It might seem counterintuitive – wouldn’t the thought of tapping into accounting outsourcing’s benefits scare away employees? Won’t they be worried that they’re going to be replaced?
The point of outsourcing
The fear that your employees may have concerning outsourcing is that you’re only concerned about saving money. This is a feature of outsourcing, but it’s not the point. The point of outsourcing is to help you achieve your financial goals and expand your business – the savings in overhead are a method to help you do just that.
You’re going to be reinvesting the savings in overhead from accounting outsourcing back into your business, which includes reinvesting in your employees.
What employees want
Let’s look at some numbers pulled from a U.S. survey concerning employee satisfaction in different-sized businesses. The poll is taken from salary.com.
Taking a look at the numbers, it becomes obvious that factors other than pay are what keep an employee at a particular company, rather than pure financial compensation.
Over 300 employees were interviewed. Of those that had worked for large companies (where they would be paid more) and then left, the major reasons for their departures were:
- 62% became fed up with the internal politicking.
- 55% claimed the business showed no loyalty to them.
- 42% grew sick of a toxic work community.
On the flip-side, the factors that kept employees working at smaller businesses where they felt they were probably paid less than their big-business counterparts were:
- 46.2% enjoyed a more balanced life/work lifestyle.
- 38.1% preferred their shorter commute.
- 34.8% felt that smaller and mid-sized businesses had more loyalty towards them.
- 31.4% felt that they had a better working relationship with their boss or business owner.
- 29.5% felt they had a better work community with their fellow employees.
Using accounting outsourcing to please your employees
Obviously a higher salary can draw star employees. But if you’re a small or mid-sized business, you simply might not have the resources to compete with big businesses.
However, as we see from the numbers above, the dollars in big salaries lose their value if they come attached with negative work experiences. That means that the overhead and time that you’re saving with accounting outsourcing can be partially steered into making your in-house employees happy by creating a positive work experience.
Your turnaround is going to be quicker. This means less time for everyone in the office. Automatically you’re improving the life/work balance of your team. Invest some time up front to get a solid workflow down to filter client information to your overseas team member(s) and you’ll save even more time.
The shorter commute is of course entirely dependent on where you have your offices. However with the cloud era you can definitely consider giving your employees the ability to work from their homes at least some days of the week. To be totally honest though you, as the big boss, might actually be on the road more since you’ll have more time to meet with clients and potential clients face-to-face.
You can show your in-house employees more loyalty by investing some of your accounting outsourcing savings in their futures. Help fund some of their ongoing education, send them to seminars, help them pay for books, and so on. By helping them deal with the costs of their expanded future you’re showing that you think they’re worth investing in and that you want them with you for a long time to come.
Boost your relationship with your employees by using the time-savings to become more available. Set up regularly scheduled short meetings where employees can voice their concerns and give suggestions. Some of these suggestions can really help you boost your business, providing an ongoing positive loop of growth.
As for the better work community, you’re already providing it by doing the above. Additionally, accounting outsourcing is going to free up funds and time for you to provide some fun stuff: lunch once a week, a non-work instructor (a martial arts teacher or cooking lessons), time off for charity work, never missing child-related appointments, no stress caused by sick days, etc.
Don’t be afraid of losing employees to big business, and don’t let them be intimated by your upgrading to accounting outsourcing. The benefits of outsourcing can improve their work lives just as much as it improves your business as a whole.
