Derek Ackary – High Velocity business improvement coaching
High Velocity Business Improvement Coaching
Derek Gallimore interviews Derek Ackary of High-Velocity Business Improvement Coaching about the cultural differences in the workplace and how leaders should best approach these situations.
Businesses that outsource have to solve a few dilemmas when it comes to communication. How should they communicate? Should they outsource their workplace culture as well? How do they mend the cultural differences between the West and Asia? These are the topics that we cover in this episode.
References:
Derek Gallimore: Hi, Derek. How are you today?
Derek Ackary: Yes, I’m very good, Derek. It’s a bit weird calling in someone else by my name, but I’m doing well.
Derek Gallimore: So you are a business consultant at High Velocity and your gig is to get the best out of teams, specifically those based here in The Philippines with, of course, the company, client or the boss based overseas, wherever they are.
I suppose, just jumping right into it. What is the difference between staffing a team here and overseas, whether it be the US, UK or Australia? People tend to come over here and want to just treat everyone the same, do everything the same, and bring the culture across. But is that necessarily the best plan all the time?
Staffing and the Filipino culture
Derek Ackary: In my experience, I think, what it’s like, anything we need to understand what you’re getting involved with before you over commit, and find it too hard to sort of fix-up big messes, are they created through, not having the right plans and structures in place, to begin with.
I’ve been living and working in for 16 years. One of the most common things that I’ve seen here, whether it’s business, personal, or whatever it happens to be, is people get lulled into a false sense of security because Filipinos speak English. I think they underestimate the cultural impact or the influence that will impact the way that they do business.
So, for example, just because Filipinos speak English, it doesn’t mean they think English, although I don’t think as we do in Australia or the US. So they’re still very much Asian at their core. Their values and ethics, a lot of those things are still very deeply rooted in Asian culture.
I think a lot of international businesses underestimate the impact that will have when it comes to either setting up their businesses or simply just running a business even on a day-to-day basis, even the most basic types of tasks.
I’ve seen people pull their hair out because they’re struggling to understand why Filipinos don’t understand it or have difficulty in comprehending fully what they’re trying to say. That leads to a number of other difficulties, obviously.
And that’s, I think, the main cause of a lot of frustration, miscommunication, and misunderstandings that happen here in the Philippines.
Derek Gallimore: I see it a lot. There’s a big learning curve when people start outsourcing. It’s super exciting, they get good initial results, I think and then the team settles in. Then they realised the nuances of managing different people in different environments and different teams.
Quite often then, maybe a year or two, people start tearing their hair out and coming across little frustrations because the team isn’t running smoothly. What works in their hometown is necessarily working in the Philippines.
You mentioned language, but how is it different culturally? What are some very specific examples where you see people commonly tripping up?
Derek Ackary: I think I can speak particularly from the Australian perspective. I’d say the UK, Europe, and the US fall into this category. But the main differences are that in the Philippines – it’s an Asian thing. It’s not just the Philippines, but it’s Central Asian, Southern Asian. It’s very much a hierarchical society. Whereas in the West, we tend to have more of an egalitarian culture.
So, the main differences are that Filipinos, they don’t want confrontation. They have a lot of respect for authority and for elders. That’s why, for example, a lot of foreigners here, particularly Australians, and they’re like don’t call me sir. I don’t like being called say just call me Derek. But the thing is Filipinos call other Filipinos, sir. So it’s a respect thing.
I think if people need to understand the angle that Filipinos are coming from an I call you sir, it’s not because we’re foreigners. It’s because they have respect for authority. And a lot of the time, in Asian culture, in particular, saving face is very important.
If they don’t understand something, they’re confused by something or whatever, they’re not likely to ask the question. If they don’t understand why they feel like they’re saving face by not asking the question. I don’t want to appear like that. And as we know, if you sort of ignore a problem and don’t ask questions about it, it doesn’t go away and just gets bigger.
I found that one of the key things with the way they communicate is that they’ll talk amongst themselves, amongst equals, and amongst levels. But when it comes to dealing with people in authority like bosses or managers, they get to shy away from it.
In Australian culture and egalitarian cultures, we consider everyone in the workplace to be equal. No one is better than anyone else. So, we’ve all got a role to play in the organisation. Everybody even the CEO or the janitor. It’s just a title at the end of the day. Everybody’s got a duty or evolves in performance in their business.
Derek Gallimore: So how does that play out day to day, though? Because if people are listening to this and they realise that there is a sort of respect and things like that, how do people meant to then engage?
People in Australia or the US, they are familiar with how they interact with people. And how should the client be coming over to the cultural norm of the Philippines? Or should the Philippines be moving over to the cultural norm of where the client’s sitting?
Derek Ackary: I think it’s a combination of both because as I say, with the Filipinos that I train if they want to be good at the job and keep it essentially, it’s not just about the job. They got to buy into the organisation and feel like a part of it.
Things just tend to move a bit slower here. In Asia, things are very much relationship-based. So it’s a little bit more of a slowly holding the hand approach as opposed to flooding out saying a lot of, ‘this needs to get done by five o’clock today’. If you don’t do it, there’s going to be consequences.
Where in the West, you say that that’s expected, right? You’ve got your job to do, you’ve got a deadline, and we can be brutally honest with each other about things like that. In the Philippines and Asia, they’re not so straightforward in that regard.
By speaking to them how you would speak to, say, an Australian or an American, you’re not going to get the same response out of them. It’s understanding how to speak to them, soft approach. Sometimes you have to explain things, several different ways to get the point across.
But on the other hand, as I said, for the Filipinos, if they are buying into the organisation, they’re really sharing its vision, and want to have a long-term future with the business, they also need to raise their standards to what the business expects from them. I guess it’s a bit of a jaw expectation type situation.
I think to a degree, Filipinos probably need to raise their expectations and the International businessman needs and maybe lower theirs. It’s just a little bit. That’s, I think how you bring to get closer, but I don’t think there’s a way that you can eliminate it. Little ways a day…
Offshoring vs. outsourcing
Derek Gallimore: The culture of a company is really important. We’re broadly speaking huge generalisations here which can be significantly problematic. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everyone in every situation.
But what I see in terms of some clients, they treat outsource staffing as a ‘them and us’. Just get the job done. We will have our company culture over here and you guys over there, just get the work done, please. Whereas other clients say, we are one company, we take them under our wing, we want them to be happy. Everything that anyone gets in the orchestra organisation is equal.
And of course, the latter is a better example of how to run a business and how to manage any kind of HR situation. Do you see it as a divide there in terms of how much work clients necessarily want to put in into building their overseas teams?
Derek Ackary: I think you’re absolutely correct. That’s why the latter model that you talk about is more of the offshoring model as opposed to outsourcing. It is sort of offshoring when you’re offshoring your morals. It’s an extension of your organisation.
So you’re trading the person literally as if they’re somebody from your own country, but you’ve just got them in the Philippines. You treat them exactly the way you treat your onshore staff. Whereas the outsourcing model is a little bit like a bomb on a seat, and they’re there just to get the job done.
The example that you just used, I think that’s where that particular sort of divide is created. So, the offshoring model, I think, tends to take into consideration the cultural differences and so forth a little bit more, because obviously, they’re trying to get their staff to blend in more with their corporate culture, and the vision and so forth. And that’s great.
But having said that, there is still the underlying differences between Asian and Western culture. That made those things need to be taken into consideration. I was saying businesses that acknowledge it and do it quite well. Like they do, I wouldn’t say go out of the way, but understand that there are differences, acknowledge them, work on them, and through them.
I’ve also seen a lot of businesses that literally think I can just come here and China came back, everything just works automatically what is empowering the US, UK and Australia. That’s what I meant about them lowering their expectations because, as I’ve discussed with people before.
I think a lot of businesses when they wake up to the fact that they should be offshoring or outsourcing, a lot of the time, it can be too late. That they’re doing it from a retrospective sort of situation. It’s like, their business is already in trouble and it’s like, how can we save money? Oh, let’s go to the Philippines because there’s cheap stuff and they speak English, right? That’s the wrong attitude.
Sure, they might save some money, but that’s not necessarily the reason why you do that. You’ll still be able to save money, still do things properly, and be culturally sensitive. As a matter of fact, the better you get your team performing, the more efficient they’ll be. Ultimately, over the long term, you will have a better business.
But I found a lot of businesses come here expecting a real quick-fix solution. Many times I’ve seen it not work. And I’ve seen they’ve had to significantly restructure their thinking and their approach and take a completely different tack that…
Managing outsourced teams
Derek Gallimore: That is a shame, isn’t it? Because outsourcing is cheaper. If money wasn’t an issue, then I think the ideal in any circumstance is to have people shoulder to shoulder in the same office space.
We can’t get away from the fact that outsourcing is significantly cheaper. But having said that, it’s not, as you said, it’s not turnkey. It’s not a silver bullet and anything within the business is complex. Any sort of employee management, building teams, building operations, and processes has a huge amount of inputs, outputs, nuances, and moving parts.
And I think it’s easy for some people to think of outsourcing as a turnkey solution. Just press a button and it gets done for you. So how much do you see, in terms of coaching, the client actually needs a bit of it?
Because from where I sit, a lot of outsourcing can be very similar to management consulting. You’re actually building processes, refining processes and getting these things to run efficiently. The companies aren’t necessarily the best in the world and running their own shop as perfectly as they could be.
Where do you see that divide in terms of needing to assist the company in building better processes?
Derek Ackary: It’s a good question. My business partner Mark, with our business, he often talks about a lot of businesses actually treat the symptoms of problems, but don’t treat its root cause. For example, the cultural elements to a large extent can actually be a symptom of a deeper problem. It’s not necessarily the root cause.
Meaning to say that as you just mentioned, if there are proper procedures, framework, and things in place, then it can help reduce a lot of these issues and some of those processes and so forth might include coaching and training.
So they don’t necessarily imply an actual business process itself. Part of the actual continual impressive framework might include something like ongoing training or ongoing coaching to help overcome some of these issues, but you’ll find that a lot of the time that these things are more symptoms rather than root causes of problems.
Like I was saying before, some businesses come here and they literally think they can just turn the key and everything will just run properly. But if they actually don’t have a continuous improvement framework or a business improvement methodology that they’re actually trying to adhere to, then how can they expect the new staff to understand how their business essentially works and follow up properly.
I found that and Mark, in particular, having worked with big organisations like Telstra, that, you know, a lot of the time, a lot of these organisations jump up and down and just think because there are people organisation and everything works beautifully in a country that I can simply transfer that into another country and that’s gonna work.
And a lot of the time, they have struggles. Culture can be part of that, but a lot of the time, the processes for being able to do that expansion.
Setting up processes
Derek Gallimore: Absolutely. When you see an organisation operating locally, just all in one room, I think a lot of the knowledge and the organisational processes are really in people’s heads. I think when people start to outsource or offshore, they realise actually, they’ve got to get all of this out of their heads onto a piece of paper they’ve got to get processes, maps.
So that this knowledge can be transferred and assessed as to whether it’s being done properly, and then refined, it’s a process in which…
Derek Ackary: That is absolutely spot on. That’s why I talk about that cultural thing is just one part of the challenge that you’ll have. If you don’t have all your processes and so forth set up properly.
Filipinos are very good. You give them a job to do and tell them to do with the steps and they can do it perfectly. It’s how do you communicate that to them, how do you involve them in the business? How do you get them to buy into what they’re actually doing? So that they’re not literally just trying to earn a salary. That’s what the challenge actually is.
That’s why you’re going to big organisations that run well in their own countries then come here and try and implement the same things and it doesn’t work. They have big challenges and struggles along the way. One of those is obviously the cultural side of things, but a lot of the time it can actually also… the processes…
Derek Gallimore: I would suggest that Filipinos, they’re a very passionate workforce. They’re eager to jump on board and push the company forward. But it’s got to be communicated well. As you say that it’s sort of a versus writing it down then also making sure that transfers culturally as well. So there’s that.
Derek Ackary: It essentially boils down to comprehension. But like I said, it’s not just when we talk about how you say the message. It’s not about whether they understand the accents or whatever. I mean, obviously, that’s important, especially for Australians, they say we’ve got a really bad accent.
It’s about speaking to them on a level in which they’ll understand it. It’s that like I said, because we come from a very egalitarian culture, we tend to be a lot more direct and straight to the point. Whereas the hierarchical way of communicating it, there’s a lot more. You got to read between the lines, there’s a lot more bling, there’s a bit more.
In the way that they communicate, they don’t quite get straight to the point the way that we do so. It’s getting that balance right. It’s a matter of saying, we understand there’s a difference, and we’re not going to totally bend over and do things the way Filipinos want it done. It’s a matter of just the very basics of communicating how to be able to get that message across to them.
It’s critical because, at the end of the day, every business runs on communication. As you said before, when you’re all under one roof, that’s fantastic. Everyone can buzz off each other. And as I said before, a lot of people retain information in their head. It all works wonderfully well under one roof.
Then all of a sudden, you bring in 20 to 40 other people who are a completely different culture, and so forth, and try and transfer that information to them, it’s not that easy. Just because they speak English, doesn’t mean that they’re going to get it. There’s a whole heap of cultural elements apply here.
And like I said, it’s not even just about whether they speak English. It’s the way you say things and how you communicate things that matter just as much as…
Derek Gallimore: Absolutely. English is now Fantastic for the majority of the workforce. They’re absolutely leading the region and the world in terms of an English speaking nation for which it isn’t there for most first-time language. It really is incredible.
But as you say, and I think this is the biggest takeaway from this episode, is that it’s realising the nuances of very difficult. Trying to accurately explain is very difficult, but just an acknowledgement that there is a difference in culture and they are different people. It’s being aware of that, being sensitive about that, and formulating a game plan.
I think a lot of people can just assume with the most benevolent kind of intentions to just say that we’re going to treat everyone the same. It doesn’t work very frequently. It is a lot of sort of heartache and tears a couple of years later.
Then the systems of both to acknowledge that this is a different country, a different environment, and a different culture. Then, things do evolve, but it’s most definitely a learning process, isn’t it?
Training vs. coaching
Derek Ackary: Absolutely. That’s the whole thing and that’s why our business model is more about coaching than it is about training because there is a difference between training and coaching. Training obviously going in and showing people a particular system, but coaching is making sure that they’re implementing and using that system.
That’s where I’ve identified obviously a gap in the offshoring and outsourcing industry. The things that we’ve talked about organisations can’t necessarily afford to employ somebody full time to do this type of stuff, particularly if they’re just only getting started with their offshoring or outsourcing journey.
And as they’re starting to scale up and be able to afford to put somebody in full-time or part-time or whatever, but that’s why I offer my services on a consulting basis. So I’m able to go in, speak with organisations, and work with them on a few key elements.
Obviously, every business is different. They all have different nuances and so forth, different sizes will have you different industries. So I’m able to offer my services as a consultant, go in helping to try and bridge the cultural gap. Both ways. Then help businesses out to be able to improve their communication and their efficiencies when it comes to communication and understanding. The drives Filipinos and also what drives…
Derek Gallimore: Absolutely. On the cultural communication bit now, going back 20 or 25 years from the industry began, I think there was less awareness of outsourcing, offshoring, Philippines, and it was more common for the protocol for the staff to lie and they should pretend that they’re based in California somewhere.
They were given anglicised names and even in the offices, they would be behind the desk. They would have a weather forecast for the day in California so that they can actually put into their conversation the weather’s nice here in California to authenticate it and train to such a degree that they would optimise their accents.
It’s pretty brutal. And I think the industry has come a long way now and maybe also, world globalisation and people’s awareness of offshoring. But now people are encouraged to proudly say, look, we’re based in Manila or in the Philippines, and sort of talk proudly about their location and use their real names.
I think the industry has definitely progressed along the way, clients are more accepting of people from across the world. So I think this is moving in the right direction. But in terms of cultural communication, there is still training.
When I first moved here, I was surprised to see that a lot of these BPOs have cultural training, so that if you do come across Australian accents, or nuances or mannerisms or idiosyncrasies people know how to manage them. So it’s quite a big thing here.
Can you tell me a little bit about common interactions with Australia and things that people might find a little bit hard to manage it if they’re not from Australia?
Familiarizing cultures
Derek Ackary: Obviously, the Australian accent is probably one of the biggest factors. The Filipinos are speaking American style of English. There are a few fundamentals that they just pronounced completely differently.
Once again, depends on the situation. I mean, if you’ve got an Ozzy customer bringing up making an inquiry about his phone bill, for example, and he speaks to somebody that’s based here if the person taking a call doesn’t have a lot of exposure to working with Australians, they probably almost not going to understand what he says.
It is purely just because of the accent, especially if they’re from sort of Queensland or something like that. So there’s that part. There’s also, obviously, the people here can be working with business partners or coworkers, colleagues, and whatever that is an Australian as well. And some of those people based onshore may not have even been to the Philippines themselves like maybe the big boss has or whatever, but a lot of the counterparts haven’t.
A lot of them also don’t understand some of these nuances said, I’ll be speaking to their co-workers that are based here. Same thing. There’ll be cultural, sorry, I’m language difficulties heavy, purely just because of the accent. The slang and vocabulary and things like that.
So there are some of the biggest challenges that Australian businesses face in particular because we say things completely differently. Like for example, in Australia wait, I’d say guess a laneway say petrol, right? We say footpath and not a sidewalk, we say postcode, not zip codes.
Whereas all of those things are American words, so Filipinos can understand that. But because they speak English as a second language, vocabulary is a reasonable thing. That’s it. So they may only know one word, just something like that.
We know that, for example, in our vacation, holiday, or whatever, we know that there might be several words to one thing, whereas I only know one word. So I get a lot of the time though, If I don’t understand that word, then it throws a bit of confusion into the conversation.
And then we go back to what we’re talking about before where the whole cultural thing comes to the floor, the saving face and not wanting to look stupid because I try and understand and all that sort of stuff comes into it. So that’s where I’ve seen a massive opportunity for my services, obviously, is working closely with a lot of the Australian BPOs that are based here.
Because purely because of the Australian language…
Derek Gallimore: I find that there’s a lot of customer services done in the Philippines obviously. With my previous business that was hotel hospitality based in London, and we had the customer service done from Manila and the Philippines, there’s a lot of cultural information required to help people if they’re in an apartment in central London.
Filipinos probably have never come across central heating. Many of them have never seen snow yet. So there’s a lot of very localised things of knowledge that people from wherever locality they are, take for granted. And it’s got nothing to do with intelligence. It’s just the familiarity with whatever is normal to those people over there.
I often coach our prospects and clients that these are sometimes the hardest things to outsource. Because, if you aren’t based in those localities, it’s the simplest of simple things and you just understand them firsthand. Whereas to teach and convey those things, it can take months or years to someone become for someone to become familiar with esoteric experiences.
How do you have any other solutions to those issues?
Derek Ackary: It’s a good point. You’re right. As we sit here, looking at the window now, we know that the Philippines being a tropical country, it rains for six months a year and for another six months it doesn’t, more or less. When it rains here, it can really rain.
You know that impacts the way things… That impacts infrastructure and a whole heap of things that floods and all these types of things that we, saying from Australia and the UK, probably don’t quite appreciate. So I think there is absolutely spot on. That’s the whole point, everyone’s a product of their environment.
If you want to get the best out of something, then it’s a matter of understanding the environment that you’re entering as well. But also Filipinos needing to understand the environment that we come from.
With the Australian culture and communications training programme that I run, I give them a very brief overview of Australian history so they could get a bit of an idea. Because obviously, the Philippines was a former Spanish and US colony. I explain to them that we were former British colonies.
What I’m trying to do is rather than highlight the differences or try and focus more on the similarities. Because, as I said before, they do have a tendency to put us up on a little bit of a pedestal. I’m talking Westerners in general.
I’ll try and break that sort of down so that they feel like they’re a lot more equal with us because if they feel a lot more equal, they’re going to feel a lot more comfortable communicating. They’re not going to feel like the big boss is like this super-duper Big Boss is just untouchable and I can’t speak so.
Whereas that’s sort of varieties in Asia. Then I talk to them about migration in Australia, how a very multicultural, how there’s a lot of Filipinos in Australia. There’s a lot of people with accents in Australia, and I wanted…
Derek Gallimore: It’s just building their awareness so that they can connect easier with people on the phone, correct?
Derek Ackary: Correct. And then connect with their counterparts, bosses, and coworkers that are based on Australia as well. I found that that works very effectively because that in itself helps to sort of close or bring the gap closer.
I’m trying to really show them that we’re a lot more similar than what they think we are. Because physically, we stand out a lot differently. We speak English and they speak it as a second language. So, just straight away without saying anything, there’s a physical difference, I feel, puts them on the back foot.
For some reason, feel a little bit inferior about that, because I don’t want to be watching, they all want to be and I speak English and whatever. So when I do interact with somebody like that they tend to get a bit shy and what have you. They’re very sort of humble people in that regard.
So it’s just highlighting what the differences are, but also trying to bring up more into focus what the normalities actually also the commonalities to make them feel a bit more level with us. As I said, that’s what Australians want. I mean, Australia, in particular, multicultural country. I mean, We treat everyone equally.
Doesn’t matter where you come from, we’re taught to treat everyone equally, treat everyone on the merits. If you’re a good person and you get treated accordingly, you can have a boss in Australia who’s younger than you. If he’s qualified and got the experience in that position, that’s okay.
Whereas in Asia under the hierarchical system, it’s all about age. It’s not about who’s the best that’s doing a job. That’s who’s been at the company the longest because it’s like the respect for the grandmother. I see it naturally just have a respect for the older person. It doesn’t matter whether that person is actually better than them, or qualified for the job or whatever happens to be a lot of the time. It’s just based on age.
Whereas in egalitarian culture, it’s not like that. I mean, people with more experience might get a bit of an advantage. But, how often is that these days where you’ve got somebody younger than us, the CEO or whatever because they deserve it.
Derek Gallimore: Obviously, nothing like black or white in any society and any workplace in any town to the country is there’s politics. You’ve got to navigate these things, you’ve got to learn the people within the team, you’ve got to learn whether people are introverts or extroverts.
So there’s a lot of complexity in layers to any workplace to any organisation. But obviously, there’s value in knowing how certain groups interact differently and then how you tend to transfer that across. And I suppose, as a sort of parting comment, this is a loaded question.
What is the value in setting a strong culture? Can you not just get people to do the work? Can you not, especially when offshoring or outsourcing, is really a contract employee? Is it worth doing all of this long term investment? They could leave six months down the road. So, have you seen value generated by this that that is hands down obvious for people to pursue?
Standards of successful organizations
Derek Ackary: It’s a very good question. I think in this day and age, a lot of that value can’t be measured on what the bottom line of the company is. I think a lot of successful organisations are successful because they treat their people well. People would rather be in an environment where everybody’s happy, everybody’s treated equally. Everybody’s treated with respect on a level of importance and whatever.
If it meant the company and a little bit less on the bottom line, I think that’s potentially a better, longer-term position for a company to be in. Because they will grow and get bigger and better if they have that type of corporate culture rather than just totally looking at the bottom line and saying, Oh, geez, you know, we’re gonna have to cut some heads because we’re a little bit money down.
Once again, it goes back to looking at what the root causes of certain dysfunctions are within a business, then working on improving those so. But if I definitely think offshoring and outsourcing recommend I’ve seen up work, that’s once again, as we talked about at the start of this podcast is the organisations that are entering this market just needs a walk-in with it.
It was fully open, and just totally understand what it is they’re getting into. Not just looking at the fact that costs $75 a day or whatever it is, they need to take into consideration everything. And I think if they’re able to do that – and the thing is like even myself, I’ve been working 16 years, I mean, I’m still learning.
I always continue to learn because no matter what happens, I am not a Filipino. I will never ever think like a Filipino and I will never ever think like an Australian. But it’s a matter of both parties understand more about each other. Right? That’s about the best solution that you can get.
If you can achieve that, I have seen great results. And I think that there, I mean, I say, probably a bit of a loaded question and obviously, I’ve got a bit of a vested interest in myself, but I definitely think that it’s worth the effort. Ensure this I get the results, and the rewards will be worth the efforts. However, you need to approach it differently.
It’s not like, for example, you’re in Melbourne, so you want to open up an office in Sydney. Or you’re in Melbourne, you’re able to open up an office in Auckland, New Zealand. That’s a different country, but their cultures are very similar. But that would still come with a certain amount of challenges, wouldn’t it?
You would understand that, prepare for that, and take that into consideration. However, if you’re moving to a completely different country with a completely different culture and mindset, then why wouldn’t you expect that to be different on another scale?
Then if you understand that, and you’re prepared to deal with that, knowing what the rewards will be, then you will be successful. But I think a lot of organisations, they take shortcut slightly. Before I just want to put a cane and sign up and bang, and it just all magically happens, but it doesn’t. People are going to keep in focus why they doing it in the first place.
Ultimately, we can’t shy away from the fact that people are doing it to save money or to reduce the costs in a business. That’s the main motivating factor. Okay, that’s fine. Who in business wants to be in business and not make money? That’s the bottom line, right? Obviously, you’re trying to achieve that.
However, in order to achieve that there are other things that need to be done if you’re looking to enter this top of the market. And if you do those things properly, or at least the best that you can, then you will be closer towards your goal of reducing costs in your business because you’ll be having things running here efficiently and doing and working out the way they should be.
Derek Gallimore: As I say, there are so many factors that aren’t directly measurable. And then there are factors that you can measure as well like absenteeism, job-hopping, people’s commitment, and people working a few extra hours versus working a few fewer hours. And people’s general commitment to the mission of the company, and the company vibe as well.
Derek Ackary: Training and coaching as part of that as well, Derek, because it was an Asian thing. I mean, Filipinos feel valued when they are getting trained. When they get encouraged a lot, that’s just part of the culture, they are very much like that.
A lot of companies are reluctant to, they’re like oh, we put someone through three hours of training, and that’s three hours that they’re not in operations, that affects the bottom line, etc, etc. And they’re looking at it from that perspective. But it’s like, if you’re investing in the training and coaching, what’s the measurable output that you get from that? Do you know what I mean?
That’s where you mentioned training and coaching alongside your main one mentions coaching and training to an organisation like, Oh, you know, how much is that gonna cost? And how long’s it gonna take? It’s like a bad thing. It’s like an evil monster that I don’t want to confront.
It’s like, well, if you want to get the best out of your stuff, then you naturally have to do that. You have to invest in your staff. It’s not investing in training and coaching or investing in your stocks, right? So if you expect your staff to commit to you and perform the best that they can, then you’ve got to commit to them.
You commit to them through training, coaching, improving their knowledge and understanding. In terms of what I do with the Australian culture thing, if they learn more about Australian culture and understanding Australia and consumer expectations, etc, etc, then they’re going to do better at their job.
Derek Gallimore: Employment needs to be a long term plan. You need to look at the lifespan of the employee, the benefits, and how they had gone to grow from their interaction with you. It’s got to be seen in a mutually beneficial capacity.
I’m thinking now, the industry is all growing up and recognising that that is the suboptimal path and then allows for this cultural awareness and optimization of the organisation. So it’s a win-win for everyone, I think. Thank you so much, Derek. It’s Derek Ackary of High Velocity. If anyone wants to learn more about these programmes or what you do, how can they do that?
Derek Ackary: Okay, so I think in the show notes down the bottom, you’ll have my email address and the website, highvelocity.com.ph. You’ll find all of our various training courses there that relate to Australian culture and communications training, but some of our other programmes leadership training and senior management training etc.
Derek Gallimore: That was Derek Ackary of High Velocity Coaching. If you want to get in touch with Derek or know any more about High Velocity, go to outsourceaccelerator.com/269. And as always, if you want to ask us anything, just drop an email to [email protected]. See you next time.
Independent
