Downsourcing

The corporate practice of replacing competent personnel with cheap labor that will produce an inferior product, which sounds good on paper for about the first fiscal quarter.

Then management will throw good money at consultants to cover their mistake.

Colleague: hey, I heard you were let go by BBD&O. What happened?
Copywriter: I'm a victim of downsourcing. They found some dumass kid that can’t finish a sentence to do my work for half the price.
Colleague: Yea – I’ve seen some of his copy. Jeze – he couldn’t write his way out of a paper bag!

Downsourcing

When an organization neglects to provide essential resources to fulfill its function, expecting employees, customers and community members to fill the gap.

1. When I worked in a scullery room, they depended on me to unload the dish machine and stack the steaming hot plates and bowls, yet they would not provide safety gloves to prevent me from getting scalded. They were downsourcing safety equipment to their employees.

2. We all saw how the Covid pandemic accelerated the trend toward working from home. Schools, businesses, governments and charities were downsourcing their requirements for office space, utilities, furniture and technology to their employees to keep their missions up and running.

3. Companies have also been downsourcing values. The manufacturers of plastic packaging rely on the safe disposal of their single use film, yet make no contribution to collection and recycling of this common ocean contaminant. They downsource environmental cleanup to the whales, the fish and all of us who care.