Introduction
A new era is underway on how businesses operate and manage manpower. The drive of technology and changing workforce demographics have driven significant shifts in the way businesses approach managing their employees. Across the globe and across different industries, firms are veering away from traditional hiring processes and are embracing a new breed of employees by building remote global teams. Recent events have also ushered in an exponential growth in remote work that pushed even the most traditional industries into remote teamwork almost instantly.
Firms are also seeing the significance and benefits of remote work particularly in the mental health and work-life balance of employees that lead to better productivity and overall happiness of organizations. But as with hiring traditionally, mistakes do happen. This is also true when hiring a remote accounting team.
10 Common Mistakes Companies Make When Forming a Remote Accounting Team
Inadequate Background Check
How to overcome this problem:
Conduct thorough background checks to identify if the qualifications and experiences of each candidate are aligned with your requirements. You can also do screening tests, job simulations, culture fit tests, interviews, and pre-employment exams to get a better understanding of a candidate’s compatibility with the job opening.
Cultural Exclusivity
How to overcome this problem:
Be receptive to workforce diversity. Companies should conduct thorough research on the culture of the prospective global accounting team’s home country to ensure it is complementary with the culture of the host country. By learning each other’s cultures beforehand, you can already have a sense of the level of compatibility.
Insufficient Training and Support
How to overcome this problem:
Employee growth and development is a continuous process. Remote workers, especially in larger firms, are prone to neglect and are more likely to fall behind in skills, so always keep your global team engaged and informed. Hold regular meetings, online training , and have them attend online classes that will add or reinforce their skills. Providing adequate training and support will help them understand and navigate the unique challenges of working in a global environment.
Systemic Silo Mentality
How to overcome this problem:
Enforce a healthy and dynamic collaboration program that happens often between your teams. This can be a mix of different social and collaborative online tools, as well as the usual online platforms like e-mails, videocalls, and online meetings. Promote a healthy, clear and effective system of open communication and collaboration between the firm’s accounting team and its global counterparts. This builds confidence and highlights shared knowledge between teams that may lead to best practices.
Unmanaged Language Barriers and Cultural Differences
How to overcome this problem:
When you have a weak communication system in place, miscommunications often happen. Addressing that these issues (language barriers and cultural differences) exist is the first step to managing the problem. Being mindful of the culture you are interacting with can be very helpful in understanding customs, language, beliefs, and values. Being respectful by not making biased assumptions nor judgements based on your own cultural perspective is one of the steps in the right direction.
Inconsistent Managing and Monitoring Approach
How to overcome this problem:
Conduct regular employee assessments that check the progress of each team member’s goals and performance. Engage your employees often and check up on them to gauge employee happiness and satisfaction, via surveys or one-to-one conversations.
Time Zone Differences
How to overcome this problem:
Always be mindful of the time difference between teams and identify the optimal hours to work and collaborate. This factor may be challenging in executing any project when people have to collaborate from across extreme locations in the world. Scheduling meetings, converting day and time time between zones, providing optimal support in the face of a large time difference, and calculating the difference between time zones, are some of the inevitable challenges that are commonly experienced when working with companies that have different time zones. However, determining your teammates’ time zone through time converters, scheduling online meetings via tools like Google Calendar that automatically schedules online meetings based on availability and working hours, and other online productivity tools can be used to manage projects online.
Unclear Conflict Management Process
How to overcome this problem:
Have a crisis management protocol in place so the company has a reference when issues or conflicts arise. The risk of these happening might also be lower when you have an effective communication system in place.
Ineffective Legal and Regulatory Compliance
How to overcome this problem:
Understand and be informed about the laws and regulations of the countries you are engaging with. Have your team research beforehand, so your company wouldn’t be blindsided by compliance issues. Establish clear and effective rules and standards for compliance by ensuring that the company follows the remote location’s laws, regulations, and standards set by regulatory bodies in these locations as well as the home country of the company. Compliance is essential not just to maintain the reputation of the company but also to secure the image of the client, and to avoid legal and financial penalties that might arise from non conformity.
Key Takeaways
Conclusion
Hire a Team of Accounting Experts
Are you looking for a dedicated, remote Accounting Team? IQ BackOffice can help.
Here at IQ BackOffice, we build remote, offshore accounting teams that work as an integral part of our clients’ operations. We offer the best global talent at cost-effective rates so you can enhance your financial operations and achieve your goals faster. We help you do everything needed to build a team, from helping you design a strategy to recruiting, setting up interviews, onboarding your team, providing infrastructure and ongoing administration.
IQ BackOffice will meet with you to understand your business goals and the requirements for each position and then find the perfect candidates to join your team. We build dedicated teams exclusive to your account that we provide with the infrastructure and tools to work effectively with you. Lastly, we handle the administrative aspects of your team – payroll, HR, etc., so you never have to. All for 1 simple monthly fee.
Contact IQ BackOffice today to learn more about building an effective Global Accounting Team.
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