25 Jul Ways to get them involved

Here are some ways to have your outsourcing team integrated into the daily working environment of your on-shore team.  Using technology is the answer.

Outsourcing from every angle

Mentor – Nick Ogden

• Share the culture of the business
• Facilitate a ‘virtual tour’
• Have them in your meeting ‘virtually’

Let’s get social with John Hellaby – Building Omnipresence – what is that about?

 Transcript:

Kevin Turner: I said yesterday when we finished our mentor segment with Nick Ogden, Nick is from Beepo is our guest all this week, I said then that we’re spending a lot of time on this integration. Once you’ve made the decision to outsource, you’ve got a team member in the Philippines with Beepo, now how do you get your shore team and your outsourcing team to work together? This is key to making the whole thing work.

Kevin Turner: Nick, welcome back into the show. I want to ask you this morning what you see the best operators doing in Australia and the other countries that you work with in real estate? How they introduce their new staff member to the whole team, and how they actually enroll them in what they’re doing? What do they do? Good morning, Nick.

Nick  Ogden: Good morning, Kevin. As we’ve mentioned it multiple times over the last couple of days, really embracing best practice to on-boarding a staff member, whether they’re onshore or offshore. Just adapting that, just using some clever technology to make that as easy as possible. We’ve mentioned yesterday taking the time to do the introductions, the around the ground introductions to everybody in the business and the new staff member. That would be no different than the walk around that you would do onshore you’re just doing it virtually as a video call or a Skype video call.

Kevin Turner: Actually the video that we shot recently that’s been up on REUNCUT which is where we did that virtual tour, that tour around with Matt at the Beepo office, that would be also good to show your shore team about the environment that the offshore team are working in. Then vice versa, you could do that with your Philippines team show them what the office looks like, which is what you’re saying Nick?

Nick  Ogden: Yeah, absolutely. Sharing the culture of the business, too, I think is really a key. If you’re not clear about what that is already then you definitely should be. Sharing that culture with the new staff member, sharing the expectations of the business locally, from really early on in the engagement is a real key.

Nick  Ogden: We see a lot of businesses now that they’re sending staff from Australia out to our facility in the Philippines on a regular basis too for training and our mentorship and growth, and vice versa. We’ve got businesses here in Australia that have got size-able teams with us now, and bringing their staff out this way as well as either reward and recognition or to participate in celebrations, business parties etcetera.

Kevin Turner: Look at them, treat them like a normal staff member as you would if you show someone around the office, show them where the coffee is and all that kind of stuff, you’ve got to introduce them in that way. But I’ve actually taken recently with our team in the Philippines and having them involved in my monthly meetings with sponsors who we have on our various shows, and they can then hear how I talk to them, the things that we agree to, and they’re able to implement and they feel fully enrolled in the entire business, Nick, and I think that’s been one of the reasons why it’s been so successful recently for me.

Nick  Ogden: Yeah, and making sure your office is well set up from a technology point of view-

Kevin Turner: Yes-

Nick  Ogden: Having your boardroom where you hold your sales meetings with a camera and a screen set up so that your staff member can be a key part of that. We’ve got a staff member who does every single one of the sales meetings that happens and she’s responsible for taking the minutes at the end of that meeting and setting up the action plans etcetera at the end, but she’s a key part of that meeting and she’s part of the regular whip that they have. It’s just important. At the end of the day it’s about getting the most value from your staff member as well. If you want buy-in from your local team but equal to that, you want buy-in from your staff member offshore. If they feel valued as a part of your team, you’ll get results long term.

Kevin Turner: Okay, tomorrow when I talk to Nick I want to talk to you about technology and I’m going to talk about some of the tools that we use, and some of the ones that you’ve introduced me to or Beepo has introduced us to, which are really good task management. Understanding what people are doing from a remote point of view, because I know this is one of the questions I get asked quite often, how do I know that my outsource team is actually working at full capacity? So we’ll give you an insight into that tomorrow when Nick Ogden comes back. Thanks, Nick. Talk to you in the morning.

Nick  Ogden: All good. Thanks, Kevin.