Disney fires IT workers and replaces them with foreign workers

[ptaylor]

Eye opening article from Computerworld.

http://www.computerworld.com/articl...es-at-disney-over-use-of-foreign-workers.html

"From the perspective of five laid-off Disney IT workers, all of whom agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, Disney cut well-paid and longtime staff members, some who had been previously singled out for excellence, as it shifted work to contractors. These contractors used foreign labor, mostly from India. The laid-off workers believe the primary motivation behind Disney's action was cost-cutting.

"Some of these folks were literally flown in the day before to take over the exact same job I was doing," said one of the IT workers who lost his job. He trained his replacement and is angry over the fact he had to train someone from India "on site, in our country."

 

[GhostHost1000]

this might explain the COMPLETE cluster #*&^$ in their websites...especially every time a new discount (like free dining) is released

too much emphasis on $'s rather than guest experience (which could in return lower $'s down the road)

 

[Jahona]

Fairly old news, this has been discussed in length before.

http://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads/wdw-it-layoffs-1-30-2015.895408/#post-6527370

 

[sshindel]

Also, you could pretty much replace "Disney" with any major corporation in the USA and write the same story.

 

[ItlngrlBella]

^^^Exactly, just happened at my husband's Pharma company. The "IT Help Desk" has become the "Helpless Desk."

 

[Bugz]

As with the research , cell biology , cytocentric biz, constant mixing.

 

[Magenta Panther]

Eye opening article from Computerworld.

http://www.computerworld.com/articl...es-at-disney-over-use-of-foreign-workers.html

"From the perspective of five laid-off Disney IT workers, all of whom agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, Disney cut well-paid and longtime staff members, some who had been previously singled out for excellence, as it shifted work to contractors. These contractors used foreign labor, mostly from India. The laid-off workers believe the primary motivation behind Disney's action was cost-cutting.

"Some of these folks were literally flown in the day before to take over the exact same job I was doing," said one of the IT workers who lost his job. He trained his replacement and is angry over the fact he had to train someone from India "on site, in our country."

BOOOOO on Iger for this. What a creep.

 

[Rodan75]

Also, you could pretty much replace "Disney" with any major corporation in the USA and write the same story.

Agreed, you could see this coming for the last 10 years. Unfortunately IT egos, salaries, and outdated service strategies combined with the rapid commoditization of coding and the rise of IT education across the globe drove organizations to invest in outsource arrangements.

It is an ugly trend and hopefully companies and IT leadership will find better solutions. Right now, it is ugly and getting uglier.

 

[sshindel]

Agreed, you could see this coming for the last 10 years. Unfortunately IT egos, salaries, and outdated service strategies combined with the rapid commoditization of coding and the rise of IT education across the globe drove organizations to invest in outsource arrangements.

It is an ugly trend and hopefully companies and IT leadership will find better solutions. Right now, it is ugly and getting uglier.

I think that there will eventually be some sort of snapback. In my experience, it's surrendering quality for cost, as 9 out of 10 offshore developers I've worked with were not people I'd hire full-time.
Of course, I've been expecting that snapback for probably 7-8 years now, so it may never happen.

 

[Rodan75]

I think that there will eventually be some sort of snapback. In my experience, it's surrendering quality for cost, as 9 out of 10 offshore developers I've worked with were not people I'd hire full-time.
Of course, I've been expecting that snapback for probably 7-8 years now, so it may never happen.

I think it will happen, but I think two things ruin most company's IT experience; 1. PMP Project Managers and 2. IT Middle Management who were good coders with outsize egos and bad leadership skills.

Company leadership gets fed up with the internal cycle and outsources, the customer service isn't much worse but the cost is much less. And the outsourcers do as they are told, less pushback. Unfortunately most IT customers need consulting and guidance and without it get inferior products.

So I definitely think a snapback will occur, but not until IT leadership adopts new leadership and partnership methodologies. (corrupting ITIL, AGILE, Six Sigma, and LEAN won't do it)

 

[ford91exploder]

Agreed, you could see this coming for the last 10 years. Unfortunately IT egos, salaries, and outdated service strategies combined with the rapid commoditization of coding and the rise of IT education across the globe drove organizations to invest in outsource arrangements.

It is an ugly trend and hopefully companies and IT leadership will find better solutions. Right now, it is ugly and getting uglier.

I expect DC will step in now because there was a similar event at PG&E where existing US based workers were replaced with H1B workers, The H1B program was never designed to allow this to happen in fact the law is quite specific that it cannot be used in this manner. The PG&E incident and now TWDC are simply too high profile.

 

[ford91exploder]

I think it will happen, but I think two things ruin most company's IT experience; 1. PMP Project Managers and 2. IT Middle Management who were good coders with outsize egos and bad leadership skills.

Company leadership gets fed up with the internal cycle and outsources, the customer service isn't much worse but the cost is much less. And the outsourcers do as they are told, less pushback. Unfortunately most IT customers need consulting and guidance and without it get inferior products.

So I definitely think a snapback will occur, but not until IT leadership adopts new leadership and partnership methodologies. (corrupting ITIL, AGILE, Six Sigma, and LEAN won't do it)

A GOOD project manager is priceless, The latter exists in all fields.

 

[sshindel]

2. IT Middle Management who were good coders with outsize egos and bad leadership skills.
)

<--- <Looks at his brand new role as IT middle manager and slowly nods>

 

[MKCP 1985]

Tough to comment on this story without breaking forum rules banning political discussions so I will simply say that I hate this for the affected workers and it is a shame that Disney's websites do not live up to their potential.

 

[ford91exploder]

Tough to comment on this story without breaking forum rules banning political discussions so I will simply say that I hate this for the affected workers and it is a shame that Disney's websites do not live up to their potential.

You mean like runDisney yesterday ?, Registration to open at noon actually opened at 12:10 some browsers reported event full if you were running noScript, Finally had a friend register me because racing against clock,

Perhaps for something like this a - check browser compatibility page so you can be sure you have no issues on time limited signup...

 

[DisneyJoe]

I think that there will eventually be some sort of snapback. In my experience, it's surrendering quality for cost, as 9 out of 10 offshore developers I've worked with were not people I'd hire full-time.
Of course, I've been expecting that snapback for probably 7-8 years now, so it may never happen.

I've been expecting that snapback for about 14 years now.

Sounds like many have moved into the IT recruiting field now too...

 

[ryguy]

Disney IT department isn't so great, the Disney reservation site is constantly down or not working properly. If there is a new resort discount forget about it, system will not be working correctly. Don't get how Ticketmaster can handle large amounts of people flooding a system, but Disney hasn't been able to figure it out.

Hopefully it was based on performance, but we all know it probably wasn't. I really don't care who is hired as long as they are able to improve the department.

 

[fractal]

Ross Perot was right.

 

[PhotoDave219]

I think that there will eventually be some sort of snapback. In my experience, it's surrendering quality for cost, as 9 out of 10 offshore developers I've worked with were not people I'd hire full-time.
Of course, I've been expecting that snapback for probably 7-8 years now, so it may never happen.

I've heard some downright horror stories about Cognizant.

 

[sshindel]

I've heard some downright horror stories about Cognizant.

I could add a few more. I've worked with them in the past.