Stevie Awards 2023 honoured Staff Domain with the Bronze award. Read on to gain insights into our innovative solutions, exceptional client satisfaction, and why we are the trusted outsourcing partners for global businesses.
What a thrill to experience events in person! Our team came together from all over the world for the Datto Local Events and Accounting Business Expo in the first quarter of the year.
Are you working ‘in’ or ‘on’ the business?
Research by Business Owner Advisory Board, The Alternative Board, found that the average business owner spends 68.1% of their time working ‘in’ their business on day-to-day tasks, and only 31.9% working ‘on’ it. This imbalance in favour of operational tasks can leave little time for the strategic aspects necessary to drive growth.
The secret to unlocking greater capacity is recognising where your time is going and taking steps to make better use of the opportunities available. Here are three simple steps that can help you master this process:
1. Outline how you would like to spend your time
It is important to create a plan of action that outlines how you would like to spend your time. To begin, determine what tasks need to be done to reach your business goals. This could include developing marketing strategies, researching potential investments and partners, planning resources, or creating content. Set clear and realistic objectives around these tasks, and determine which tasks are critical for you to prioritise to complete.
2. Conduct a time audit
Make note of where you and your teams’ time is going daily. Online time-tracking tools like Harvest and Toggl can help you easily track and analyse where your time goes. By conducting a time audit, you will gain an accurate understanding of the tasks and activities that consume most of your working hours. As well as how this compares to your vision on how you would like to be spending your time.
3. Learn to delegate – or outsource
It’s likely your time audit will reveal that much of your day goes towards important but simple, operational tasks – for example emails, dealing with customer enquiries or invoicing. Delegating tasks will allow you to share the work with others and free up valuable time for more important tasks such as strategizing or improving operations.
However, in many businesses, staff are already spread thin, and the cost of hiring more support locally is out of the question. Building global teams has emerged as a strategic way for businesses to grow their capacity. At a fraction of local cost, you could find highly qualified staff internationally to take on the roles you and your team – can’t.
With rising employment costs and local recruitment tensions – building a global team is the solution hiding in plain sight. With remote work the norm for businesses globally, outsourcing any professional service role is easier than ever. Here are just five that could help you boost your growth in 2023:
At Staff Domain, we help business owners worldwide realise why offshore outsourcing in Australia or the US has emerged as a strategic move for business growth. There’s no better time than now to invest in the people that can help you achieve your 2023 goals.
Book a free strategy call with a Staff Domain Specialist and uncover the opportunity for your business. We’ll provide you with a growth pack detailing full pricing, recommended roles and a job description – all obligation free. Book a consultation now.
The nature of work has transformed globally. Permanent and flexible work-from-home (WFH) arrangements are here to stay for many western nations. And it should come as no surprise, that staff in developing countries are interested in this model too. But, before you try a WFH model with staff in the developing world, there are some key factors you need to be across.
In western nations, WFH has mostly been deemed a success, but it hasn’t been without its issues. One major issue being the inequitable nature of the work environment.
Not every ‘home office’ is ideal, which has created an inequitable workforce. For instance, Jane may be married with no kids living in a penthouse with a private home office. But Bob may be a dad living with his two kids in a two-bedroom house – the ironing board his stand-up desk, the dinner table his open plan office.
The developing world is no different – but where it’s inequitable, the gap is far greater making WFH, unworkable.
The Philippines and South Africa are two popular countries for outsourcing – and our destinations of choice at Staff Domain. And the fact is, that in both countries there is a demand for remote working.
In truth, a WFH model is not impossible. During the pandemic, we ourselves had to move everyone to a temporary WFH set-up and were invested in getting it to succeed for our staff and clients. But it is difficult. There are some key factors that hinder getting WFH to really – work – in the long-term for these countries, and other developing nations you might outsource to.
Here are 5 factors you need to be across:
Successful remote working is highly dependent on living conditions. In developing nations, it’s not uncommon to have small living spaces, or to live with extended family. As a result, working from home can be neither a productive nor a comfortable option.
While offices in major cities have the infrastructure in place for high-speed internet, it can be a real problem in regional areas where staff might be living. According to the Speedtest Global Index, the average download speed for broadband in the Philippines is only 94.66Mbps, and in South Africa it’s even slower at 63.77Mbps. To give you perspective, the download speed in the US is 225.51 Mbps. That’s a significant difference!
Power costs in the Philippines are among the highest in Asia, and South Africa’s electricity price is above the global average. In the office, there’s aircon, electricity and high-speed internet to help staff work productively and comfortably – without any money out of their own pockets.
And power isn’t always available. Since 2008, South Africa has been load shedding as a way to manage the demand and supply of household electricity. That is, on and off outages throughout the day to help conserve the use of power. There are hours or even days where consistent power isn’t available in households.
One of biggest issues to come out of WFH arrangements worldwide, has been a lack of work-life boundaries. Add to this a time-zone difference, and the challenge only escalates. There’s the risk of staff in developing countries working way beyond their paid hours and being taken advantage of. You might send an email at 9am, but in another country this could be late very at night. If staff are working from home, they may feel an obligation to be responsive. Particularly, in places like the Philippines, where culturally staff are very hardworking and eager to please.
It’s important to remember that the quality of life is significantly different in developing countries. In many cases, there may be hesitancy to speak up about workload stress or burnout due to fear of job security. Or, because resigning or moving jobs is just not an option. In South Africa, the unemployment rate is at well over 30%. How willing do you think staff are to speak up against their employers? In an office setting, there are stricter work-life boundaries, and greater opportunities for HR or team mates to check-in with staff.
In short – what works for you, doesn’t mean it will work overseas. To set your staff up for success, they need a productive and comfortable work environment. And unfortunately, in many cases, working from home doesn’t lend to this for people in developing countries.
At Staff Domain we’ve invested in building world class offices that great talent want to work from. In fact, our facility in Manila was even designed and developed by the development company behind Google’s offices in Manila.
Every one of our offices have spacious workstations with large desks, double monitors, and ergonomic chairs. We only equip our employees with top-tier equipment from reputable and leading brands like DELL, Datto, Apple, NEC, and Samsung. And we’ve invested into creating relaxation and recreational areas – because everyone needs a chance to unwind or have fun. This includes gaming areas, well stocked kitchens and big screen TVs for those sports matches or news they don’t want to miss. Learn more about our facilities here.
Schedule a consultation, and we’ll answer any questions. Plus, how we could help you build teams in South Africa and the Philippines that work only for you from our world class offices.
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