With outsourcing expected to switch to high gear in the coming years, many employees ask the question of how they can a) survive and b) succeed in this global competition with low-wage countries like India or China.

Often people most concerned about outsourcing and global workforce competition are well educated. They worked hard to get where they are today and were hoping to have some sort of job security due to the level of education and training they have received. But the rules have changed fast. Also - working hard and putting in a lot of over-time to please management is not enough anymore. Yet, here you are stuck in a job facing to be outsourced sooner or later to some low-wage country. What else can you do to make yourself more competitive?

Lets face it. If your employer wants to outsource certain pieces of work there is usually not much you can do in regards to your specific job. A call-center representative will not save her job by answering 20 more calls a day. Sooner or later the job will be moved somewhere where labor is cheaper and laws eventually are less favorable for employees.

Employees need to start looking at becoming more aggressive when it comes to career success. This also means to move up and forward more often. This can happen within in the same company (moving up) or outside of the company currently working at (moving forward). The work environment as we know it will change even faster over the next years. Trying to stay ahead is the goal and eventually moving on when the first signs of outsourcing are visible. College graduates will have to expect to learn 4-5 different professions at least before reaching retirement age. Stable industries of today, can be risky to work in tomorrow.

The successful employee of the future will be more aggressive when it comes to compete with other co-workers and when it comes to play the right cards in the game of managing career development. Loyalty to a company is great. Loyal employees are very valuable assets for a company. But loyalty from the business to its employees only goes so far the cash flow is positive and profits are. The employers have changed the rules of loyalty when it comes to making an additional buck via outsourcing. Sorry for interrupting your own American Dream, but we have to lay you off due to market conditions (meaning: we can hire 5 people in India for the same money we pay you alone) this will happen more often.

The successful employee of the future will have to reconsider how far his loyalty goes and when it is time to give the employer the boot (leaving for a better opportunity). Being employed with the same company for 30-40 years is a thing of the past. The new numbers for loyalty to an employer will rather be 5-10 years.