem to put in the long hours like many of us did. He had been there for well over 12-15 years and even a very conservative estimate put him at having over $5-10M. He had a large home on Lk Washington and at least one vacation home. There were a fair amount of folks just hanging around at that time waiting for their stock options values to multiply with MS stock easily doubling every year. At that time I figured he could have hired a few devs in India for a fraction of just his salary since this was before the big offshore dev push. It was certainly possible for him to have done so while stalling to exercise his stock and increasing his wealth by millions. He’s enjoying retired life now after leaving a little before MS stock nosedived for a period of time after 2000. He did very well. 😊

likesmart

If satisfied, convert them to a contractor and reduce the rate, you will get the work done and save yourself money.. (if you have a P/L to manage)

like

Depending on the work being outsourced this could either be totally fine or a huge security risk. If the third party contractors have access to internal systems and data they could open you to all sorts of breaches. I can almost guarantee that your employee doesn't enforce the same security procedures that your company does for employees.

Once you answer the above then you can dig into the ethics of the situation.

like

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