This step would be highly beneficial for the company

Last year, accounting and tax consultancy company IDiNG decided to hire two team members in Belgrade. It was the perfect time to take a closer look at the different processes within the company. Founder-owner Bram Iding talks about the added value of support for your organization and of the structured approach.

‘Last year I spoke to a consultant about the development of IDiNG. We also talked about the general shortage on the labour market. He said, “You should go talk to Becky.” Back then, we didn’t need any new staff, but if your company is growing, there will come a time when you need more people, so we accepted Becky’s invitation. I was curious to see if it might be a possible solution for us. When in Belgrade, it became obvious that it would be.’

Everyone on board

‘The rest of the MT was very enthusiastic about my report and really wanted to give it a chance. There were a few employees who had some questions. We convinced them by being open about our plans and giving them space and time to express their doubts. We immediately made it clear that this was not at the expense of their work. We wanted to build something together and we wanted all employees to be part of it. Once we got everyone on board, we went for it.’

The expansion in Belgrade was a good reason for IDiNG to take a closer look at their processes

Structured approach

‘We first decided to investigate what needed to be done to enable the expansion in Belgrade. We’ve adopted a very structured approach for this. We started thinking about what type of work our people in Belgrade could do, what had to be formalized and how we were going to communicate about it with them. Regardless of the outcome, this step would be highly beneficial for the company. It would allow us to organize things that hadn’t been properly organized until then.’

Accurately registered

‘When you transfer processes, you notice that many steps are only clear inside people’s mind, especially in a small company. We were already describing and formalizing them in the CRM, but now we were forced to think about exporting our services. We put a lot of time into that. Fortunately, the automation was already set up. We were already a paperless company and were able to work from home last spring without any problem. Another advantage of Belgrade is that there is no time difference with the Netherlands, which makes things easier.’

Duo as a starting base

‘On the 1st of December, we decided to hire two Becky employees to start with. It’s a serious advantage to have two people that can support one another or be each other’s sounding board. In September, we started recruiting, together with Emanuela, Becky’s HR manager. We were lucky that, at the time we were ready to hire, Alexandar and Tatyana came along. They already had six months experience as a team. We had a chat and got a real good feeling about it. It was a natural thing to hire them.’

Valued colleagues

‘The original plan was to train them here in the office for two weeks, but because of Covid, we had to do it online. Luckily, we were already used to Teams. Even if Alexandar and Tatyana are far away, we consider them as equal colleagues; we even let them participate in the birthday jar. For us, it is very important that our employees feel comfortable with us and can develop themselves. Needless to say, this is also the case for Alexander and Tatjana.’

More frequent visits

‘They visited us for the first time in September this year, it was the very first time that we physically met. It was really nice to have them here and it’s great to get to know each other in a different way, during a company outing. Mid-November, we will send two employees to Belgrade. We hope that COVID regulations will relax even further, so we can increase the frequency of our visits to once every two months.’

A new dimension

‘If we grow even further, we definitely plan on expanding our team in Belgrade. I would like to add a few more senior accountants. It is a huge addition to your business and ultimately you get a better return. Working with people from different cultures also gives your company a new dimension, it helps to keep things exciting and new.’