Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hi there and welcome to the podcast. I'm your host, Meryl Johnston. The lifestyle accountant show exists to help today's accounting firm owners build successful firms while also living a healthy, happy life without sacrificing sleep your weekends or time, loved ones. Shout out again to the listeners who have been leaving reviews. We have 15 five star reviews on Spotify and another eight on Apple podcasts. Nikki says, love this podcast. Meryl has a ton of great insights and she asks her guests really good questions to get down to the real nitty gritty of how they actually execute. This podcast is my new fave must listen for anyone in the accounting space. Thanks so much for listening, Nikki, and for leaving that review. If you enjoyed this episode, please go ahead and leave us a review. You can go to ratethispodcast.com forward Slash lifestyleaccounta and simply select your preferred streaming platform. That's ratethispodcast.com lifestyle accountant. Today I have Isaac Smith joining me on the podcast to talk about the benefits of building an offshore team in the Philippines direct rather than via a managed service provider or BPO. Isaac's been a guest previously talking about why your first hire in the Philippines should be a manager. In today's episode, he breaks down the key steps to get started with the direct model, and we also talk about why it's a myth that hiring direct is non compliant. Isaac Smith is the founder of Teamup, which helps accounting firms hire direct in the Philippines via their recruitment service. If you're a regular listener of the show, you'll know that Teamup is a sponsor of the podcast. I'm also an investor in team up, and a few months ago I joined the company in a part time, brand ambassador type role. We have more than 20 team members in the Philippines at Beaningers, and we've worked with two different bpos as well as hiring direct. In my experience, hiring Direct has resulted in a far stronger team culture than when we had the BPO involved. It's also easier on the wallet, too.
A little bit more about Isaac in case you didn't listen to the last episode. As well as team up, he also owns an e commerce and bookkeeping firm and lives in Portland, Oregon, where he gets to snowboard in the winter with his wife and daughter.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: With a BPO, you end up spending all this monthly fee forever for a one time convenience. And so in my view, it's not really a great trade off these days. It's so easy to just get started working with someone directly without any intermediary but I'll just say, yes, there are some benefits to using them. Like you said, they help you get set up. The way I see that is, that's a convenience, especially these days with all the modern tools we have. You and I are looking at each other right now through the magic of the Internet that didn't exist 1015 years ago. And so the service and the value that those bpos provided in the early days was critical.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Today, we cover the pros and cons of hiring direct versus going through a BPO and how you can stay compliant. Salary expectations in real numbers for filipino accountants, and what you'd expect to pay for different levels of experience, how to run a good recruitment process, and common mistakes when hiring direct, three different ways to manage computers with offshore staff. And we also spend a bit of time on onboarding and building strong relationships with team members when you're working remotely. All that and more coming right up on the lifestyle accountant show.
[00:03:44] Speaker C: And now a word from our sponsors.
[00:03:46] Speaker A: This podcast is brought to you by team up, helping you to recruit top filipino accountants without the ongoing monthly fees. They can source with experience working at us or australian firms who are familiar with tools like Xero, QBO, and Dex. They can also recruit specialist roles like bookkeeping, team leaders who have leadership experience, and australian tax specialists. I recently came on board as an investor and advisor to teamup, and I love their ethical approach to the offshoring industry where they look after both the accounting firm and the Filipino accountant. Make sure to check out the team up newsletter for more content on building top tier accounting teams in the Philippines. That's at hireteamup.com. Hireteamup.com.
Isaac, great to be chatting with you.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: I'm so happy to be back. Thanks for having me.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Last time I saw you, we were in the Philippines on an island, Barakai, having a great time, some sunset drinks and sailing. It was awesome.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. Incredible. Just a delightful time.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: It was my first time to the Philippines. We'd had a couple of attempts with beaningers before our first team trip was cancelled due to a volcano. Second was Covid. So this was third time lucky and we held Beancon on Barakai. And it was fantastic that we were able to time your travels to conference in Bangkok with me also, being in the Philippines to have a team up get together as.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: Yeah, like, that's so great for you. You got a two for one there. Two retreats in one on the same island.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Same island.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: What an incredible time.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Same island, different hotels.
[00:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
Oh, my gosh. Sunsets on the beach, sailing, swimming.
Just an incredible time. Yeah.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: I had the slip up of someone asked how my trip was, and I said I had an amazing holiday and then had to catch myself.
I told my partner this was a work trip.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: Yeah, that's so funny, because I've been telling people, it looks like I'm on vacation, but I'm really working really hard here. That sailing trip, oh, it was brutal.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: So today we're here to talk about how an accounting firm owner could get started with hiring direct in the Philippines. But before I do that, I just want to counter a common objection of hiring direct. That's not really compliant, is it?
And I think that that is something that the managed service providers and the bpos want you to believe.
And the common reason that they'll explain that hiring your staff directly isn't compliant or doing your own recruitment or paying a recruiter like team up is because of the payroll aspect. But there are many employment of record service providers out there, and that is an entity that you can engage for a few hundred dollars a month to take care of HR and payroll. By HR and payroll, I mean that they would be an entity in the country that you're operating. So in the Philippines, it's an entity, a filipino entity that would have the employment contract with your team member, and then you would also have a contract with that employer of record service provider, and then they would handle taxes, healthcare, the employment contract, and payroll. So there are tools out there to help you be compliant. Some firms also hire staff as contractors. It's important to look into whether that is appropriate for the way that you're engaging with team members as to whether that is compliant. So I'm not providing any advice there, but I know that some firms are doing that as well, and they would be getting their own advice on that. But to summarize, hiring direct in the Philippines does not mean that you're not being compliant. Well, right. Let's dive in. And I suppose that the starting place, if an accounting or bookkeeping firm owner is thinking about working directly with a filipino accountant or bookkeeper, the first step is probably identifying the role that they're trying to fill in their team. So, Isaac, if we just work through step by step, that process of, from identifying the role to all of the other things that would result in hiring a team member and then getting them set up and onboarded. So what are your thoughts about how to figure out? Well, who should you be hiring next?
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Yeah, well, so I guess to set the context. So we're going to be talking about the step by step from deciding you want to hire offshore and how you would do that if you're going to hire directly. So I think most people know what their next role is going to be. Most people are looking for help getting, whether it's tax work or whether it's accounting or whether it's bookkeeping, reconciliations, whatever the case may be. I think a lot of times people just don't know if it's possible to find someone to do these types of things in a place like the Philippines. And I think the fun, easy, quick answer is, yes, it is just about anything that you need done. You can find a really great, talented, ambitious person to come join your team in the Philippines.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Amazing. And so I think that helps in understanding. Okay, if I was looking for someone that's got experience with us taxes or someone that could lead a team, yes, you can hire. There's that kind of talent somewhere like the.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, this is a new idea for a lot of people in the US or Australia thinking about expanding their teams overseas, but it's not a new thing for them.
They've been doing this work for international companies for, I don't know, maybe a couple of decades at this point. And it started out as the big companies were doing this first. Right?
And then as the technology evolved, it became easier and easier for people like you and me to establish direct, one on one relationships with people over there.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: And I think one of the common questions at this stage, once someone's decided, yes, they want to build a team offshore outside of Australia, America, the country. What country do I go to? And I know I've had that experience myself and have hired staff both in India and the Philippines. And that's probably a topic for another day. But there's, I'd say, pros and cons of each. I know in America there's a time zone. Mexico is probably a bit closer than the Philippines, and then there's other locations to consider as well. So what are your thoughts on making that decision about what country to hire this international team from?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question because a lot of people get stuck there sometimes. And I'll just say, I've worked with people all over the world. I've worked with people in Egypt, Pakistan, India, Philippines, Eastern Europe, a lot of places. And the thing I can say is, you can find great people in every country.
Now, there are a couple of standouts. Well, one main standout for me is the Philippines. And over time, I started hiring more and more in the Philippines and as things go, just you do more of that. And so now I'm not really considering other countries for most of my hires. And it's because the Philippines has a critical mass of really highly talented, highly educated, skilled workforce that speaks English and is used to working with international companies, especially companies in the US, Canada, and Australia. So there's just a critical mass of people who, this is not a new thing for them. They want this. They're ambitious, and they have a great education system over there. They're pumping out really great graduates all the time. And of course, there's a lot of people above the graduate level. You can hire people with a lot of experience as well because they just have a great education, great industry, strong ties to countries like mine and yours.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: Let's assume that we've decided on the country we're going to move forward with the Philippines. I think another common question or something to consider is how should I source this person, and should I go through an offshoring provider or a BPO that handles everything, or should I go direct? The theme of the podcast episode today is really to help you get started with hiring direct, but I think it is important just to discuss some of the pros and cons. So maybe briefly you could compare what an experience would be like if you went through a BPO compared to if you went direct.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So a BPO, let's just start and explain a couple of the terms for everybody listening. So BPO, that stands for business process outsourcing. And so most people, when they think of outsourcing, they think of a company who probably has an office, they're hiring people, and you have a contractual relationship with them. And for the most part, you can sort of think of it as they're leasing you staff. Kind of. That's kind of a crude way of saying it, but that's the idea, is they're not really your staff. Yes, you can sometimes have direct communication with them, but they're not yours. They're under this larger companies, right? So they'd have an office. They have computers, desks and all of that.
Another way of going, another direction is to hire direct. And this is what I've always done. It works really well for me and a lot of the people I work with. And the main difference is then, of course, if you hire someone directly, that's your staff, right. You can build a relationship with them.
There's nobody that's going to get in between you and them. There's not going to be any office politics in the background that you're unaware of that's making people upset. You can train them the way that you want, and, of course, when you pay somebody directly, you don't have to pay that huge markup and all the other fees. So that's kind of the difference.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: And I might add to that, as an accounting firm owner, I have used both of these models. I've worked with two different bpos or offering providers at beatingers, and then also we've sourced directly, too. And I think the BPO, it can be helpful when you're just getting started, because they do take care of things like that, office space and sorting out computers and hiring. But once we'd been at it for a couple of years, it felt like the cost of that monthly fee that we paid for every person really did not outweigh the benefit once we'd figured some of those things out. And so then I'm more of a fan of the direct model, especially for a firm that's been outsourcing for a couple of years. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, you can pair that with an employer of record service if you want your team members to be employees through a filipino entity.
[00:15:31] Speaker B: Can I just add one little thing? So I know that we're going to do a different episode on bpos and go really deep into all of that, but I'll just say, yes, there are some benefits to using them. Like you said, they help you get set up. The way I see that is, that's a convenience, especially these days with all the modern tools we have. You and I are looking at each other right now, right through the magic of the Internet that didn't exist 1015 years ago. And so the service and the value that those bpos provided in the early days was critical. These days, it's so easy to just get started working with someone directly without any intermediary. And, yes, that means you do have to answer the question, which we will in just a minute. What do you do about technology? Right?
But that's really just a convenience, a one time convenience. And with a BPO, you end up spending, like you said, all this monthly fee forever for a one time convenience. And so, in my view, it's not really a great trade off.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Well, let's get into that. So if you've made the decision you're going to hire direct, then there's some problems to solve, like it equipment, which we'll come back to.
But I suppose the next question is, well, what's the salary? It's a different market. How do I figure out what the salary is for this particular role. And if I'm looking for a manager or someone with five years experience, it's probably different to someone with one year experience. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:17:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I can give you the ranges. We're doing this recruiting every day, so we're in it, we know it.
I'll just tell you the numbers here. So if you're looking for an accountant or a bookkeeper or someone like that, a tax prep professional, let's say accountant for now. If you're looking for someone with one to three years, I'm going to give you some ranges so you can go ahead and get your pens out and write this down. I'm going to give you the filipino pesos number and then I'll also give the US dollar equivalent. So one to three years, you're looking at someone making a salary that they would expect is about 40,000 to 60,000 pesos a month. Now, for those of us, we're not used to that currency. So that's about $700 on the low end to about 1050 on the high end. And I know that a lot of people listening because I have this conversation with many people, are going to go like, wait a minute, $700, really? That's somebody's salary?
Yeah, it is. And that's actually a good wage. And I'll get to that in just a second. But let me get through the other sort of experience brackets.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: I'll ask a quick question.
[00:18:21] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: So is the one to three years, is that total accounting experience, or is that accounting experience with an international business?
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Yes, thank you for asking. I forgot to clarify that.
So this is actually with an american or australian or canadian firm. So they will probably have more experience locally in the Philippines. But I'm just talking about years of experience with firms like ours. So three to five years, you're going there from that 60,000, which is the US dollar equivalent of 1050, going up to about 80,000 at five years, and that would be about 1400. Beyond that five years and up, you're looking at maybe 80,000, up to 120,000, which would be about 21, 25. So a little over $2,000. And as you see, very experienced people with a lot of skills, maybe more qualifications, right. That can go up.
The highest I've ever seen, actually is just over $3,000 US. And so the pesos would be like 170,000, 180,000. So that's the raw data. And I do have one note. Salaries, expectations are going up. It is a hot and dynamic market. We're going to be redoing our numbers, our guide, in the next couple of months, and we do expect to see those numbers to go up a bit. We're not quite sure exactly where we'll put it, but when we're working with accountants to recruit, we take in, of course, all their details, what they're looking for, and then we can give a much more accurate suggestion as what the salary would be.
[00:20:22] Speaker A: And I'll add that we're recording in November of 2023.
These salaries are accurate at around this date. And Azac said they may change over time.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And if you're listening to this six months from now, add 200, $300 a month to what I said.
It's a good rule of thumb. It's not going to be hugely different. It's funny, that difference will make a huge impact on someone in the Philippines, but quite frankly, for us, it's not that big of a deal. So the next question that I want to get to, which is people are thinking probably, oh, my gosh, Isaac, are you serious? You can't be serious. You're going to pay someone less than $2,000 a month.
Yeah, I know. It's crazy.
That's less than my mortgage. Right. And it's at someone's entire salary.
It kind of breaks our brains to think about this. And so I do want to comment on this, because this is important. It's really important to me that we're treating people well. And if there's any question about that, I want to clear that up. I want to give you an idea of what normal salaries are in the Philippines. Imagine somebody, an accountant who has a few years of experience working at a local accounting firm in Manila.
On average, that person is getting paid about $500 a month, maybe 450, and that's their entire salary.
You're an accountant, right? That's solidly middle class. That's not bad. Right? So I know it's hard to believe, but that's really what it is. And so when you offer this type of an opportunity to somebody over there to make 700 on the very lowest end, oftentimes you're doubling their salary, sometimes even tripling, because now they're exposed to a global market for talent. Right. There's all these firms in the US, everywhere else who really demand this type of talent. And so it's really a great thing for them. And one last thing. I know we want to move on, but one last thing on that topic is the traffic in Manila and the other large cities in the Philippines is horrendous. And I'm not exaggerating when I say it's often two to 3 hours each way. So when someone comes and takes a job with a firm like ours and gets to work from home, not only are you often doubling their salaries, but then they don't have that commute. And oftentimes these are parents. So if you can imagine telling a mom, okay, I'm going to double your salary and you're going to get five more hours with your kids every day.
Imagine what a difference that makes in their lives. It's crazy.
It's an incredible opportunity and they're thrilled for it.
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[00:24:28] Speaker A: Actually, that comment resonates with me, and that was something that I loved with Bimcon, was hearing some of those stories. And so we had two mums that had been doing the commute and now working remotely for us are able to homeschool their kids. So they're part time, they work part time and can homeschool their kids because they want to provide a better education to their families than what's available in their area. And then another guy helping to put his brothers and sisters through college, now earning significantly more than he did in a previous role. So there's lots of stories like that of people helping their families and in some cases helping the community too. We've got a number of team members involved in church groups and charities. They've got time for that now that they're not spending time on the commute and they're earning better salaries. So that was really heartwarming and something that really stood out for me in meeting our team and spending time together while we were on Barocco.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: I love that. What an honor, right?
What an incredible honor to be able to. I mean, I don't deserve any of the credit for this. Right. But they give us the credit. Right. They're so grateful to have the opportunities that they have through us and it feels really great to be able to be a conduit that good things can happen through.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: So we've talked about salaries, now let's talk about the recruitment process itself. So we scoped up the role and we have a bit of an idea of market salary. How do we actually go about finding the right person?
[00:26:04] Speaker B: Great. Yeah. So you have a lot of options and if you're going to recruit somebody directly, of course, you can just go out and do the recruiting on your own. Right. There are companies like ours that do the recruiting, but one thing that I would like to mention is make sure you put in the effort that it needs to have. So I've been doing business online and hiring people internationally for actually almost ten years now, and I've made a lot of mistakes in those early years and I've learned what not to do. Some of the not to do things are, is to post a job.
Just a normal, like, going on these websites and looking what job descriptions are out there and say, oh, that's what a job description looks like. I'll just post one of those with my information. Putting that on there, you might get 20 or 30 applications in your inbox, you might get a flood of them, but that's really where the effort comes in. You need to actually put a lot of time and energy in filtering through the right people because what happens is the Internet is the Internet Internet going to Internet, right? They're going to flood you with so many applications and resumes and messages that you're just not going to have time to talk to everybody. And so what's going to happen is if that's the case, you might pick a handful of people to interview, and if that's not the case and you get like 20 or 30 emails, which used to happen to me, and you think like, oh, yeah, 20 or 30, that's a pretty good number. No, it's not.
So you end up talking with five to ten people and half of them, you realize we should not be wasting each other's time here. I shouldn't be talking to you. This isn't good for either of us. And then like the two or three that seem reasonable, you end up hiring one. And it doesn't work out for any number of reasons. So it's really important that you do it right because you want to find the right person you don't want to be back here three to five months later after that didn't work out, trying it again.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: So roughly how many applicants, what's a good number of applicants to have for a job, and what's a good number on the short list or number of interviews?
[00:28:36] Speaker B: If you're doing this yourself, which I used to, I would put out, first of all, you got to start with a great job description, and we can get to that in a minute if we want. I would go on these job boards, whether it's upwork or online jobs, there's a whole bunch of them. And I would browse through candidate profiles and I would manually invite, I'm not exaggerating, hundreds of them. And so if you do that right, some percentage of them, it's a numbers game. It's like sales and marketing. Some percentage of them will respond. So when I was doing this myself, I would aim to have roughly 100 to 200 responses, and I would not talk to any of them because it takes too much time. I would send them a nice sounding templated email that says, hey, thanks for applying. I'm excited. Right. This is a great opportunity. I have an application I'd like you to fill out. Click here to fill out the Google form.
And that was a pretty in depth form asking lots of questions about them and their history.
And I would aim to have about 75 completed applications.
If you don't have 50, the chances of success get lower.
And so then I would. I would have another application. Sometimes not, but I would usually interview about ten. And of them I would have two to three who were just phenomenal. If I can't decide between these two or three, that's the best problem to have.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Yeah, that makes sense. And that sounds quite time consuming as well.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yes, very.
But if you want a good result, I mean, that's just what it takes. You have to put in the effort and the time or pay someone else to do it.
[00:30:40] Speaker A: All right, well, let's assume that the recruitment process has gone really well and there's those three phenomenal candidates ready to make offers, even to one or two of those.
What does that next step look like in terms of the letter of offer and getting a contract signed?
[00:30:57] Speaker B: It's pretty simple. You want to go over some basic things like what are your policies around holidays and vacation time? And you want to ask some questions, making sure. Oh, here. I didn't think of this until just now. This is actually really important.
You want to ask some very pointed questions. One is these words, is this salary enough for you to give us your full time energy and attention, because what you'll find if you're using these job boards, most of these people are freelancers, and they think of themselves as freelancers, not as full time employees. And so if you don't do this step or if you get this wrong, you'll find yourself working with someone who has four or five other clients and that not being what you expected and finding out they don't have enough time for you. And then of course, you're a nice person, so you're not so demanding. And the other clients are very demanding. And so you get lower and lower on their priority list and eventually find out are they even working at. And so you want to ask these questions, is this enough to give us your full time energy and attention?
It is okay with me if they have some other side hustle or something. This is the Philippines. That's part of their culture. They're hustlers. That's great. But I want at least their full time.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: Do you have any other questions like that?
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Yeah, I do.
I have a list of them that I always go through when I'm doing this offer call. There's that. There's a few others just off the top of my head. I don't have all of them. But you do want to ask also, how are you prepared for a blackout or Internet goes down, right? It's the Philippines. Internet and power has gotten better and better over the years, but still there's a random typhoon every now and then. And so what are our plans? So it's just important to talk about what they are.
You don't need to have 100% availability. It's fine if they miss a day here and there, but you want to at least know what's happening. And then the other explicit question around that is not just the salary, but this is a full time job. Do you understand that? Can you? And are you willing to give us 40 hours a week or whatever it is? And if you have set hours, it's these hours a lot of times.
Some of these details you just need to reiterate at the end as you're making the offer just to make sure that that understanding didn't just slip through the cracks.
[00:34:01] Speaker A: So let's assume that that call went well. They said yes, they can give their full attention. They've got the 40 hours a week. They have a backup plan in place for power or Internet outages, and they sign the contract. What's the next step?
[00:34:17] Speaker B: Onboarding, I actually realized I think I would like to say one more thing about that. I made a big deal about making sure they can give you your full time attention. That's because I had so many bad experiences. But those bad experiences, each time I had one, I changed my recruiting process. So I made it more robust. So if you have a robust recruiting process that's going to filter out the people who don't belong there, you don't need to put so much focus on that. So when we're doing recruiting, I'm not worried about that because we've got it handled in our recruiting process. So by the time they get to our clients, that's a non issue. So what's the next step? Onboarding. I know you need to decide, are they going to be using their own computers? Computers you send. So maybe we should talk about that, I guess, before onboarding. What are you preparing? How are you preparing to get them ready to work? So this is a common question that I get all the time. Well, yeah. What do I do about it? What do I do about computers? So I'm going to answer that.
I'm going to give you options because there's not one right option for everybody.
And so I'm going to give you three options.
And if you're listening, there's a good chance that you're going to hear one of these and go, oh, my gosh, I can't believe you would do that. That's totally inappropriate.
But there's somebody else who's going to say the same thing about a different option.
So one option is just have them use their own personal computer.
And for some firms, that's totally fine.
Yes. And we'll get to it security in just a second. But assuming you've got best practices and all of that, yeah, that can be fine for some firms.
Other firms want to make sure that they're using company laptop and that's not used for their personal life. So you've got a couple of options. One is we have actually had an accounting firm that we're working with actually ship laptops from the US to the Philippines, which struck me as a little bit od. But I guess they have an IT department and maybe they want to set the computers up before the employee starts using them then. Okay. I guess that's what they need to do.
Another option is you could have them go out to one of their local stores and buy a computer and reimburse them for that.
If you have certain things you want to set up on that computer, you can do that with them. You can have your IT department do that with them.
That's a good option. That's probably my preferred option. If you want them using company laptops, you can budget, I don't know, 600, $700 for that. If you want them to be using a larger screen monitor, right. You can do that too. That might cost you $150, something like that.
Another option is to have them remote into a server or another computer in your office.
And I've been talking with an IT professional and this is his favorite way, this is the way he thinks it's the most secure because then no information ever leaves your physical office in that way. So there's a lot of options.
Some of them are going to seem really overkill to some people and others going to seem just right.
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[00:38:57] Speaker A: All history, notes and action items are.
[00:38:59] Speaker C: Easily accessible within the brief portal. So if you're interested in delivering meaningful advisory services to your clients in a scalable way, then check out brief. That's Brief. Side note I am an angel investor.
[00:39:14] Speaker A: And really appreciate the team's approach to.
[00:39:17] Speaker C: Business and also love receiving their regular investor updates.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: I'm curious about that remote dial in option. I used to do that years ago when I was an audit junior and we would remote into the office and it was so slow. Internet speeds and technology has probably improved a lot since then. So that's interesting that that's still an option that's around these days.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Yeah, the professional I was talking to says he works with thousands of accountants and meant a lot of remote workers and that's what a lot of them do and it seems to work great.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: So the team member's got their it equipment, they've signed the contract, they're ready to get going, and with an offshoring company or a BPO, they're probably the ones that are going to manage that onboarding process to make sure that team member has a good first 30 or 60 days with the business and then they're also sometimes involved in the ongoing performance management of that team member too. But if you're going direct, then that's something that you would need to manage. So what are your thoughts on making sure that they have a great 1st, 60 days and then that ongoing performance management of the team member?
[00:40:33] Speaker B: I love this topic and this is so critical and I think most people don't give it the attention that is due. If you just throw somebody into work and I know nobody's going to, if you're listening, you're going to say, I wouldn't do that. But if you just put people right into the work, they're not going to really understand what they're doing. It's really, really important that they have the context for where they are.
What company is this? What are the values of this company? And when you're hiring direct, I think it's more natural to see these people as really part of your team, not just some outsourced person over there, but this is really part of our team, this new person we're bringing in. So just like anybody you would hire locally, you, I'm sure, want to give them a good onboarding experience.
And here are just some things that I do and that I would strongly recommend. Like I said, tell them about the firm. What is this company? Who started it? Why? What's that story?
Are there any fun stories there?
Who are the clients? Is there anything special about the clients? Do you just work with dentists?
And how does their work make an impact on their clients and their businesses and their employees? Right. People want to be connected with what they're doing. They want to know that it's making a real impact in the real world. So talk through all of that stuff. It's fun, I think. Tell them about your values. Hopefully you have some values.
What's your culture like?
How do you work together? Like all of these things I think are so important and I don't know, we get feel like we're busy and we skip over these a lot of times.
So expect to spend a couple of weeks going through these things. You don't want to just bombard them constantly, but you can expect to drip it out slowly.
What I do actually is I have a video series. I've recorded all of the topics I've just said and more. I've recorded videos about them so that I don't have to have this conversation every time. But if you don't have time to make those videos, that's fine. But just know that you'll want to talk with your team members about these things. This is true no matter where they are.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: And then what about ongoing performance management? You've got a team member, particularly if you're in the US, different time zone, other side of the world. Do you have any tips or strategies to help with that?
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. I guess. Let's back up just a minute. Finish the onboarding thing. So as somebody is coming on and training, expect to spend an hour or two every day on calls, on Zoom calls, talking about the work, the company, all of that stuff, and just expect to be available for questions. And I know that when this is in person in the office, that's just natural and normal, because they can walk by and say, hey, I need help with this, or whatever it is.
I guess this is not different from hiring someone remotely within your country.
It's just hiring someone remotely. This is just how it would go. So then performance ongoingly, assuming everything's going well, their first few weeks, they're doing what you expect. Right.
And this is looking like, yes, this is actually a good fit.
You'll want to do a few things. Like, I alluded to working remotely. I'm a huge fan of remote work. I love it. I've built my companies this way. I'm a huge proponent of it. But there are trade offs. And just like I said, you can't just pop in and ask somebody something, right? So you have to actually be much more intentional about building the relationships with your team. And so your question was about performance. I always start with relationship, and then we get to performance.
So you've got to have a good foundation, and that happens through contact. Right. So you can actually, believe it or not, build a good relationship with someone over Zoom calls. It's real. I've done it, and you can. So here's what I would recommend.
For the first couple of months, have regular calls with them. Let's just say three or four times a week.
It might just be ten or 20 minutes. Just, hey, how are you doing? And really try to get to know them personally. Do they have kids? What are their kids names? Are they in school? How are they? Right.
I ask my team almost always, before we get into business, how's your family?
You can see their eyes light up. Okay, so now they get to talk about their kids, right? This is just being human.
But for some reason, when we're on the Internet, we forget about these things.
In fact, there was a guy, I was talking to an accountant just yesterday, and he asked me.
I've heard retention is a problem in working with overseas people, how do you handle that? And I went and I explained all of these things to him, all the things that I do, and he said, oh, you're just being kind. And I was like, oh, yeah, that's it. Just be kind.
Provide a great opportunity for people. They're never going to want to leave.
So expect in the first couple of weeks, maybe the first month or two, have frequent calls with them.
And then as they become more comfortable working more independently, then that frequency can be reduced. I really like to check in with my direct reports twice a week, if I can, for an hour.
And yeah, we're going to talk about work, but again, a lot of that time we're talking about just personal things. It's really important to me to keep that personal connection up.
If you have a larger team, more than just one or two of you, you'll want to have staff meetings, have weekly staff calls, whereas the whole team, and they don't have to be super formal or anything. But again, it's really just establishing that connection, maintaining that connection.
Another thing that we've done are like happy hours. And I like to do this when we hit a milestone. Let's say we hit some milestone, something we want to celebrate having, like, say, sending everybody some money and saying, go get your favorite takeout, and we're going to have meals together, we're going to play silly games, silly online Internet games, and just have fun for an hour with all of those things. I think you should be good.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. And I think that particularly up front, putting in the time to build that relationship is important. And as the business grows, and this is something I found, it doesn't necessarily need to be you as the founder over time. But I think it's important with a small team, as you're growing a team, that that is you as the founder of the business, and eventually you'll have leaders and managers within your business, and maybe that will become their job to onboard and build relationships with these new team members. And it might not always be you, but I think it should always be someone's job when a new team member comes on board to make sure that they have a great first experience and they're building some of those relationships, particularly being intentional about that when it is remote. Because as you said, it's not like in the office where you can just pop by and hearing you talk. I know regular listeners of the podcast will know I talk about asynchronous communication and trying to have as fewer calls as possible.
And that's something where I can probably learn from you. Is scheduling more of those calls for relationship building, because bloom videos often are more about getting down to business and talking about tasks or strategy. And I think it's harder to build relationships that way. So maybe I'm coming around to a few more calls.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I would say I love this loom video. And actually what you and I have been doing working together now is loom videos to do. Almost all work can be done via loom video, unless it's like a brainstorming session.
That's actually really fantastic. And so what that does is it eliminates the need for when we do have a call to really talk about anything specific. And that really can be. So, going back to what I was saying, you have to be so intentional when you're remote about building those relationships. And so that allows almost all of your one on one call time to be just fun, just whatever you want.
[00:50:15] Speaker A: I'm a huge fan of hiring direct. I think that the managed services or BPO model, that business model, is better for the bpos than it is for the accounting firms or the filipino accountants. And I think this direct model results in better team culture because there's no middleman. You're forming that culture directly with your team members. The contracts are more favorable both for you as the accounting firm owner, not having to worry about things like exit fees and ongoing fees. And also you can craft better contracts for the filipino accountants that don't restrict their future work rights and look after them. So I'm a huge fan of this direct model and I'd encourage more accountants and bookkeepers to consider it. And I hope you've found it helpful today, having Isaac on, talking through all of those steps that are required in order for you to hire direct. So, Isaac, thanks for coming on today. It's been awesome to chat. So, Isaac, we're going to wrap up on the topic of hiring direct in the Philippines. Before we do, did you have any final thoughts, parting words on the topic?
[00:51:23] Speaker B: Well, I just wanted to share. As you can probably hear from my voice, I'm super passionate and I love this building teams and I love what we're doing and it's one of my favorite topics to talk about. So if you have any questions, any at all, I'm happy to chat with you. Feel free to reach out to me. You can find me on LinkedIn. If you search my name, you can go to our website, hireteamup.com, and there's going to be buttons there for you to be able to schedule a call with me. So yeah, happy to answer any questions that listeners have.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: Amazing. Thanks, Isaac. Talk to you again soon.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Thank you. This has been great.
[00:52:07] Speaker A: That was fun chatting with Isaac again. That was his second episode on the podcast. Now that I'm working at team up part time, I'm actually collaborating with Isaac on a regular basis. I really enjoy learning from him around building accounting and bookkeeping teams in the Philippines, but he also has a business mind that I respect. I've pulled out a couple of points from the episode that resonated with me. This topic is something that I care about, and having had team members in the Philippines via two different bpos, and having had one bad experience, and having also hired directly, I want to encourage more accounting and bookkeeping firm owners to consider the direct option. You can use something like an employer of record service to handle payroll compliance. And to me, the real benefit is around team culture, that you don't have somebody else who needs to approve pay rises or whether someone has to work from the office or what computer equipment they have. You can make all of those decisions and manage all of that yourself and build one team rather than an onshore and offshore team. So I really like the team culture benefit, and also it gets expensive. If you're paying a monthly fee and you've got 20 staff in the Philippines at some point, I don't think you're seeing value for money once you've got some experience with working with your offshore team. Bbos definitely have their place, particularly when you're first getting started, but they're not the only option out there. So a couple of points that I took away from this episode. One, that your job description is a sales letter, and Isaac talked about this, but if you're trying to attract high quality people, they've probably got plenty of options. And so if they do have lots of options, how do you stand out and how do you attract them to your firm? And part of that is having a job description that is going to attract those type of people, the volume of applicants that Isaac's looking for in a successful recruitment campaign. So that surprised me. He mentioned ideally having around 200 applicants per role, and that's a lot of work to get that many people applying for a job. So starting with that, then you can whittle it down to find those best applicants. He mentioned three different it options and ways that you can manage it. Risk with an offshore team, and they're quite different. He mentioned knowing a firm is doing all three of those options. So it sounds like firm owners across or around the world have different risk tolerances and different preferences. And then the last point that stood out to me was asking this specific question. Before you hire someone, is this salary enough for you to give us your full time energy and attention? This is particularly important for those of you that are running your own recruitment process somewhere like upwork, because if you're using those job boards, most of those people are freelancers and may be wanting to work for your firm as well as multiple others, which may not be what you're trying to achieve.
