> The problem is a management pattern .... Short-term cost cutting

Absolutely agree with this. Most MBAs are taught to optimize and reduce the slack.

It works fine with machinery and materials, but not with humans.

When machinery is optimized and run thin, when one of them breaks, you can get exact same in couple days (you usually prepare for it earlier), but with humans, they train their brain and next person is different from the first person.

Humans also break in different ways:

* They stop caring - you wouldn't notice it immediately, they will close tickets, but give bare minimum thought

* Communal brain will not be trained when there is not enough room for experiments and learning - which reduces the innovation eventually

This is exactly the reason it is difficult for US companies to compete with Chinese companies in manufacturing, because their communal brain have already trained and produced very good talent.

Next is the knowledge, more you outsource, more you lose it

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gnz11 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Perhaps US companies should invest more in their employees then? Advancement, promotions beyond %1-3% COLAs, career paths, etc would go along way to keep employees interested in seeing their employers succeed instead of jumping ship every couple of years. The would require some effort from the C-suite however and since they jump ship every few years as well, I don't see that changing anytime soon.

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throwaw12 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Invest in employees is very broad statement.

Before investing to employees I think it should revisit management practices and strategies, which starts in MBA and university.

Instead of teaching how to increase shareholder value in the short term, it should also teach how to increase value to the society in the long term as well (and focus on it highly) - not just say: if you win society wins kind of generic fluff.

Without changing management strategies everything becomes short term after a while

	▲	ranger_danger an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> teaching how to increase shareholder value in the short term Problem is this is quite often a requirement for a public company, to maximize company value/profits above all else. Also execs who are more right-wing are typically not interested in helping the larger society in general.