It was my first week at my first accounting job. I was lucky enough to land a role while finishing off the last semester of uni. The pay was low, and I ended up in the very unsexy tax division. But I didn't care, my foot was in the door, and I needed to learn the ropes.
Work started with a few simple ITR's (no problems), and then a small business return.
"Here's the depreciation schedule... just role it forward and follow what was done last year", my manager says. "You can't go wrong".
But I somehow managed to screw it up.
A few hours later, and my nervous supervisor was pacing around my desk, all stressed. He talked in serious tones about how I'd hardcoded over formulas in column C and didn't “roll it forward” properly.
Whatever that meant…
In any case, it had to be started again, and how would we explain the lost time to the bosses?!
I felt like the kindergarten kid who had just wet their pants at playtime and needed help cleaning up the mess.
The drama wasn't fun. I felt stupid. And it made me wonder if I was really cut out for an accounting career.
If a time-machine could take me to 2003, I'd encourage ‘Trainee-Jon’ that not understanding the basics on a new job is totally normal.
While I have fond memories of my time at that firm, it's an isolated example of a training failure. As a trainee, I needed someone to show me what to do.
All accountants need training.
Actually, all staff need training.
I’d bet if you looked ‘under the hood’ of any decent practice, learning and development is given a very high priority.
In 2015, the early days of Frontline, we introduced a training offering ("Bootcamp") for new Filipino hires. While these candidates had a few years accounting experience, there was an extra knowledge gap - no familiarity with Australian tax.
We wanted to help our trainees get the smooth start they needed and get up to speed quickly.
So, we created the course, and it's been refined many times along the way. It is hands-on and practical, lasting up to 8 weeks. The proof has been in the pudding.
Looking at the data recently, we can see that Bootcamp graduates are more engaged after training. In the last three years, the attrition rate for this category has been very low—almost 70% lower than the baseline attrition rate.
Good training is a game changer.
Training Filipino staff has some slightly different dynamics. Most of the training will be done online, and cultural differences mean you don't as willingly get questions and feedback. The trainer needs to work through that. But I've always felt that the hunger to learn is there.
Wanting to understand more about our client and staff's general experience and attitudes towards training, I recently ran some surveys.
On the client side, I could see that there is a good variety of training providers already being used. Some firms have developed their own version of 'bootcamp'. Others have been offshoring long enough to have their Filipino staff train the new hires.
Over 50% of clients also saw the need for 'non-accounting' training such as leadership, soft skills such as communication, and written English. A need for more cyber security training also came up a lot.
On the staff side, the big takeaway was the overall desire for MORE training.
96% of respondents considered access to more training options valuable or extremely valuable.
That data point is a big deal to me.
If people are hungry to learn, I want to find ways to put the information in their hands. I'd rather staff have too much training resources than too little.
As a result, I've started talking to training providers to see how we can get more into the hands of staff. We'll be in touch with our clients as things develop in this space.
Accounting firms are 'knowledge businesses'. Just as money compounds and grows in a bank, the knowledge capital in the business grows every time employees learn and experience new things.
To learn more about training offshore teams, make sure you've read our book, 'Offshore or Die', where I do the deep dive on how to train and manage offshore teams.
P.S. Ready to unlock your team's full potential through targeted training? Let's discuss how Frontline Accounting can help you build a high-performing, engaged offshore team. Schedule a Discover Call today to learn more about our training solutions.
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