I’m Outsourcing My Own Job! What’s the Problem With That?

Now this borders on ingenious and unethical and takes the concern for employee engagement to a whole new level.  I was stunned to read last week about a software developer who literally outsourced his own job to China!  That’s right, he gave what I would imagine to be about a quarter or third of his pay and outsourced all of his work to China.  Instead of doing the actual work he would spend the day surfing the web. What is so remarkable about it is that his performance reviews seemed to be stellar and it was even reported that he was the best in the building at ‘his’ job.  The question is, should he be rewarded or fired?  He has certainly shown the company how it can save lots of dollars while maintaining good quality work.  On the other hand, since he did not reveal his activity to the company, he is lying about his work and as creative as he is I am sure that his work ethic and values do not reflect those of his company.  My decision is that he should be terminated on that basis alone.  However, a management system that could allow this behavior to occur without detection is equally culpable. My last thought is that this behavior indicates that the management of this company needs some help in how to bring out the best in people.