How to Manage Off Shore Teams Effectively

As more and more business move their services to the internet, the demand for outsourcing expertise across a range of disciplines has increased dramatically.

The employment marketplace has become global, enabling industry to engage expertise from anywhere in the world. It has meant greater flexibility in terms of contracts and the possibility of only engaging that expertise when and where you need it.

Employers that once may have had 20 full time staff operating in house, may find itself with a dozen or more contractors and specialist consultants who never set foot in your office.

Limited schedules or long working hours are not an issue. Physical proximity is not a hindrance and you can hire specialists anywhere in the world without having to worry about bringing them to your desk.

In return, you get the exact skills that you need, for the specific role you require, without going through the complications of employing more than the core team. The advantages of hiring from the global market are obvious!

Not only does outsourcing provide access to new expertise, it can also minimise the red tape and cost of traditional employment, which for us is a huge advantage.

This transition to outsourcing expertise is seen as having numerous advantages. CEO of BusinessBasics Australia, Adam McDean says of this form of business management strategy that,

“By outsourcing the role of HR you are effectively broadening the breadth of skills you have access to. Instead of having to employ a generalist or a number of specialists, by outsourcing your HR you have access to a wide variety of consultants.”

You Need Good Record Keeping

There are a multitude of ways of organising your financial records, including offshore developer rates from a simple planner to complex software applications that specialise in Staff and Agency Management and accounting.

MYOB have been on the scene since the very early days of personal computing and have continued to develop start-of-the-art applications which can be fully managed online.

If you are looking for a full suite of comprehensive accounting and management tools, MYOB Exo are a good choice for large corporations.

Indivia, an Australian company who are also expanding into overseas markets are among some of the better known providers of certified and accredited MYOB solutions.

Well beyond simple accounting, these tools include staff management, project development and systems automation and workflow.

These are great software solutions to help manage work teams across a number of projects and allow for multiple user input and collaboration.

You Need Clear Policies and Procedures

Contracts are essential to good team management and you can check out examples here of some professional contract templates that would suit any type of work. They make sure that your workforce understands their obligations and also ensure that their performance can be measured.

Also, anyone who works with contracts knows how frequent contract amendments are, that’s why it is necessary to have an automated contract amendments process because it will make the process much easier.

Effective communication is extremely vital when outsourcing your work teams. Because you may not see your staff face-to-face, you will need to have systems in place to ensure easy communication.

Solutions like Slack and Mattermost offer great tools for communication and collaboration and of course, one of the most accessible solutions – Google Drive.

It is also important to set boundaries as it will help your team stay on track. To keep a check on all your team members, you can use a dashboard to see the live progress and check the status of their work. This keeps them in check and holds them accountable.

The more you can incorporate procedures for your communication process, the more smoothly your project will flow.

A Few Tips on Finding Good Team Members

You should keep an eye out for certain characteristics when hiring offshore or outsourcing projects to outside expertise.

Are they punctual? Is there evidence of good English communication? Do they answer your questions and appear willing to work within the scope you set?

Evaluate your outside team the same as if they were in house. Use the same care in finding contractors or outside consultants as you would when hiring employees.

Finally, ensure that the rules of engagement are crystal clear. Get them to feedback to you what the expectations are and hire for the role, not just the expertise. Think of the role they will play in your organisation and write your job descriptions to suite that role.