On average they manage twice as many direct reports. Why do you have so many US mangers with only 4-5 directs?
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@190 - they are good at making theats :)
India managers usually don't manage their directs. They offer little in the way of management, other then making theats.
To manage your subordinates means you control the quality of work and your direct reports aren't taking 3 hour lunch breaks. Disapearing fom Prodution MIMs, or winning contests for taking Long walks when they should be working.
@OP good to know that at Manger level. But we should ask employees under that manager as well :). Employee are asked to work on Saturday and Sunday. So manager can show their achievements to their boss here in US. If fight for them u are shown door
"Offshore" managers are shameless "yes men" (and I do emphasize MEN as I do not see many women in those positions) who tend to "d@mn the consequences" and get the box checked off rather than do the proper risk analysis of their actions. Offshore Platform teams exist of dozens of "Engineers" that can't do much more than restart a job. U.S. Development managers and Engineers (those that are left) are consistently being pulled into application issues to either provide instructions what to do, or in most cases to resolve any issues caused by the Offshore manager's incompetence and bad decisions.
Subservience promulgated throughout the society by the caste system may play a role.
Appearances can be deceiving.
I used to manage 52 staff employees who only had a high school diploma. Their duties in the operations department were simple and repetitive. Managing the operations team was not too difficult. I now manage 4 AVPs who are well educated and very experienced. We discuss strategies, issues and opportunities. We also work on several large complex projects. Managing 4 AVPs is far more complex than managing 52 operations workers.
Typical day in India;
- clock in at 930am
- water / curry cooler talk and gossip till 1015am
- check email , join calls to argue with people
- curry lunch till 1245pm
- check email, join calls to argue till 145pm
- code a few things creating massively more defects and/or execution of US processes and controls with numerous errors requiring rework by US competent employees till 245pm
- afternoon curry and coffee till 4pm
- mess around with misc stuff / break more stuff / exfiltrate confidential info till 445pm
- head out to beat the Bangalore and HYD traffic
- if needed, join US calls to complain, complicate, argue, and slow things down
- rinse and repeat
it's easier to manage people who lack critical thinking
Okay I’m just going to say it.: Managers in India are managing the same amount of WORK as U.S. managers. Sorry to be negative, but my experience has been that it takes at least 3 people to get the same job done in India as it does in the U.S. So they might be managing more people but less work, as well as lower-quality outcomes.
Most accurate post to date. I’ve had them tell me they don’t do “individual contributor” tasks
•••
most managers in US are working managers and actually have to know the ones and outs of their business and what is happening in it, on top of having to manage people and do a lot of the same work they do. most India managers are their from an HR standpoint to.
US managers had more staff, but half of them were laid off.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it….is to manage those who manage doing the neadfull
The numbers you see is because wf is hiding direct reporting lines to US managers to evade taxes. Managers in India are taking advantage of this fraudulent arrangement. They have no job but to play politics among themselves and with US managers. No one in US can fire or challenge their competence. Indian The culture treats them like Hindi gods. They get paid very well and enjoy a luxurious lifestyle.
Your mission, if you choose to accept it……is to manage those who manage managing doing the n-eedful. Let’s go!
The Indians on my team have a dotted line to my boss, but my boss is the one who dictates what they do. No idea what their India manager does.
The people at WF that needs to be replaced with Indians most are the executives. To bad none of us will be around to see it.
@aq+1jvwmtyvb Here is chatGPT drawing parallels between transfer of western manufacturing intelligence to china and transfer of tech jobs to India
Thesis:
Outsourcing tech jobs to India, while offering short-term cost savings, poses long-term strategic risks to Western countries similar to the hollowing out of domestic manufacturing due to overdependence on China.
⸻
- Loss of Core Competency and Innovation Ecosystem
Parallel: Manufacturing to China
• The U.S. and Europe once led global manufacturing in automotive, electronics, and textiles.
• By outsourcing to China, Western nations lost not just jobs but deep industrial knowledge, tooling, and the ability to scale production.
Tech Parallel
• Software engineering, cloud infrastructure, and AI are today’s strategic industries, like manufacturing was in the 20th century.
• Over-outsourcing leads to erosion of hands-on expertise, especially among junior developers, which weakens the local talent pipeline and long-term innovation capacity.
⸻
- National Security and Digital Sovereignty
Parallel: Rare Earth & Pharma Dependency
• COVID-19 exposed the West’s dependence on China for critical supplies (PPE, rare earth minerals, APIs).
• This raised alarms about national vulnerability in global supply chains.
Tech Parallel
• Critical infrastructure—finance, defense, elections, healthcare—relies on secure and resilient code.
• Outsourcing software development creates risk vectors, especially when code is written, hosted, or maintained in a foreign jurisdiction with different laws and data protections.
• Security vetting, intellectual property control, and auditing become harder.
⸻
- Long-Term Economic Drain and Wage Stagnation
Parallel: Blue-Collar Wage Decline
• Manufacturing outsourcing led to deindustrialization, urban decay, and decades of wage stagnation for blue-collar workers.
Tech Parallel
• Widespread outsourcing depresses domestic wages for tech workers, especially entry and mid-level roles.
• The “you can’t compete with $10/hour coders” dynamic discourages STEM education, increases job insecurity, and hollows out the middle class of the tech economy.
⸻
- Innovation Gap and Feedback Loops
Parallel: Manufacturing and R&D Separation
• Once R&D and production got separated geographically, iterative improvement slowed.
• Engineers designing in the West couldn’t efficiently prototype or test ideas when production was in Asia.
Tech Parallel
• Software innovation is increasingly dependent on tight feedback loops between users, developers, and designers.
• Outsourced teams often lack cultural context, speed of iteration, and real-time integration with product vision.
• This leads to technical debt, misaligned outcomes, and a culture of “code factories” over craftsmanship.
⸻
- Strategic Employment and Social Stability
Parallel: Rust Belt Fallout
• The collapse of manufacturing towns in the U.S. and UK led to economic displacement, social fragmentation, and political unrest.
Tech Parallel
• The same can occur in a white-collar version if future-focused careers (like software, cybersecurity, AI) are consistently offshored.
• The impact is especially severe in emerging tech hubs in North America and Europe that depend on nurturing homegrown ecosystems.
Between 20 high school graduate workers and 5 college graduate professionals, which is easier to manage?
Total false equivalence. India just throws cheap people at a problem. It’s like nursery school, though with a few diamonds in the rough, in fairness.
I've been noticing Wells has been getting extremely top heavy lately. Time to trim the fat and let it finally tickel down.
Most of the time, I don't understand what Indian workers are saying because of their extremely heavy accent. Wells Fargo's customer base is mainly in the United States. When Indian workers don't speak good English, our customers are not being helped.
Well my manager had 9 under him just a couple years ago, and many left for better opportunities due to Wells shenanigans. Now that I’m leaving also they are left with 4 and aren’t allowed to hire any more.
"More effective at managing resources"
maybe more effective at implementing/tacitly approving of their employees committing internal fraud.
India managers are like Ops. Look up the ratio in Ops, it's about 20 people for every manager.
most managers in US are working managers and actually have to know the ones and outs of their business and what is happening in it, on top of having to manage people and do a lot of the same work they do. most India managers are their from an HR standpoint to.