Routines, structures and tools play ‘critical role’ in offshoring arrangements
Getting the right tools and structures for communication in place is vital to ensuring that offshoring arrangements operate smoothly, says Frontline Accounting.
Poor communication can be a major roadblock with offshoring arrangements so establishing good routines for communication alongside the right technology and structures is important, according to Frontline Accounting director Jonathan Ryall.
Mr Ryall said improving communication with remote teams is now an important issue not just for firms using offshoring, but many accounting firms across Australia, given the uptake of remote working in recent years.
“You’re a step removed and that’s how many firms are now operating post-COVID but it’s just a hurdle that you have to manage,” he said, speaking ahead of an upcoming webcast.
“There may be routines that you need to put in place such as daily huddles for example. A lot of firms do that anyway but when it comes to an offshore team daily communication is absolutely critical.”
While there are plenty of well-known software products for conducting meetings remotely such as Teams and Zoom, Mr Ryall said there are a range of interesting tools available for dealing with lower-level, everyday types of communication such as applications like Voxer, which is a real-time voice messaging service.
“It’s a dictation [application] where you press a button to record your voice and it sends it in a voice message to the other person. This allows me to dictate letters while I’m on the road or if I realise I’ve forgotten to follow up with a particular person I can quickly record a quick voice message that reminds me to follow up with that person,” he explained.
Tools on the market such as this enable low-level issues to keep moving.
“It allows you to get those sorts of tasks or issues out of your head and straight across to the offshore team to address, or your administration assistant to deal with immediately,” he said.
“Loom is a similar tool, but it’s online, on your laptop and it’s a screen recording software. Let’s say I’m reviewing a file late at night, I can click the record button and I can show someone or explain something, talk through all my review points and show them any problems that need fixing. That is then sent in a link over to the offshore team.
“The advantage of that is that the team can review it when they’re free, I don’t need to catch them on a call. It also allows them to rewind and replay it.”
Mr Ryall said business leaders and management ideally want to avoid interrupting workflows too frequently.
“If I’m messaging back and forth with my team then I know they’re not getting any work done. So by using some of these tools, it can just get lodged as a message and they can pick it up when they’re free.”
The use of chat software to reduce the volume of emails can also improve communication between teams, he added.
“It can be very convenient to just pump out an email but it can reach a point where the volume of emails means it’s not longer effective and people fall behind because they’re getting so many,” he said.
“Getting all of that low-level back-and-forth type discussion out of an email and into an appropriate chat tool such as Slack for example can really improve communication.”
Firms may also want to consider centralising their email, particularly client emails.
“The problem firms have is that there's so much email going back and forth between clients and their staff and it can become unmanageable to channel all that through one person,” said Mr Ryall.
Implementing a help desk type of setup such as Zendesk, for example, can help firms have greater visibility and help the firm monitor responses and requests for clients.
“It gives you that confidence that emails are getting to clients and not ending up in a black hole, which can happen in any firm,” he said.
“When it's visible, everybody can see what the load currently is and what everybody else is doing.”
Having a visible workflow and weekly workflow meetings are also helpful, he said.
“It could be something like Trello or it could be something simple like an Excel spreadsheet, but the point is that you’re getting everybody together and going through it as a team.”
Jonathan Ryall will be discussing the key compliance and business considerations for accounting firms looking to utilise offshoring in an upcoming webinar on Tuesday, 21 November. For more information and to register click here.
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