Offshoring and Virtual Staffing

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer Nord podcast, where we work on getting better step by step, professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season where we're talking to a bunch of different people. This episode, we have a new person we're going to be speaking with. She's talking to Tanika D'Souza, and we're going to talk offshoring. She has a model, sort of a consultancy based around offshoring, where she helps people, companies, customers figure out how to best do, whether it's virtual assistants or something much more skilled like a developer, designer, sales or things like that. She helps find the right matches with an offshore resource to a, I would say, onshore company. And there's a lot we're going to talk about this first part. We're going to talk about just the logistics, like getting it put together. And then we're going to go deeper into that in the next episode. But I don't want to steal her thunder. So let's get started with our conversation with Tanika. Well, welcome back. And today we're going to be speaking with Tanika D'Souza, and we're going to be talking about offshoring. We're going to be talking about teams and building teams and working with teams and why, why and why not, and all of those things. And by all, we're obviously not going to get into all of them because it could take days or weeks to go through all of the facets. But this is somebody that you're going to see, that you listen to, or that understands this and is going to give us, I think, some great insight. So as I've mentioned before, this is probably one of those where, you know, grab a notebook, grab a pencil or your digital thing, whatever you do, and take some notes as you go. Because I think you're going to get some great ideas out of this. That being said, I'll go ahead and let you introduce yourself. Welcome to the show and tell us a little bit about your background and yourself. Awesome. Well, thank you, Rob, for having me. My name is Tanika D'Souza. As you said, I'm the CEO of High Octane Teams. So acronym HOT, I might reference HOT as my company name, which also makes me a HOT CEO. Isn't that so fun? So either way, what we are is an offshore staffing agency, which means that I pair a lot of US-based companies, but I do have clients who are in other countries as well, with virtual staff who are offshore to them. So I do all the legwork to build that relationship. I start with the clients, like really getting to know what they need on their team. Whatever the challenges they're having, most of them come to me in a form of crisis. I need help. I needed yesterday. Things are going crazy. I'm losing money, whatever the case is. And we evaluate what's happening, figure out the position they should hire for. And then I do everything from there. I do the hiring. I help them with the onboarding. And then I do continued support, primarily for the virtual staff, but also for the company to make sure that managers are actually being good managers to their teams. So that's what we do for my staffing agency. So would it be fair to say that you're sort of like an outsourced account manager kind of a role? And I guess with that sort of combination of that question, who's your customer? Do you see it more as the teams or is it more as the people that need those organizations that need a team? So who I call my client is the company who needs the virtual assistant. Where I probably spend the majority of my energy is making sure those virtual assistants are absolutely equipped to do the job, to meet the demands while they're placed, and to have a place where they come back to because I literally have built a very large community for them, where they support each other, where we do training. We have all types of incentives to keep them motivated for their job. So it also deals with or I should say causes me to not have as much turnover. What I often hear with offshore hiring from companies is, yes, I found someone, but then they just went in my way. Like I literally had that two people reach out to me today saying, I hired someone, I tried to do it myself, but the person just went in my way. And it's because they don't understand the management or the support needed for the virtual staff. So in general, my client is the company who wants to hire because they're the ones that are paying me for a service, but I'm providing the virtual staff and I stand behind each staff that I place a thousand percent. So do they hire, sorry if we're getting a little in the weeds here, but just figuring out where you're at. So do they hire you and then you provide them with the staff or do you sort of connect them to the staff and they have a separate arrangement with the staff as far as the hiring goes? So they hire me. So they're constantly paying an invoice for me and then I take care of the staff because the other complication that's presented with hiring offshore is how do you pay them? What's the tax implication? If I'm a US based company, you're a US based company, you're just paying me as a contractor and that's the end of it for you. And you can still build that under your staffing, but you're not dealing with all the nuances of paying someone offshore because a lot of people, they don't even understand how to pay. So they don't understand the fees involved, the structure, like what needs to be filed. Like there's there's little nuances that we just take all of that away from you. And that itself is I know is worth it when you can have that go between like that, so you don't have to think about all those details. Then it's just like, hey, it's a contractor. I'm writing a check. Yes. So that's what most of your customers want. They're like, hey, I've got a problem. I need it. I'll write it. I just need to know who to write it to, how much and let's move on. Now, you mentioned your your community. So do you have a how do you how do you attract your your workers? Is it something where you're actually bringing them in and you've got a sort of like a pool of employees, essentially, that you've got? Or is it more that you're you're treating them in a way that they say, hey, we work with you. And so now we're going to go work with that hot CEO. We're going to work with her because she's treated us right as opposed to, you know, maybe some of the other options that they have. So I go through a pretty extensive screening process. However, I start that when I have a client who has a need. So in general, I always keep virtual assistant posts out because a lot of people in other countries, they respond to, oh, I want a virtual job. And then I'm weeding through what are the skills that you have. However, if you came to me, Robyn said, you know, you deal with like software developers or people who need to know this specific tech or software or whatever it is, I will go out and find that specific skill set for you. I may be able to find them in the general post that I create that just says, you know, VAs want it most often if you have some special skill you're looking for, it's going to come because I specifically asked for that skill. So I don't keep people like some agencies, they keep people what I'm going to call on the bench. I'm a big football family. So, you know, everything has a football reference for me. But so I don't keep people on the bench. However, once I screen them, I do a lot of training with them. So I never take for granted that they understand basic things like calendar management. And right now, almost everyone I know is using ClickUp or some CRM. So we do a lot of very basic training. And also, if they said they know a certain tool or have a certain skill point, I do a training as well in those areas to ensure that they know it before I send them and on board them with you. So there's a lot that I do to invest in the virtual staff before they're even placed with the company. Now, with that, do you have is this somewhere you have sort of a. We'll say like sort of a blanket standard type of onboarding that you do, or is it really end up being usually more almost more specialized and customized per per role per customer, per relationship that you're building? So there are some standard things like calendar management, email management, responsiveness, things like that are basic to every single person. However, we then have trainings based on the role that we're hiring for. So I hire a lot of executive assistants. I hire a lot of project managers to separate trainings, to separate skills. So I do separate skills, and so I do onboarding and kind of skills assessments based on what they were hired to do. Excellent, so that's and that's what I expected is it's one of those that it's it is it's not like a one shoot, one size fits all kind of approach because it's you've got to match them. Now, what is in doing that, you know, in finding that match, because you say you spend a lot of time on it. What is maybe the the top, you know, depends on how long you've got here, but maybe like the top three challenges that you run into and especially because now this is I'm asking more as somebody that knows that somebody that's just come into this, you know, they're going to have a different set of of challenges than somebody that's been doing this for a while. So what are the things that like continue to be some challenges that you work through on a regular basis? So I think the the way I'm going to approach the question you asked is what are the challenges that people experience and I'm solving for? Right. Because I think the big benefit to hiring or using an agency is the fact that I do this all the time. Rob, you don't have to hire all the time. Like you hire when you have a need. It's kind of the same as like people who get married. Right. You're planning this big wedding. Well, you're likely to only do it once, maybe twice. Right. But you plan to do it one time. So clearly you're not an expert at doing it. You just know what you want. So what you want is in your head. You've probably been thinking about this for a long time. The same with business owners. They want usually some unicorn type of employee that's going to walk into their business, solve all their problems, and everything's going to be amazing after this one hire. Right. We all know that's not true. So what I bring to the table is helping you actually receive what you have envisioned in your head, even if it's me telling you what you need is an executive assistant and a project manager and this like admin assistant who's going to do all this work. You didn't know that before. So you would have hired the executive assistant not understanding what skills they're bringing to the table, what they can do and where their limitations are. So I'm kind of bringing the expert view. So that's the first thing. Like, that's the first and biggest challenge that most people have is that they really, really feel like they're going to hire one or two people to solve all the issues in their company and then their life is going to be like amazing. So first, we do that type of assessment. And the biggest one that I think people have the hardest time with, which is where agency really does help you, is having a outside perspective on your company. Right. Because if I said to you, well, I'm going to hire for fit, you're like, great, you're going to find a person that's going to be great to work with me. Well, what does that actually mean? To me, it means a lot of things. It means understanding what is Rob's expectation of his staff? Like, does he create a collaborative environment? Is he a very high pace environment? You know, especially that we're talking to people who are in the development world. Right. You often will have clients with very strict timelines. This is the timeline. There is no extending it by five more months. Right. So this is an intense. We're all in for these next few months to get this job done. You want people with that same attitude. You don't want the person who wants to say they're on the clock for four hours and literally four hours and one minute. They're out. You can't reach them until their next four hour shift. That would be annoying. Right. However, a lot of businesses, you know, I have clients like that. They're like, I care that you have work life balance. So if you are a four hour shift, I don't want you here for six hours because you're neglecting your kids and they, you know, people care about different things. So my role as agency is I really I don't have a judgment on what's better or what's worse. It's just who you are. Right. You have a fast paced environment. I have a slower paced environment. Not every employee will work well in those different environments. I personally hate slow paced environment. I just feel bored. But other people feel very stressed and fast paced. So they prefer let me make the agenda. Let me check each thing off each hour. Like that would just make me crazy. So I take the time to understand what you want as a manager. What how your company operates. I ask very basic questions that you don't consider would need a very different type of employee. And once I kind of have that picture, when I'm out there looking for your staff, I'm not only looking for the skill set, but I'm looking for the skill set in the temperament of the person that's going to best fit your environment. So I think most people neglect that. They think I know how to give instruction. Well, anybody with X, Y, Z skills can do this job, but they don't take into account their environment and who's going to fit into their environment. A little bit on that. That environment is particularly now because everybody, I think, has at least been exposed to, if not are actively part of the idea of remote work and virtual work, even if they've never been a quote offshore resource, people that are onshore, that are remote all the time. Is that I guess how do you how do you screen for how do you work with your with your with your essentially your employees, your contractors and ensuring that there's a you know, there's the right remote environment that's a fit for whoever the customer. Because it's much like timing. There are things where it's you know, they're like, hey, if they can get on the web, then cool, that's that's everything they're going to need to do. Some of them are obviously, you know, much more restrictive. It's like, hey, we're going to even to the point, something like, hey, we have to send them a configuration or a laptop or hardware, you know, dongles and all these other things that they may need for security purposes and such. So how do you how do you sort of work through that side of the screen, the sort of the technical nitty gritty side of the screening process? So that does present a few issues. But like you said, most of us are getting more comfortable, I should say, with remote work early in the pandemic. People were freaked out like, oh, my goodness, my staff has to go home. This, you know, they're concerned about security. They're concerned about all kinds of things where now we are a little more comfortable. So that's one I think the perception is a little more forgiving and understanding of what's needed. So we do have those conversations. I think one of the challenges that I cannot fix instantly is in other parts of the world, especially when you're talking like third world countries or underdeveloped places, you will have Internet issues. So what we do is we try to make sure that we understand the connection issues if they ever have them and create ways that they can at least communicate. So I do a lot of hiring in the Philippines. They recently had what they call a super typhoon, which meant it wasn't just affecting one area. It literally affected the whole island, most of the whole region. And people were just without power. So they have like their cell phones or quick connection. They just say we lost power. I will let you know when I'm back on. So that means they can't work. So I think those are other things that we have to be a little more accepting of when we choose to work with offshore assistance. And some companies absolutely choose. I'm going to send like computers. I'm sending these types of things to help you. And those things are absolutely a help. Others will assist financially like they will pay the Internet bill. They will pay for like the higher speeds or whatever. But you're still dealing with it's not the same high speed like we have more US based. Right. It's still different from that. But you're also contributing to them having better access. So those are things that we discuss. Usually it comes up if we see an issue. And I will say from all of my placements, I've only had one really challenging case. And it turned out that of all the things we asked, we forgot to ask about like their specific laptop. And that was super, super old. So we knew it was this, that and the third, but we didn't know the year and it was very old. And so we're sending and having them connect online and use VPNs and do all this stuff. But the machine itself just needed to go. And the person somehow that got skipped. But either way, most often there are simple technology solutions that will solve the connection issues that will keep them able to work. So I haven't had that be a big problem that causes people to say no to offshore hiring. You mentioned the Philippines and that was actually that's a good segue, I think, into how do you I mean, changes. Do you have any particular is that you always look for to hire for offshore? Do you sort of go wherever it varies from job to job? And then are there like sort of the two sides? Is there like the favorites that these are always really good matches across the board or some words like these are I avoid these countries or these areas because they're always just too much of a challenge. So I've had a ton of success in the Philippines, which is why I used it as my example. And that is also why the community that my staff walk into is very welcoming to them, because I would say 90 percent of the virtual staff that I have currently are all from the Philippines. So what I've learned is there's still tons of different dialects in the Philippines. But the thing that happens is they can speak to other virtual assistants in their native language and get solutions for each other. So if I just dealt with the manager and had to produce something and now you're having the same challenge, I literally can pass you my SOPs, tell you what I did, and we're able to communicate in our native language. My chief of staff that kind of manages that group is also from the Philippines, so they feel very comfortable to come to her and to talk through even small issues that we can resolve instantly because they have a comfortable place to come. So I have hired a lot from the Philippines. And I think what happens with a lot of agencies or even companies who hire for themselves offshore, once you get a rhythm with a certain with a certain country or region, you tend to stay there just because like for me, I literally have settings on my phone that tell me what time it is in Manila and what time it is. I'm on the East Coast of the U.S. So we're typically always 12 hours difference. So it makes it very easy. I do have staff in other places, Africa, South America, other regions as well. But I tend to see that agencies or companies hire from the same region just for the convenience of understanding the time differences, making the adjustments. So it's like right now, when I put out something, I just put out East Coast time and Philippine time and others make the adjustment appropriately. That makes sense. Now, that and that sort of does go into as you touch on a little bit is how do you. How do you tackle it, which is honestly, it's becoming, I think, less and less an issue, but they're still out there. There is some level, some level of language barriers that will come in, particularly if you're in a I think like a general VA, like if you're an executive assistant, it's probably not as much. But if you're in a specialty, like if you're in law or technology or or health care or something where they've got their own special language, how do you how do you address that? How do you tackle that both on the front end sales side, but also as part of your your onboarding and training your people? So the thing that I find is I definitely can find staff who speak English very well. I always tell the managers or the companies hiring them, you still should do double check because like my assistant, my executive assistant, she prepared me for this meeting and she said that you requested me, you guessed me, which meant I knew what she meant, like you requested me as a guest. Right. But she said that you guessed me. So, you know, there's always those little things, but her English is great. We talk all the time through Zoom. I don't have any issues of I didn't understand what you said. But then there's the occasional, you know, things that happen. So when you have any virtual staff who is client facing, then what I usually try to do is make sure there is still some checkpoint in between. So, for example, if they have to communicate like by phone with the customer, the English definitely has to be very proficient and their understanding and comprehension has to be very proficient. Then there has to be follow up that is written. So that way there is no misunderstanding in general. That's how we should communicate. Right. We should never have verbal conversations with clients making any claims or promises and it not be written. So offshore forces us to think through things that we should do anyway. But we don't. We take for granted because we're assuming we're all on the same page where because my staff is offshore, we don't make those assumptions. And I find that I'm having a ton less defect rate because I put in things to ensure that the language was clear and everybody was actually speaking apples and apples and not saying the same words with different meaning. So those are things that I find that my companies love because it forces them to another level of clarity that they never had before and they take for granted with other native English speakers. So that's one side of it. The other side, as far as communication, I think most people assume that when they're hiring offshore, language is going to be a huge barrier and it could be. But we do this extensive screening and I literally talk back and forth with them in written language. I have them send me loom videos of just random things like I always tell people I hire for fit. I want to get to know you. Send me a three minute video describing things that you love to do, because who's going to script what I love to do. So now I get to see their personality. I could see how they speak, how they express themselves. Some people, when they get excited, maybe their accent comes out more. And if you're going into a job where you could possibly be excited all the time, then it makes it hard for people to understand. So I do a ton of that in the screening and I weed out people. If I can't understand, I'm not expecting my clients to understand either. And we'll pause there. I'm about to get into a little bit of a dialogue. I apologize or a monologue. I apologize as we come back into the next episode, but I didn't want to partially set up that next question and then have you have sort of a cliffhanger into the next one. But we there will be an excellent we'll come back. We'll be speaking with her again, get a little more in detail about what are the challenges of offshoring and how she faces those and how she really we're going to talk almost more of a generic management, building a company and culture. As you've already seen, there's much more to this and how she approaches it than simply plugging a person into a seat somewhere. And we'll get deeper into that. And I think it'll be a great lesson not only in handling larger organizations such as she has, but also some ways that you can manage people better and show them the respect they deserve. That being said, we'll wrap this one up and we'll come back next time around. 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