SF Chronicle on bank IT outsourcing

The San Francisco Chronicle's Business columnist, David Lazarus, had a great column Friday on the nation's second-largest bank's outsourcing policies: BofA: Train your replacement, or no severance pay for you.

Turns out, whether the bank's IT workers like it or not, they better train their Indian counterpart if they expect any severance at all. This was confirmed indirectly by the bank spokesperson:

"Shirley Norton, a BofA spokeswoman, confirmed that while workers aren't being explicitly told they have to train their replacements or risk losing severance pay, they are being instructed that severance pay is contingent on satisfactorily completing their jobs.

Completing their jobs, in turn, can include training replacements from India, she said.

"I know that's parsing things a bit," Norton acknowledged.

Strangely enough, with "bunches of Indians coming through" and jobs falling right and left, some are exhibiting disgruntled attitudes toward their Indian brethren.

But the bank has the answer for that also: India cultural sensitivity training.

"A "manager message map" for the presentation on India says that "all associates will be expected to participate in this learning experience" by the end of June.

Norton confirmed that nearly all of BofA's 200,000 workers are expected to sit through the presentation."

It appears my experiences with outsourcing are not unique in the financial services industry. Unfortunately, I have lots of company.

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