By Paul Meissner FCA.

After seven years of running a 100% cloud-based accounting firm and working from some exotic locations (while on holiday), I dreamed of more.

Remote working is a concept that is common. Many of us, while on holiday, log in and do the odd bank reconciliation or email between mai tais and sightseeing. What if you wanted to take the family overseas for an extended period – say two months? Could you run an accounting firm? Would clients and staff mind? And how do you actually do it?

Paradise sought

Ever since our honeymoon, my wife and I have wanted to live overseas. We were sitting in a cafe and saw a young boy running along the beach. He didn’t look like a local, but had a tan, curly blond hair and was enjoying life at the beach. Ever since then we had hoped to give our kids that opportunity.

Fast forward three years and we now have two beautiful kids. With a frigid Melbourne winter in 2015, we were jolted into action. Over dinner one night we discussed just going.

For the first time I was faced with the serious questions around a trip like this. Would my clients leave? Would my staff leave? Would I have internet access? Would I be motivated to work or would it feel like a holiday?

While my wife researched the logistics of the trip, I was left to figure out how I would maintain a robust contribution to the firm while I was away.

From there it just snowballed and the next thing I knew, we had booked our tickets.

A family adventure

For two months, our family relocated to Europe. We spent one month based in Sardinia, Italy, and the second month on the Greek island of Paros. It was a rewarding trip that brought our family closer together, allowed us to spend time together without the distractions of home and gave our children experiences that they otherwise wouldn’t get. Seeing my three-year-old son play and communicate with other children, despite speaking a different language, was a wonderful thing.   

While there were many benefits there were also difficulties, including being away from a work environment with people to chat to and missing networking opportunities. I hadn’t expected to miss these things so much. But two months provided the right mix of family opportunity and fun, while not being (physically) away from my business world for too long.

Managing staff from afar

One of the key concerns I had when planning this trip was the impact on staff, and how they would react. Would they be productive? Would I have visibility of their performance?

While I was away I made a conscious effort to call the office every morning and connect with the staff. I would ask three simple questions on every call.

• What have you been working on?

• What are you working on next?

• What issue(s) can I resolve for you?

There is a project management concept in software development called Agile. The fundamental concept of Agile is to break down a project into small tasks and allow staff to make decisions while combining frequent, short meetings where the team re-focuses its efforts to ensure project outcomes are achieved.

This concept – as I have discovered – fits really well in professional service firms. It also provides a sufficiently robust management structure to allow you to throw away the timesheet. Yes, I said it. Throw it away.

What does this have to do with remote working? When I returned I asked my key staff how they felt the two months had been. Had they missed me and did they feel that they had the support they needed to do their jobs? I was amazed to hear that they felt they had more contact with me. When I am in Melbourne I am mostly in the office, but on any given day I can have family commitments or client meetings that pull me in many directions, so my physical office hours vary.

I realised that it wasn’t that I had more contact with staff while I was away, but that the consistency and reliability of the contact made them feel more supported.

Since returning from Europe I have maintained the same consistency of staff contact and it has been a great outcome of the trip.

Paul Meissner’s remote working escape daily schedule

• 5:30am (1:30pm Melbourne): Wake up and check emails. Providing nothing major had happened I could relax.
• 6:30am (2:30pm Melbourne): Head to the beach café. Leaving home was a physical and mental trigger that I was heading to a place of work.
• 7am (3pm Melbourne): Call in to the Melbourne office to connect and go over the workflow.
• 7:15am–10am (3:15pm–6pm Melbourne): Client calls made now (this corresponds with the end of the Aussie work day).
• 10am–1:30pm (6pm–9:30pm Melbourne): Relatively uninterrupted work time with the occasional scheduled client call.
• From 1:30pm: I was free to explore the sights of Italy and Greece with my family.
  
  

Paul Meissner FCA is the founder and managing director of 5ways Group Chartered Accountants, a creative cloud accounting agency based in Melbourne.

This article first appeared in the April/May 2017 issue of Acuity magazine, which can be read in full online for free here.