1. As PfizerWorks is described here, the analysis of work flow and decisions about which tasks to outsource are handled by individual employees, rather than HR teams or outside analysts. What are some advantages and drawbacks of this approach?
2. If you worked in HR for Pfizer, how would you need to adjust job descriptions and requirements to account for employees’ ability to outsource tasks?
3. The examples in this case refer to managers and scientists. What positions, if any, at Pfizer should not have access to PfizerWorks? Why?

David Cain loves his job. Well, most of it anyway. As an executive director for global engineering at Pfizer, Cain finds real satisfaction in assessing environmental real estate risks, managing facilities, and overseeing a multimillion-dollar budget for the pharmaceutical giant. What he doesn’t love so much: creating PowerPoint slides and riffling through spreadsheets. Lucky for Cain, Pfizer now lets him punt those tedious and time-consuming tasks to India with the click of a button.
PfizerWorks, launched early last year, permits some 4,000 employees to pass off parts of their job to outsiders. You might call it personal outsourcing. With workers in India handling everything from basic market research projects to presentations, professionals such as Cain can focus on higher-value work. “It has really been a godsend,” says Cain. “I can send them something in the evening, and the next morning it’s waiting for me when I get to the office.”