Employees play a key role in the success and growth of a professional services company including outsourcing companies. We recognize the critical role that employees in creating consistent and lasting value for customer. Our Human Resources (HR) policies focus on recruiting right talent, developing their skills and knowledge, creating holistic appraisal processes and providing ample opportunities for professional growth. We have one of the lowest attrition rates in the industry with most employees being a part of outsourcinghubindia’s team right from early years of the organization.
Recruitment Processes
We follow a stringent and multi phased recruitment process across all our staffing levels. The recruitment process lays a heavy emphasis on sound conceptual knowledge, strong focus on skill testing and a comprehensive assessment of employee’s non functional characteristics.
For Entry Level Positions
The recruitment process involves a written test, a computer processing test, and at-least two rounds of interviews. The written and processing test evaluate candidate’s knowledge of important accounting principles, measure his accuracy in transaction processing, and ability to process accounting information fast and accurately. We also measure their knowledge and experience in handling common MS office tools such as Excel. The interviews reassess their knowledge across accrual accounting concepts, depreciation, inventory accounting, basic financial analysis and balance sheet concepts. Entry level positions in non accounting roles similarly assess functional skills required for the specific role.
For Middle Level Positions
The recruitment process involves a comprehensive accounting test covering balance sheet and income statement questions, financial analysis and reporting questions and other related accounting concepts. There are also two rounds of interviews that test their experience in handling teams, work planning, employee training and of-course functional knowledge.
Training Practices
“We see training as a way to strengthen professional skills and also as a chance to give our staff tools towards personal development, by directing some of our training initiatives towards the industries we specialize in, including real estate accounting and financial services.”
At different stages of their careers, employees need different kinds of training and different kinds of development experiences.
There are three stages of employee education with different learning outcomes:
a) Functional competence, an understanding of financial analysis, accounting practices and knowledge, software knowledge, MS office skills, and other related skills
b) Ability to influence people, based on a broad understanding of people and motivations, plays a
c) Reflective skills, to set priorities for work efforts and life goals
Training at Different Levels
| Process Associate | Senior Process Associate | Senior Level Managers |
|---|---|---|
| Bank reconciliation | Month end closing assist in year end closing | Functional tasks including process migration activities and document creation |
| Accounts payable and accounts receivable | Financial statement & periodic review | Developing work planning skills |
| Updating general ledger related to accruals, amortization, transfers etc. | Tax planning & filing services | Assisting executive staff by providing essential financial reporting and guidance |
| QuickBooks | Backlog Accounting | Delegating assignments and projects to employees |
| Basic excel skills with emphasis on reporting | Preparation of monthly, quarterly & annual financial reports | Behavior management & Interpersonal skills including verbal & non-verbal communication, problem solving, decision making & assertiveness |
| Maintenance of depreciation & loan amortization schedules | Preparation of schedules for audit purposes | Conducting department orientation and training sessions |
| Small business accounting | Liaising with auditors and attending to their queries | Analyzing and interpreting data and situations within departments |
| Other misc data entry projects | Compilation of financial statements | Creating task map for team members |
| Communication skills | Advanced excel skills | Daily tracking of critical activities |
Key Training Initiatives
Skill Upgrade Program
Skill Upgrade Programs (SUPs) are mandatory skill enhancement programs attended by employees at the Process Associate and Senior Process Associate level. Under this program, employees are given structured training on multiple topics throughout the year. These topics include accounting sessions on US GAAP, MS Office Workshops, Communication skill workshops, Industry specific accounting workshops among others. These skills are the ones required in any outsourcing staff.
These skills enhancement programs have been devised to meet their current and medium term future learning needs. They are taught to employees so that employees can enhance their functional know-how and skills and handle complex projects or teams in the future.
To evaluate the effectiveness of these training programs, exams are also conducted on the basis of these trainings. The performance of employees in these exams directly impacts their appraisal ratings every year. The SUP Exams consists of a 2 hourly 2/3 section exams and are conducted twice a year. Separate exams are held for different staffing levels.
Knowledge Sharing Session
The beauty of so many different people working together is the abundance of knowledge and experience that individual members of our diverse family brings from elsewhere or develops on the job.
We have developed a monthly internal interactive knowledge sharing session (KSS). In a KSS, an employee makes a presentation to the entire team including senior management, about any accounting/functional topic followed by an interactive session. Such interactive and informative sessions help employees expand their accounting knowledge and functional skills beyond the requirements of the existing process. It also helps in developing the interpersonal skills and presentation skills of employees.
Some of the topics that have been covered in different knowledge sharing sessions (KSS) include:
- Different US business structures
- Property management companies
- Consolidation of subsidiary accounts
- Budgeting
- Year end adjustments and finalization
- Establishing accounting controls & systems
- Different business banking products in US