Can a Virtual Company Have a Healthy Culture?
One of the new realities for companies coping with social distancing and the COVID-19 pandemic is managing employees who are asked to work from home. Here are a few challenges that working at home creates:
· Communicating with dozens of remote workers
· Holding workers accountable for results
· Coordinating virtual teams
· Maintaining strong customer support
· Creating and maintaining a healthy culture
AccountingDepartment.com began as a virtual company 16 years ago. Dennis Najjar and Bill Gerber co-founded and built the company with a simple philosophy: they would never ask an employee to do something they would not do themselves, and they would treat every employee as they would like to be treated. To Dennis and Bill, this meant caring about employees, helping them to succeed, and supporting a balance between company success and the employee’s family.
Like many entrepreneurs, they identified a need that was unfulfilled. They observed that many small businesses had poor bookkeeping practices and generated inaccurate or confusing financial statements. Many of these businesses had limited budgets and could not afford or did not need a full-time controller or accounting specialist. By offering an outsourced, fractional accounting team to help these businesses create accurate and timely financial reports, companies could operate with the strength of a dedicated full-time accounting team without the expenses and operational requirements they would incur if housed internally. This would enable businesses to make better decisions and manage their revenue and expenses more effectively.
Unlike most outsourced accounting firms, AccountingDepartment.com built itself entirely with accounting specialists and controllers who work from home. This enabled the company to diversify geographically while tapping into a pool of talented accountants. Working at home is particularly attractive to working parents who were struggling to balance work and family obligations. Just how did AccountingDepartment.com grow into a national company servicing hundreds of small businesses while working out of remote home offices?
Here is how they met the challenges identified earlier in this article.
Communication: What the company saved in forgoing brick-and-mortar office space, it invested in technology to create a platform that allowed each of its accountants working from home to communicate with each other. Both the use of technology and the structures that leveraged it developed over time—into finely honed, unique engines of communication. Today, AccountingDepartment.com uses Zoom for virtual meetings as well as instant messaging and team communication. From its inception, the company was driven by the need for connectivity. And the meetings were not always about business. Employees talked about the challenges of working at home while caring for family; they created a special site on Facebook.com to post pictures and talk about their personal lives; they celebrated birthdays and anniversaries; they even held pizza parties by delivering pizza to their homes from local pizza restaurants. Even with 130+ full-time employees working remotely, they are all able to communicate often and effectively, for both business and interpersonal connectedness.
Accountability: The company selects its professional employees based on competence and cultural fit. Once selected, each employee goes through a 30-day onboarding program and is assigned a trainer and success ambassador team for 6 months that is also available anytime needed thereafter. The company is clear about expectations for its employees and ensures they are set up for success through its onboarding program. Every client has a list of specific performance-related activities to be conducted by the AccountingDepartment.com employee assigned to that client. Clients are regularly surveyed about their satisfaction with deliverables and the ongoing relationship with their accounting team. Problems are rare, but when one does occur that affects performance or causes tension with a client, the company will immediately intervene with timely feedback, coaching, and an opportunity for the employee to improve. If an employee does not meet expectations or for any reason is not able to perform, the company will reassign the client to another employee who will be a better fit for the client. AccountingDepartment.com also holds its clients accountable. The team prides itself on treating its members with mutual respect, and the company holds the same expectations for its clients. AccountingDepartment.com knows employees are its greatest asset and therefore will not allow a client to be disrespectful to an employee--for any reason. In fact, AccountingDepartment.com has parted ways, and will continue to do so, with a disrespectful client after attempts to remedy situations with such clients are unsuccessful.
Coordinating Virtual Teams: Technology has allowed employees of all geographical locations, from remote rural areas to the most populous of cities, to engage in virtual team meetings to communicate and coordinate services to the company’s clients. Teams are made up of eight to 10 accounting specialists and supervised by a financial controller/CPA. Any employee at any time can call on another for advice or support and to coordinate activities. Through training and collaboration, each specialist can cover for another on the same team.
Strong Client Support: AccountingDepartment.com is dedicated to client satisfaction. To ensure reliable results, accounting specialists follow a detailed list of daily tasks. A controller reviews the work of the specialists and prepares monthly closing statements, identifying potential financial problems and providing recommendations for improvement. This system ensures that the company delivers exactly what it promises to its clients. Professional employees are evaluated by clients on their delivery of accounting functions as well as the quality of the services they provide. Given the ongoing positive client feedback received and the high client retention rates the company enjoys, client satisfaction is one of AccountingDepartment.com’s greatest strengths.
Sustaining a Healthy Culture: In previous posts, we identified five elements of a healthy culture, and we found support for all of these elements at AccountingDepartment.com:
1. Creating Clarity: The company has a clear vision and operating plan. It communicates its vision and plan to its employees, who are in turn accountable for delivering the plan.
2. Belief in People: AccountingDepartment.com hires people who fit and enhance its culture. These professional employees work from their homes and are entrusted with delivering accounting services with a positive attitude.
3. Alignment: home/life balance, family values, and a strong work ethic are values that align management and employees. The company has never had a layoff and lives by its commitment to the job security of its employees. Showing mutual respect and sharing personal lives creates a strong bond for everyone.
4. Teamwork: Employees are often called on to coordinate service continuity plans during their vacations and paid time off. At the executive level, there is a great deal of teamwork in sales, human resources, and operations. This is essential in coordinating a virtual company.
5. A Winning Attitude: The company prides itself for its annual revenue growth, outstanding customer service, and employee satisfaction. In the past few years, it has been awarded several national recognitions, including being named to Entrepreneur magazine’s “Top Company Cultures” list; earning the Society of Human Resource Management’s “When Work Works” award for being an effective, flexible workplace; and Glassdoor’s Employee’s Choice Award honoring top CEOs.
Response to the Pandemic: The company has had several virtual meetings with employees to communicate how it is dealing with business disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Leadership has communicated its commitment to all employees that they will not lose their jobs. Employees are being asked to coordinate challenges generated by the loss of clients and to help clients navigate changes to their own businesses. Being a virtual company with technology to support communication across all remote offices has helped the company respond with agility and speed to the new reality of social distancing and running a business in an extremely challenging and uncertain environment.
Back to our original question: Can a virtual company have a healthy culture? We think AccountingDepartment.com has made it clear that the answer is yes. It starts with a strong commitment to values, people, and processes, and a large investment in state-of-the-art technology. AccountingDepartment.com provides a great model to learn from.