As every master of Human Resources knows, efficiency is always maximised by firing in-house workers and contracting outside forces to do the job of the recently laid off employees. This both improves productivity and keeps employees on their toes by generating a constant background sense of fear for their job security.
Outer-sourcing harnesses the power of Synergy to make this process even more effective. By collecting large amounts of synergy and drawing the appropriate corporate pentacles and octograms and filling them with strategy documents and personal specifications the Synergist may invoke the presence of a variety of potent business entities to preform tasks for them. Alternatively the Guru may use the Synergy to commence a recruiting drive among ex-employees calling forth semi-skilled labour from retirement to work for peanuts.
The Synergy used for Outer-Sourcing must be generated through Downsizing; the process of remorselessly reducing the size of the workforce. This is most effectively achieved by firing skilled employees, the more skilled the better. Smaller amounts of synergy can also be generated by demotions or reassignments to less high-profile projects. The amount of Synergy generated is also strongly dependant on how many people are Downsized. Firing a working group is good but decimating an entire department is better.
Auditing and Bureaucracy are the Core Competencies best employed for downsizing employees either overtly or discretely.
Outer-Sourcing can summon a variety of helpful entities to aid with projects, achieve objectives or leverage corporate resources. Temporarily contracted business beings tend to be extremely competent at specific tasks and will work diligently until their contract expires at which point they will return to the mysterious realms from whence they came with only a customer satisfaction survey left as any evidence of their involvement.
While they tend to be extremely good at their jobs these entities are very limited to their particular roles and are completely ineffective outside them. This means that the guru cannot generally renegotiate terms with them, with the rites of Outer-Sourcing summoning them for particular ends and nothing else.
Ex-employees tend to score lower on most psychometric tests than regular employees, particularly in those relating to verbal reasoning and social skills. However, what they lack in ability they more than make up for in numbers, company loyalty, remorselessness and ability to pick-the-brains of current employees.
Ex-employees tend to make current employees uncomfortable with their outmoded ways, casual dress code and often dubious personal hygiene. The Guru may wish to bear this in mind when employing them.
Using a piece of personalised stationary as the focus for the synergy the guru calls forth a lesser stationery elemental; a whirling cloud of biros, post-it notes and empty staplers. This simple being will briefly run rampant in the area, animating all stationery present and generally causing chaos as it pours correction fluid over important documents and laminates anything that moves. This is an excellent of way of clearing an office, as panicked employees flee, or creating a diversion.
You rehire a single employee calling them back from retirement to do your bidding. Such rehired employees are incapable of complex tasks but can perform simple chores in a very single minded fashion requiring no lunch breaks, holidays or sleep. Once assigned a role they are very hard to stop, should secondary redundancy be required destruction of the brainstem is the recommended procedure.
The guru channels the power of Synergy to call the upon the aid of outside professional technical support. After a few moments of muzak this summons a group of Code Monkeys. These easily angered, tie-wearing primates are excellent at causing havoc with complex mechanical and electrical systems and may be directed to one such system of the guru's choosing.
Please note. Summons of the Code Monkeys may be recorded for training purposes.
You reassign an ex-employee, or even a current employee who has just been made redundant, to a new role in an inanimate object. The ex-employee will take control of the object leveraging it for improved productivity in the workplace. This is an excellent way of making office furniture, statuary or vending machines get with the programme and start pulling their weight.
Using a projector lit with a black candle the Guru delivers a synergy infused project overview seminar within a corporate octogram. This will summon a Management Consultant, mysterious and elusive beings from elsewhere. Consultant's strange powers make them incredibly effective at project management and the summoned Consultant may be assigned to a single company project. Any project on which on Consultant works will likely go spectacularly well unless subject to extensive sabotage or procrastination and the Guru will take much of the credit for this.
A note of caution. Assigning multiple consultants to a single project is not advised due to the risk of hyper-efficiency.
You rehire a sizeable contingent of ex-employees recalling them them from retirement to form a loyal working group that you may assign a simple task too. Such working groups are excellent at breaking down barriers to success such as red-tape and barricaded doors.
The guru makes an arch on a wall out of business plans and finance reports. Empowering this doorway with Synergy the Guru opens a gateway to a new revenue stream and agrees a funding round with an Angel Investor, glorious financial advisors with burning briefcases and golden corporate stationary. These beings are able to provide the Guru with any single resource the guru desires in vast amounts, ensuring it is delivered in a timely and efficient manner. Gold, Silver, Nuclear fuel, Repackaged sub-prime mortgage derivatives…anything.
The Guru burns the CV of an employee they wish to downsize. This calls for the black suited form of the Grim Redundancy Advisor, against whom no lock may hold nor golden parachute deter. The Advisor will hunt down the intended target, advise them of possible future career paths and then make them redundant.
Such outside use of recruitment professionals is frowned up by the company and disciplinary proceedings will result if their use is discovered.
Infused with a huge amount of Synergy the guru invokes the most terrible of rites of Outer-Sourcing. Reality itself is reassigned to an oversight role as the guru opens a gateway into the outer realms of corporate oblivion. Through this gateway come the Administrators, the ancient and terrible beings who were once sealed away by the solicitor-shamans of old. The Administrators are able to wreak terrible doom upon a corporate entity and are able to strip the assets of entire companies if given the chance. When invoked they will downsize a single thing of the gurus choosing in a devastating display of corporate might.
The guru places a synergy infused job advert somewhere near many ex-employees invoking a mass recruitment drive for an army of the downsized. This will call forth a vast workforce of ex-employees to be assigned a task by the guru. Of course with an such large organisational upheaval there are likely to be unforeseen consequences and teething problems are likely to be encountered. Actual teething problems.