The Wize Way

Episode 132: Building a team in another country - How to dramatically change the future of your firm using our Wize offshoring strategy?

• Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers • Season 2 • Episode 132

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In this episode of The Wize Guys Podcast, hosts Kristy Fairbairn and Thomas S. Phabmixay discuss the strategic advantages of building an offshore team, addressing key areas such as:

  • How to get started with offshoring  
  • Building an offshore team- step to growing your business  
  • Reasons why offshoring is a win-win for all 

 This episode is a must-listen for business owners looking to expand intelligently and sustainably through offshoring!

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Wize Mentoring:

From Wize Mentoring is The Wize Guys Podcast, a show about accounting and bookkeeping practice owners and the many stories, lessons, and tips from their experience of transitioning from a time- poor practice to a business that runs without them. I hope you enjoy and subscribe.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Today's topic is building a team in another country, and how to dramatically change the future of your firm using our wise offshoring strategy. And I'm very excited to have Thomas here to speak to this topic in particular because he's really built an amazing team in the Philippines and you know when I was growing out my team and feeling very nervous about how it all would work, he was a great source of support for me to sort of guide me through it. So, Thomas, great to have you here on this very important topic.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

I love this topic.

Kristy Fairbairn:

This is my people oh no, okay, so how do you get started with offshoring?

Thomas Sphabmixay:

Yes, yes, so I like to backtrack on this. It's. You pretty much want to start by thinking about your needs, okay, um, you know you're going to hear from a lot of people that offshoring is great, it's profitable, you're going to make more money. But beyond that, try to think about what sort of use cases you might have for actually building out an offshoring team. Building an offshore team doesn't just mean you're reducing your costs. There are other advantages. You have a global hiring market. Certain countries are known for being stronger in certain skill sets than others, not to generalize or anything, but for example, in India, they are very ahead on their technology, they're great for working with software, but maybe not so great for client managing, whereas in the Philippines, they're trained on a US-based accent and they might tend to communicate a bit better. So understand your own needs first. Think about how you can take advantage of offshoring. Besides the fact that you're going to save money when you're getting started with offshoring, take a look now at your technology. How are people communicating? What systems do you have for people to chat with each other? Are you still relying on email? Do you have for people to chat with each other? Are you still relying on email? If you're a physical office, take note of how much in-office physical communication is happening and then realize that those conversations your offshore team isn't going to see, and that's a challenge. If any team member isn't across what's happening in the rest of the firm and they're kept in the dark, they're obviously going to be less effective. So in getting started with offshoring, I would just keep it simple Think about your use case. Think about advantages besides the cost savings. Think about the global talent pool that you'd have access to. Jamie said that there are 100 million people in the Philippines and a decent proportion of them are accountants. But, wise, we've experienced hiring in countries beyond the Philippines. Now we're in Vietnam and India or Sri Lanka or Mexico and so many other places. And a second point is choosing the right partner for offshoring. So there are so many ways to actually initiate the hiring process with offshoring. Once you've figured out your use case and established some basic online communication systems, think about the person, and the company that you're going to work with.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

A lot of people like to go down the BPO route, and BPOs are essentially companies in those home countries where the offshoring is happening. They set up offices and they hire locally and they basically manage the people for you. But what we're finding now, in 2024, compared to 2019 and even 2015 and 2010, is that firms after COVID are a lot more confident hiring directly, and what that did to the hiring market in 2019 was the demand for offshoring has increased dramatically and those who relied purely on a BPO to source them clients found themselves competing for quality staff within the pool of staff that exists within the BPO with the other clients in the BPO. Okay, and when everyone's trying to grab quality staff, who do you think the BPOs are going to serve first? They're going to serve their big clients. They're going to serve their William Box. They're going to serve their Moore Stevens. They're not thinking about the average small, medium accounting firm. So choose the right partner and then think about how that partner is actually sourcing the candidates for you and how it's being managed. Okay.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

So in this case, at Wize, we eventually now advocate for a direct hiring model. It just makes so much sense. If you're interviewing and recruiting and looking at resumes from within a BPO, that's very limited. Why not just look at everyone? And then people who work at BPOs do apply to firms that are offering direct positions anyway. So it's really changed in 2024. We recommend firms take a direct hiring approach. So look for a partner that is going to help you actually directly hire into your firm.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Just on that, Thomas, there are quite a few benefits of direct hire out there where oftentimes know, oftentimes when you're outsourcing through a BPO as opposed to just offshoring, in the outsourcing model there's obviously the seat fee that the outsourcing firm collects and then there may be other fees and charges that they hold back and then the employee gets their share of the fee that you pay, whereas when you direct hire you can directly negotiate with the team member of what entitlements that they require. And you know, again, with BPOs they tend to honour a lot of the local public holidays and there are a lot in the Philippines. There are new public holidays all the time. So it's quite disruptive. Whereas when you direct hire you can set the standard from the beginning because it's your working relationship. You're not bound by whatever agreements the BPOs have in place collectively as an organisation. So you can negotiate better work days, and work times, and the team member can get the full fee of what you're paying, and then they manage their obligations and their health fund benefits. All of those things can be done from what you pay them directly. So you know it's something to consider as a positive for the direct hire relationship as well, to cut out that middleman so that your team member gets the full benefit of everything that you're paying them.

Kristy Fairbairn:

I remember I used to have a team member through an outsourcing agency and she was getting not quite half of what I was actually paying, because the agency had sold me on this great idea at the beginning of you pay a fixed amount and then we manage the salary increases for your team member a fixed amount and then we manage the salary increases for your team member. Oh, I thought it was wonderful. Turns out she didn't get the salary increases, but the agency was collecting my full fee for a considerable amount of time and then my team member was feeling quite unappreciated. So you lose that control as well. The direct hire was a big daunting thing for me, though.

Kristy Fairbairn:

I think, Thomas, you probably remember when I dabbled into my first direct hire and I had had team members in the Philippines for a little bit before through agencies and I was still a bit nervous about how it actually worked. But it's one of the easiest things I've done and it's fantastic. But it's through having an inquiring mind, asking others what they're doing, and what's worked for them, and you know this is not a promotional session for Wize Talent, I promise. But you know, when you work with Wize Talent once, it's not just a one-off recruiting service. They guide you through the process and give you the tools to continue to hire in any market because they educate you and empower you with information. But it is still possible to do it without them. It's just why would you do it the hard way?

Thomas Sphabmixay:

Yeah, it's like very gradual, natural steps, right, Kristy? If you think of BPOs as a way to get your feet wet and have somebody else do the heavy lifting for a bit so you can get the hang of it, I think that's a good thing. And then we realized that even though the BPO, we still had to implement so much within the firm. And you're thinking what is that seat fee for? I think you could. For $700 a month, you could rent them an apartment for themselves and just to live out of I think.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, and you know it's like with any hiring process as well. I think when you can directly hire an employee, it's a better outcome, whether that's a contracted offshore person who is effectively an employee, the same as locally. You know, if you have an employee versus a contractor, they're more committed to your business, so it's a really great way of ensuring that buy-in, that they really feel a part of your team, your growth, and success, not you're just another client, because I work for my agency and when you go under they'll give me another client, and when you go under they'll give me another client, or when you go off, they'll give me another client.

Kristy Fairbairn:

You want someone to be feeling a real part of your team and, as Thomas alluded to as well, sometimes you get very little interaction from the agency because you're handling so much of it yourself internally that it's like what's the point? So, yeah, it's a really you know, it's a really you know. It's a great way to build out a connected team that works interdependently, because everyone is working for the common goal of the growth of your business, one of the things I love about the WizeG rowth model of the deep and narrow team is that everyone can see where they belong and how they support one another and really see how that team achieves the overall goal. So it's a really great way to have the right resource mix for the right profitability so you can create the pie big enough that everyone gets a share of it.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

You know, you said something that reminded me of something that hurt my feelings a long time ago, when I was with a BPO. And you're putting so much effort into a staff member and they see you as the client like their employer is the BPO, but when they work for you, they see you as the client. And when she called me the client, I was like what Gave you all the training, training, what did they teach you? And, you know, like, uh, because they, when they're working at the BPO and they're there in person, they do a lot of these in- office town halls or team building activities, and I'm like they're building an emotional bank with your team members on your dollar. Why don't they do it for you? Why can't you? You know what I mean. Like it didn't. I felt it was not relevant to feel emotional about it. But I'm like man, I put so much effort into you, why are you calling me the client? So that was another thing that pushed me.

Kristy Fairbairn:

It's a great point, Thomas. How do you see the benefits of offshoring as a win-win? What's something that you've really seen across firms that you've mentored, or in your own firm by having a global team?

Thomas Sphabmixay:

Yeah. So uh, I mean it's kind of specific to it still being direct is that it just to me? Me, money, and everything aside, or remote aside it feels way more intimate. I feel like when you're working with someone and they're just contracted directly to you and there's this one-on-one relationship Legally in every country working internationally, it's something else. But the social contract, the employer contract between you two is a one-on-one full-time relationship.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

The benefit I found is I get way more buy-in. They don't have any distractions. They don't think, oh, this firm is crap, I think I'm going to complain to my BPO manager and get assigned to another client. When they're just working for you, they're working for you, they're bought in, they've committed and there really isn't an out unless they switch jobs. People who want to stick in a BPO think that they've got out and not that it's a bad thing for them. But I find that any good team member their attitude is a lot better when they think they're going to go where the ship is going. You know what I mean. Like if they contribute or if they don't contribute, the long-term outcome of the firm is actually going to affect them and it's not as simple as just I'm going to jump ship. So I think the core thing there was cultural and that obviously makes everything a lot easier to manage. It's a lot easier to get them to buy in, and fit into a deeper, narrow team. There are a lot more forthcoming to you about the salary. So often people resign, like you mentioned, Kristy, because they're not comfortable with the salary.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

When I was with the BPO and the BPO put me through their annual performance for my team member, I was really happy with her. So I gave her top marks and I suggested that they give her the maximum raise, which was like 8%, but somehow she was still not satisfied. I don't understand what's happening and maybe 8% isn't enough. After a bit more education with Wize coming through Wize Talent and having the salary guide in front of me, as well as the team progression through junior, intermediate, and senior, I kind of rather just bring that in-house. I kind of rather just bring that in-house. So if a person is truly contributing, I don't want to follow the systems of the BPO and just give a maximum raise based on their own terms. I'd rather decide that for myself. So yeah, that's the main thing I felt the more control, a closer, more connected and intimate office culture, and the attitude was a lot more productive because they felt that they were committed to a one-on-one, long-term relationship with the one firm and that they weren't just going to jump around.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

If you're working in a BPO, imagine the person sitting next to you could be working for another firm and they could be doing the exact same thing, and then they might be having a totally different experience. They might look happy while they're looking sad. Why have that distraction? I just felt like it was this added complexity that wasn't needed there. Every time I had an issue, I went to my BPO manager and I only said things like they said oh, was there anything you wish that person could improve on? I said, oh, I wish they could communicate a bit more. She's great. She just needs to speak up a bit more. I don't know how that BPO manager communicated it to that person, but the next week after she did not look happy.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

So I don't like the fact that I've got managers managing them who I didn't put in place. And to an inexperienced firm owner, to an inexperienced tax partner, or a bookkeeping partner, it might sound convenient to allow another person to manage them, but I promise you it isn't and they're not even going to have the same manager. You might be talking to their handler I don't know what the right word more like a handler, if anything, and that handler. They also have a high turnover. Once you tell that handler how you want to manage that person, six months later they could move on to another person that handler is trying to move on. The handler is really just an account executive trying to get you to hire more people and when they do a good job, they'll get promoted to a bigger client.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

And that's the one thing Kristy, and we've noticed across many firms is this. So when the staff member gets good, when you sink the training into them and they get better, and then you have a William Buck that is demanding a senior production manager or a senior accountant and there is no one else to take from. You know who they take it from. They take it from you, the lesser client. I'm not even kidding. We've seen enough firms around the world, in the US and Canada, and every time I see an Indian BPO agency or Philippines BPO and they tell me that this person is really experienced, I've already got a counter in my head within about a year, that person is going to get shipped off to another firm and they're going to say these words to you we're going to give you someone else. That person's going to train up, they're going to be just as good and they're going to be a little bit cheaper. And we've got that manager. She's still going to be around. It doesn't work. Why? Why take? Why take their complication?

Kristy Fairbairn:

For you know, that wasn't even a that wasn't a problem until they said it right yeah, it's such a good point about the risk that you have of the BPO redistributing or delegating a resource. So yeah, I think they're some of the BPO redistributing or delegating a resource. So, yeah, I think there are some of the emotional reasons, some of the you know cultural reasons to it's better to have someone a full part of your team than still outside and seeing you as the client. You want them to be as committed to the outcome for your clients as you are and you know we're all business owners here or we're all here looking at the growth of the business that we're part of. When you look at your capacity planner and you look at your budget. A t Wize, we recommend a 40% cost of goods budget you plug into your capacity planner the cost of an onshore or offshore hire and see if you're able to maintain the budget and profitability that you desire. It's one of the ways to see the hiring decisions that you're looking at doing and quite often when you put in that offshore hire, the charge- out rate is usually a lot more profitable. And looking at the resource mix in your team, what kind of work are you doing at the moment? What kind of work are you weighed down with, your team's weighed down with? Is there enough to push to an offshore hire, or is it a senior team member that you need or a client-facing team member? And what kind of clients do you have that you deal with? You know, not to completely throw a cat amongst the pigeons, but if you've got fairly standard clients, maybe you could even have an offshore client manager, an assistant client manager. You know it's been tested out before and I personally had a great candidate a couple of months ago who I could foresee in that position. Unfortunately, her current employer made her an offer too good to refuse because they were frightened of leaving her.

Kristy Fairbairn:

But you know you can really get some great team members outside of your local area, who you know. People are people. It doesn't matter where they're based, and it's the way that you can contribute to a team member offshore, someone in the Philippines or Mexico to their personal wealth, with less spend for yourself and your local currency is still far greater. You know my team members in the Philippines have got one who's just purchased a brand new apartment in a beautiful complex that she's just so thrilled to have been able to move into with her husband and her dogs, and another team member who's been able to move back to her husband's region and actually build their own home together. And I wouldn't be building a home in Australia on that kind of wage it's, it's just not possible. But the impact I'm able to have in their lives in their region is huge and that's just wonderful. And they're such committed team members because they are able to share those successes with us.

Kristy Fairbairn:

And you know, it's not the fear of them saying how much I make. One of them does my bookkeeping. She is my assigned bookkeeper to manage everything. There's none of that disjointed or unpleasantness that I think we can often worry about when people who are paid less in our currency see your financials. There's no judgment in it. They're there to do the job and see what they can obtain for themselves. So you know, there are a few ways to look at how to add offshore hires into your business, but the capacity planner is a good starting point.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

That one that you mentioned before about more senior managerial positions that offshores are capable of is another great point before getting started with offshoring, because it's a preconception that a lot of people have that right. Kristy, you're going to offshore the basic tasks. You're going to offshore the, the repetitive only yeah, intermediate, junior things only.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

That may have been true 10 years ago, but today, okay, today, it is quite developed and mature. You will find that there are production manager- level, offshore people in the Philippines who are more than capable of managing an accounting team. You're going to find that there are Philippines client managers who, for it depends on the type of client, right, Kristy, if it's a client, that is okay working through email, communicating via the phone I found that those clients managers from the Philippines work the best. And looking at the recent resumes, recently I reviewed like 100 grad resumes and I've reviewed these resumes, did a ton of interviews, and what I'm noticing is, over the years, more and more Philippines grads are having account executive roles that come from an accounting degree background, meaning that they have interpersonal skills. I found one recently and she's not that academic of an accountant but her speaking ability was great and she was an account executive for a company in the States. I brought her in and put her on to my leads and prospects. She actually has conversations, gets the discovery meetings booked for the client managers, and gets the initial sign forms done. Today, in 2024, I think it's a combination of the technology and body of knowledge and how senior their industry has become. In terms of accounting and bookkeeping, they're really capable of a lot.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

And thinking back to my university experience, I remember the Philippines people in my cohort. They were the ones getting four out of four GPAs. I don't know how they do it. They work really hard. They work like their life depends on it, and that's true because they're working with the mentality that they want to make it, they want to support and that's a lot different to developed countries where things are a lot more peaceful and safer. So I find that, um, they're quite driven and if you can find the right people who are driven and trained, well, they really can do those managerial things. Assistant client manager, senior production manager. Jamie said yesterday, you might remember, he's bringing his COO from the Philippines, Cha into Australia and she's going to get sponsored as an Australian citizen. Basically and my goodness, I said to him, you've basically secured her bloodline she's going to have like free education, medicare.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Her whole generation is going to thank you.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Yeah, yeah, and you know it's amazing too. I mean, my senior production manager has been with me for just over four years now and when she first started she was just coming in as a senior bookkeeper. But it's being open to you know. The more you can understand the ideal teams and the roles within your business, the more you can look out for clues in the hiring process as well. I was fortunate enough to be.

Kristy Fairbairn:

You know my interest was piqued when my team member mentioned she had led a team of doers, as she called them, of a team of bookkeepers when she worked for a US firm.

Kristy Fairbairn:

So in the back of my mind, I knew that she had the potential to lead a small team if I ever got to that point.

Kristy Fairbairn:

And now she oversees a team of three other senior bookkeepers and is training up our next production manager to go into a second team when the time is right. So you know that just comes from a very early indication. So when you are looking at the recruitment process, really consider the career pathways that you have in your firm and the ideal team structure as well, because you know you are investing in people in the hiring process and knowing where they might lead in a senior position in your firm gives you greater opportunity and leverage with them to keep them happy and fulfilled. You know we're not of a gold watch society anymore. It's very rare that you get people to stay for 10, 15, 20 years. But if someone can be developing their career within your business because there's a clear pathway, you may just get that five, 10 years or more out of them, because the role that they finish in is very different to the role they started.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

And that pretty much brings us to that part about building up the offshoring team. Right, Kristy? The steps for building up that offshoring team really begin with recruitment and onboarding, having that hiring process, and understanding the nuances of the descriptions and responsibilities for the role. And then something that Jamie mentioned that stuck in my mind and I use in interviews all the time to help filter people out is I give them this if you don't mind, I give them this spiel. Okay, it's a very short one.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

I tell the candidates that in my firm there are four qualities for an ideal candidate, and that is intelligence, attitude, energy, and integrity. And intelligence in terms of bravery and an inquiring mind and initiative, and as well as just raw intelligence. Okay, so your ability to apply yourself and learn and ask and think. Am I intelligent enough to know I don't know something and then ask Am I intelligent enough to help someone? Am I willing to take a risk and try something and ask something and learn it? Am I capable of going to the ATO website and trying my best to comprehend it? So intelligence, I tell to the candidates.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

The second quality is attitude. The second quality is attitude, and attitude the way I describe it to them in the interview is attitude is the ability to not be influenced by the successes and failures and wins or peace or chaos or calmness that is happening within the team and instead rather focus on how united you are with the team, like you're at the beach and you're holding your arms together and you're staying tight and because even in calm water you can get hit by the wave. So attitude is about thinking about how united I am with the team. What do I need to do for the team to succeed? And then being able to take the criticism pressure, be able to review, and share your thoughts and opinions on the systems and other team members for the sake of being a better team, regardless of the result that they achieve. So that's attitude.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

The third one is energy, and the reason I bring up energy and the reason I think Jamie brings up energy and it's also found within the 18 steps to hiring is we are working in a remote environment now we're not working in a physical office. So in a physical office, if you count the total time of social interaction that they have day to day accidentally on their way to the toilet or the cafeteria or getting a coffee, or around them on a desk it's a lot. It's quite a lot relative to the sort of accidental communication you get remotely. So what I say to the candidates is you need to have the energy to put yourself out there into the team online and allow people to get to know you and then put the effort in to get to know other people and then make yourself be seen. Otherwise, you're just going to be a name with a green dot and you'll fade into the background and you're not helpful to anyone. So it takes energy to work in a remote environment, interacting with your teams and Slack, as well as your carbon or your workflow, right? So that's energy.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

And the last one is integrity. And integrity the way I define it to the candidates is integrity is bravery plus honesty, and the opposite of integrity is cowardice. And the opposite of integrity is cowardice. An example of this is when a manager comes to a team member and asks them about a task that they seem to be struggling with. Hey, is everything going okay? What I tell the candidates is a bad answer is everything's good, everything's fine. And then the manager insists oh, are you sure everything's okay? Everything's all good? Yep, yep, I got it. Well, actually, let me explain it to you. No, no, okay, I got it. That is what I tell candidates is a bad answer. A good answer is well, I think I'm taking too long on this. I think I could be doing this better, or this is what I understand so far. Can you confirm it for me? That is a good answer. The best answer is I don't know how to do this and before I sink further time into this job and end up in a write- off, I'm going to ask for help, and that's the best answer because a small problem can easily be solved, but you can still solve a problem and still have 10 hours of timesheet go into it, and it's irreversible.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

So those four qualities I explained to each of the candidates and what I say is in my firm, where this might sound controversial we're not a family, we're a team. The family loves each other unconditionally. I don't love you unconditionally. The conditions are those four qualities, and I don't care if you've been here for 5, 10, or 15 years, I don't love you unconditionally. The conditions are those four qualities, and I don't care if you've been here for 5, 10, 15 years, I don't care if you've been to my wedding. The moment you fall outside these qualities not just me, but everyone else in the team will reject you and exile you. Okay, so you stick to those qualities as long as you live those qualities. We are loyal to you, everyone is loyal to you. You will serve each other, forgive each other, and move forward. But for anybody who lives outside those qualities, I tell each of my team members you need to rat them out and exile them from this firm because they don't belong here. So I know it sounds a bit rough, but I do that in the interview to really try and filter out the people and I'd say when I did that with the grads, uh, of of the people that I say was happy with the interview with and sent the test to, only I think only two-thirds of them actually did the test. So at least they actually worked. Anybody that was too afraid to live those standard qualities. They might sound weird, but I've had candidates in interviews cry when I bring that up because they go.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

I can see those weaknesses in myself.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

I can see myself as a person who doesn't raise their voice, doesn't speak up, and that is another challenge for offshoring and working with other countries, you'll find that they're going to be I don't know how to explain it, Kristy.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

They don't challenge you, they don't ask you back, they feel scared to raise their concerns to you, and that really comes from their culture. So you have to start them off on the right foot. You have to let and that really comes from their culture. So you have to start them off on the right foot. You have to let them know that not only do I want you to be proactive, but in fact, if you are not proactively living these four qualities, you don't even belong in my firm, and what you're going to find is that attracts the right type of people. You want the people who see that as I am that type of person, and if you're so strict about keeping that pool of people in your firm with those qualities, I think that's the place I want to work. Okay, and that can make a lot of difference, to be honest, when you start them on that foot.

Kristy Fairbairn:

Well, yeah, I think it's great to be really clear at the outset with team members about what your standards are, what you expect from them, and also what the reward is for working with a business like that. That. You have a really strong workplace culture of lifting each other up of everyone wanting to succeed not at the cost of another, but at the success of everyone together, and you know as harsh as your conditional love is. I think it's a fair point as well.

Kristy Fairbairn:

You know, I'm sure we've all been part of a workplace where an underperformer or a toxic person has stayed longer than they should and we've been looking to our leader or we've been the leader who's not acted fast enough and it's affected our good people. So I, myself left a workplace many years ago that I loved. But they weren't doing anything about this other team member who was just horrendous to work with. So it's difficult, and I had to work a reception role and be friendly and bubbly, and this person was just undermining everything, and my boss thought that she was wonderful and didn't do anything about it even though I complained, and so I left and I really loved that workplace and had been part of it for a while. So you know, we don't want to lose our own good people, because we don't act on people who lack the integrity, lack the aptitude, so um you may not be as harsh as Thomas to spell it out quite the same way.

Kristy Fairbairn:

But when your team know how committed you are to them and that their commitment, as long as it's matched, will reward them, then that's great, yeah, amazing. All right, thank you all so much.

Thomas Sphabmixay:

Yep. See you in the next one.

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