Your Team

I’ve spent the day communicating with people in different cities in varying parts of the world.

One of them is an integral part of my team, but in reality, no one would know we weren’t sharing an office.

The modern world of interconnectivity means that we no longer have to sit with our co-workers in the same room from 9-5, 5 days a week. We don’t have to be in the same state, country or time zone, as long as we are working towards the same, unified goal as someone else, we are part of a team. Read more

People you deal with don’t always operate in the same way you do – what happens when you deal with aggressive, passive aggressive or just downright difficult people?

I’ve just come off the back of running my month long Grateful in April campaign where the focus was on what is good in people’s lives. It’s been uplifting and my dealings have been incredibly pleasurable.

Imagine my horror when I found myself in a couple of recent situations – one dealing with a person who was being incredibly difficult and another where someone was behaving in a passive aggressive manner. Read more

I’ve worked in and around the Accounting profession for more years than I care to remember.  With my headhunting hat on I usually work at the Partner and Director level, across both big and small accounting firms.  Amongst other topics of conversation, the subject of “those darn Gen Y staff” comes up on a regular basis.  To remove any confusion – Gen Y refers (at least in my mind) to those people born between 1980 to 2000.

I’m sure you’ve heard the usual traits attached to Gen Y: self-absorbed, sense of entitlement, lack of loyalty, poor worth ethic and more.  You get the idea. Read more

One of the great challenges for firm leaders is to be able to delegate effectively. It is critical that they do so. Most often capacity shortages are highest for the senior people in the practice. Delegation is enabled by good processes and training. Well documented processes enable less experienced team members to follow the documented steps which are supplemented by checklists and other tools to assist them in completing the work. Great training programs equip team members to take on more challenging work. These things should enable delegation and often they do, but it is also the case that delegation still doesn’t occur. Read more

It’s no surprise that the start of every year is usually the time of greatest employee turnover for any business.  Fresh from a break and full of New Year resolutions, many employees are motivated to think about their careers, and whether their current role and organisation is the path to success.

Replacing an employee can be an expensive exercise – not only in dollar terms, but also in lost intellectual property, customer relationships and skills. Read more

The old saying goes ‘two things in life are certain – Death and Taxes’. I’d like to formally request that this saying is altered to be ‘three things are certain in life – Death, Taxes and Deadlines’.

The consequences of missing these deadlines though can range from missing your bus to angry wife or even losing your job (or perhaps even scarier losing your job and making your wife angry).

So here are six tips to help you stay on top of your tasks and meet those deadlines every time, while hopefully avoiding those all-night work marathons we’ve no doubt found ourselves doing from time to time. Read more

With the recent passing of Steve Jobs it made me think. What could accountants learn from this man? Here was a man who managed to create a brand where people bought the products and they weren’t even sure why – they were just the “must have” product. Here was a man who came to the helm of a dying company and transformed it in the powerhouse it is today. Here was a man who reinvented the music industry, the movie industry and of course the IT industry. Shame he didn’t focus his attention on the accounting industry!

So what can we learn from this man? Read more

Did you know that the average person now changes jobs on average, every two years?  And when you consider that it’s been estimated that the cost of recruiting and training a new employee is equivalent to six month’s salary for the position, the price of hiring and firing is starting to get really expensive for businesses.

Making matters worse, is that the fact that employees no longer calculate their job satisfaction purely by remuneration and career prospects.  The 2011 worker wants a fun, engaging and supportive work environment, and a host of perks such as work/life balance, team events and salary sacrificing.

So how do you create an environment that encourages staff retention?  How do you get that illusive great company culture? Read more

I could have outsourced this blog post. As it happens, I didn’t, but having an extremely talented and reliable virtual assistant means that I had the option.

Instead, while I am writing this, my assistant Melissa is working from her own home taking care of many of the every tasks that arise in my business and well, frankly, get in the way of me doing what it is that I love to do, such as writing.

The investment has already saved me a huge amount of time and energy and allows me breathing space when I have deadlines looming.

What’s great about the service she offers is she makes it feel like she’s in the office with me.

The reality is she could be based in Timbuktu for all I know, but she places such a strong emphasis on providing a reliable and efficient service that sometimes I forget she’s not sitting right beside me!

Melissa’s got the basics covered, including word processing, research and data entry, but there are many other things she does that are helpful for my organisation too. Some of the things she helps me with include eNewsletters, website maintenance and social media, not to mention helping organise my myriad public events, speaking engagements and socially responsible team building for businesses.

While it would be easier for me to do some things myself, the benefit of handing them to a professional who knows me and my organisation is that when I hit a busy period there’s no stress; I have somebody standing by who knows how I like things done and is ready to step in and help at a moment’s notice.

It also means I have more time to spend focussing on the more important parts of running the organisation and making a difference to people and causes in need.

It’s great to know that I can be having meetings, be at national and international events or even having a holiday and know that things are still happening in my business.

Do you use a virtual assistant? What could you do more of that you love if there was someone who could do more of what you don’t enjoy?

Melina Schamroth | Social Entrepreneur – m.a.d.woman

Our annual Partner Connection conference isn’t just all about MYOB.  It’s an opportunity to recognise those partners, consultants, accountants and bookkeepers that are doing a sensational job, and say thanks for their incredible work as MYOB brand advocates.

This year, along with service and achievement milestone awards, we were proud to recognise two exceptional partners as a ‘Partner of the Year’. Read more