Opinions about ethics in outsourcing

A visitor sent me a very insightful and thought-provoking message. Here is what he wrote:

Business and charity are not the same thing.

Anyone who takes a $1/hr job, by necessity of their choice, is better off than they would have been without it.

If you want to alleviate the poverty that creates these market conditions, donate the appropriate charities. This will address the long-term issues driving low-wage conditions.

Paying a wage above market price is neither an effective nor sustainable solution to anything but making the employer feel better about himself.

I believe there is much truth in what this visitor wrote. However, I believe doing an assistant good by paying him in a way that he effectively can say: “this pays me more than any local job AND is fun work!” is something good.

I never had the motivation to “save the world through outsourcing”. That’s just not realistic and silly. But I do believe that one can do good for the people in your immediate surroundings. including your VAs.

I would like to share my two cents. For me, Outsourcing had never that hint of immoral and unethical issue (for me). But, if you pay below the average of your outsourced task, than that would be the time it is unethical.

Yes, cost-of-living plays along with it. And if you can get a satisfactory outcome with 1 to 2 dollar an hour, why would you pay for a costly 20 to 30 dollar?

I think it’s just business-wise and there’s nothing with immorality or unethical 😀

Hi Francis, just thanking you for your blogs. It clarifies everything about working remotely. I sometimes do not have time to read all the newsletter but I filed it in a folder and read a few during my day off and gee, i truly learned a lot. Been working fulltime as a virtual assistant to two clients for more than a year now via oDesk.

Hi dear anonymous subscriber – don’t be shy, I’m not gonna bite 😉 –Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment and some feedback.

I’m thrilled this info is useful to you, because I believe about anyone who uses a computer regularly could profit from this info.

Sorry if some newsletters are sent out too often. Don’t feel hurried and take your time reading, absorbing and applying the knowledge.

And, most important of all, keep sending me your feedback, be it good or bad – this is the best way for me to learn!

I think one of the reasons why there are lots of people working on MTurk is the fact that it does not require workers years of experience in online jobs.It’s fast and easy money. And there’s no attachment between employee and employer.

An employer has to take a decision what sort of work he outsources.

Any medical job does not fall into this category, in my book.

If you as a provider decided to not take the job or this money, your decision was highly ethical.

Unfortunately, there probably quickly was someone to replace you for this task.

Perhaps it would have been possible to report this job.

But I doubt that odesk would have taken any action.

I agree that scenarios like this are inevitable, most especially in the world of freelancing/outsourcing.

I actually had the same experience when I applied for a job posting as a chat support (that’s what the job description says), only to find out in the interview that it was for an adult site and I needed to be naked! It was hilarious yet very disappointing.

So always be proactive, ask questions and never be afraid to say NO.

However, in common, there are “unethical activities”, which means anything that causes damage to the public, the environment or other external factors.

Coming to the point, your client might have started running the business for various reasons. He might have a motive of promoting alternatives for the less-affordables, might have facilitated a cheap source of research to a target group and so many other good causes.

In this ground, he may have had an option of going for a freelancing to cover the cost as a cost effective mechanism. Besides these factors, he should lay an important role in choosing the appropriate candidate for a job of such a risky nature. Hence, should have laid some restrictions in his Job Description on the target group that he would consider hiring. This can be termed as a Careless Act if it had stopped from this point.

However, after so many questions with you, his decision to hire you was totally unethical from an employer’s point of view. Because it is inevitable to him that a wrong hire may lead to a risk of unethical behaviour, endangering a person’s life.

From a provider’s point of view, there is a distinction drawn to conclude with the decision of denying work after a selection process. It is the sole responsibility of the provider to understand the nature of the job by posing various questions to clients during the selection process. This maybe a troublesome activity under the hood of “Disturbance to opportunity for Earnings”. However, this is very important under ethics. Failing to do so, will result in giving inconvenience to the employer to perform an ineffective selection process.

When the provider strived his best to examine whether the job was ethical and fails to realize due to misinterpretation or lack of serious information from employer, it is evident that the denial is said to be purely ethical. This was the experience you had with your job.

In my opinion, I would say that it is not ethical to hire someone for a sensitive job of such nature with a mere intention of profit motive.

And also would say that it is ethical to deny working once it was realized at any point of time that it would lead to a Criminal Act.

But in the end, isn’t it the decision between two grown, individual people, the employer and the employee?

I always try my best to make the cooperation with a virtual assistant be as much of a win win situation as possible.

Anything beyond that feels like it is a little too much to ask, if you want my personal opinon.

I was sure, that the freelancers wouldn’t do this work, if it wouldn’t be worth it and better paid than other jobs. After all this is a free market.

I’ve been traveling a lot and went to Bali once. The money exchange rate is 1 Euro = 11.000 Rupiah. For 11.000 Rupiah I was able to go to a good restaurant and buy myself a dinner with dessert and drinks. In Germany you most of the times don’t even get a lousy scoop of icecream for 1 Euro!

But anyway I find it very interesting what you as a freelancer think about all this. I hope to hear more! =)

For example you have a shop near the corner of your home but you do not buy any vegetables from this shop. Instead you prefer to buy it from another shop that fairly has a long distance than this shop because there you find some fresh vegetables at more comparative rates.

As you said that you went to Bali for travelling. Is it morally correct that you spend a lot of money on your travelling especially when you are spending this money out of your country? I mean there would be many places within Germany that you could have consider traveling.

I think it’s always fair wherever you go for travelling. After all its your money and you have all the rights to spend your money as per your will.

In my opinion it’s your right to keep your benefits at top of the priority unless it’s not illegal.

Nevertheless, Great discussion to argue! I am loving it 🙂

Only recently we had a popular vote in my City wether or not our airport needs a third runway. 55% of the people said it doesn’t and so it’s not gonna be built. Instead the City will put the money in the extention of the citys public transport system.
I think this is a good thing in times of climate change, environmental pollution and all…

I’m grateful for the good public transport system we have in Germany. I will use it after my university graduation to do a morally correct 2-3month travel all over Germany! 😉 I’m so looking forward to that! There’s much in my own country I haven’t seen yet.

Actually I think it doesn’t matter whether I spend my money in Germany, Bali or another country. People can need it everywhere. But I do think it matters how we get to all these places on earth we so love to see… If I’d hat the time I’d just walk everywhere. 😛
But brilliant we can talk now via Phone and Interent around the globe without doing so much as one step.^^ (sitting on my desk)

I find it sometimes even hypocritical if someone wants to tell me where to spend my own money. Especially under the argument of morals.

If what I’m doing is unethical or immoral, I want to know about this. This is a free blog, and if a freelancer from anywhere wanted to join the discussion and tell me “Outsourcing is frigging bad!” – then he is free to do so!

As I see it, I’m building opportunities for two grown up people: my virtual assistant and me.

He makes some money to support his studies. More importantly, he grabs the opportunity to learn tons of stuff from me.

And I profit from his hard work to get my projects (this website, other stuff) running as smoothly and beautifully as possible.

We agreed on the price. What could be wrong about this?

But let’s face it, it’s a win-win situation. Contractors like us really get a very competitive rate compared to what is being offered in our locality. It also creates a positive connection and long term relationship between/among the parties involved.

Outsourcing can be argued as a cause for unemployment in an economy, by hiring people from foreign countries effects economy in a negative way and strips hundreds to thousands of domestic jobs, especially the skilled and semi-skilled workers.

Freelancing, therefore, comes into play, being a form of outsourcing, it creats employment to those that are unemployed on the other hand. Any skilled or unskilled can seek for jobs based on their criteria at freelancing still being very competitive.

Due to the development of technology, the world is shrinking day by day leaving less time with more and more work. A physical workplace is considered a burden for an organization when productivity is concerned over the expenditure.

Employers are more towards result orientation rather than task based. Therefore, anything that makes the job quicker, easier and cheaper will be more preferrable.

The modern research says that traditional jobs are moving towards outsourcing to have a niche market. The first to be on outsourcing being US, now the growth is not only in the USA but also in Europe and Latin America. In the USA hot spots include Hawaii, North Carolina and Tennessee and also rural parts of the USA also experienced a boom.

Skilled professionals like manufacturing designers (+241%), architects (+198%) and family attorneys (+179%) are joining the online work community faster than ever with triple-digit increases compared to Q2 last year. Engineering is another job category defying the conventional market with skills like Chemical Engineering (+182%), Electrical Engineering (+126%) and Civil Engineering (+100%) increasing exponentially year over year. This is extracted from a recent newspaper.

Therefore, there seemed nothing in the grounds of ethics as Francis highlighted that when both the client and the contractor agree on a contract based on positive terms, both gets rewarded.